Old Friends and New Places…

Day 1 Viking Vesta “Morocco, Malta and the Mediterranean

March 13, 2026

Our first glimpse of the Viking Vesta which was built in 2025. We are onboard for the next 16 days on the “Morocco, Malta and the Mediterranean” cruise.

It is always so exciting the first glimpse of the ship. I remember feeling this same way when we finally saw the Viking Neptune in 2022 when we boarded in Ft. Lauderdale for our 138 day Viking World Cruise. Booking a cruise 2 years in advance and the anticipation of a journey, certainly has something to do with our excitement when we finally had the first glimpse of our ship.

We had so much luggage leaving the hotel we needed to get a taxi van to get to the port. The UBER we hailed online sent a message saying they couldn’t get near the port so we had to find a taxi van. The first taxi van outside our hotel was already spoken for so as soon as it left we saw another taxi van pulling up. For 20 euros we loaded the taxi van, headed to the port and arrived around 11:30am,after a 15 minute taxi ride.

The lineup was fairly long to get through the check in process at the port of Barcelona since many people had an 11am embarkation time like ourselves. We joined the queue and ended up getting onboard by noon. Our luggage was taken from us as soon as we got to the port so it was a fairly easy embarkation after visiting our muster station. Our cabin was not going to be ready until 1pm so we decided to hangout on Deck 7 pool deck for awhile while we waited for our cabin.

A nice view and a great place to relax while waiting for our cabin.

We could have gone to the World Cafe for lunch but after our late breakfast we weren’t really hungry. Richard got the bright idea while I was waiting with our carry on stuff to go and book us massages at the Nordic Spa as soon as we were finished unpacking. What a great idea! Traveling for 3 days had really made us stiff and we both really needed to loosen up somehow.

We arrived at our Penthouse Verandah 1 cabin on Deck 6 at 1pm. Our luggage was outside our cabin and our keys worked, so we entered our cabin and started the Herculean task of unpacking. My goal was to be unpacked before my 2pm massage.

The PV1 category at 360 square feet definitely is bigger than the original DV4 cabin we started the World Cruise in back in 2022.

We have a couch and a chair in this cabin and a bigger coffee table. There is tons of storage room too and we have lots of empty drawers despite bringing a lot of stuff!

The balcony is sizeably bigger and the deck chairs recline

The bathroom is the same size I think as our DV1 and the Neptune and I really like the heated floors and the roomy shower. After taking the Oceania Nautica cruise at Christmas 2025 we really now appreciate the size of the Viking bathrooms since we couldn’t even wash ourselves without hitting the walls of the shower in the Ocean suite we stayed in.

I accomplished my goal of unpacking before 2pm so I made it to my massage in time to get pummelled by my masseuse Sheila from South Africa! Sheila is amazing and I so enjoyed her massage!

Sheila had me laughing hysterically at some of the stories she had to tell. And the work she did on me really helped loosen me up. I’m so glad Richard booked me and also got a massage himself with Melissa from Tanzania!

We just couldn’t wait to see our friends Dave & Julie from Sydney, Australia who were joining us on this 5 week vacation trip! I decided to call their cabin around 4pm to see if they had arrived and whether they wanted to meet up for sail away from Barcelona. We agreed we would meet on Deck 7 Explorer’s Lounge at 6pm when the ship was due to leave Barcelona.

We finished checking out the rest of the ship and looking for changes from our Viking Neptune. The Vesta is bigger than the Neptune. 998 passengers vs 930 passengers. Where we really felt the ship was bigger and wider was in the World Cafe where Viking has added additional seating areas for conversation and drinks. A really nice touch and it really opens up the possibility for more places to lounge and relax on the ship.

A very nice conversation area at the back of the World Cafe before exiting to the Aquavit Terrace.

The back of the World Cafe is all opened up. No more squished in bar. The bar is a sit up bar on one side of the ship and then this side is available for us as a dessert buffet. Special desserts were set up for the French destination menu when I took this photo.

Richard went looking for our friends Dave and Julie, while I saved some seats up on Deck 8 Explorer’s Lounge for sail away. Everyone wanted a good seat to see us start our cruise. We found out that 90% of the cruisers on our ship are repeat Viking Cruisers which means everyone is pretty much up to speed with how things work and where are the best viewing options for sail away!

After a few minutes of waiting Richard arrived with Dave and Julie. We had so much to catch up on and we were so glad to see them again. They had visited us last year in Florida for a few days before they went on their Holland America pole to pole cruise in 2025. Next year they are sailin another World Cruise with Holland America in a Neptune suite because they enjoyed the Holland America cruise experience so much in 2025.

Leaving Barcelona for Marseille where we will be on Day 2 of our cruise. We are following the MSC World Europa which is a massive ship with capacity up to 6,782! Our little Vesta looks minuscule behind the MSC ship!

The seas were smooth as we sailed and we enjoyed a lovely dinner with Dave and Julie in The Restaurant for dinner. The food was excellent and I had the Spanish Destination menu with meatballs as my main course!

Spanish albondigas. Spicy and delicious! I also had mashed potatoes and steamed broccoli and cauliflower.

We all agreed it had been a long journey to get to the ship and onboard and since we had excursions in the morning it was best we parted at 9pm and settled in for the evening.

Richard had an interesting quote today “You have to leave Viking to appreciate Viking when you return.” I think he is correct. While we have taken quite a few Viking River cruises since the World Cruise, this is only our 2nd Viking Ocean cruise and we are really enjoying this newer, bigger ship. We really like the PV1 cabin and the amenities such as free pressing which we took advantage of by sending out 12 items for pressing today. The food is much better than I remember on our World Cruise and that could be because we may have gotten tired of eating ‘ship food’ because we were onboard for so many days during the World Cruise.

All in all, it is great to meet up with old friends we know who share the love of travel and exploration and Viking definitely is willing to help us fulfill our love!