Viking XPRS
IMO 9375654
Built 2008, Aker Yards Helsinki, Finland
Tonnage 35 778 GT
Length 186,71 m
Width 27,70 m
Draft 6,75 m
Ice class 1A Super
2 500 passengers
732 berths
230 cars
1 000 lanemeters
4 Wärtsilä diesels, combined 40 000 kW
2 propellers
2 bow thrusters
1 stern thruster
Speed 25 knots
Viking XPRS interiors designed by Lasse Heikkinen and Tillberg Design. Unless otherwise noted, photographs are taken on 15 July 2009.
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Deck 8: Restaurant deck
Red Rose Bar / Dining area
Originally planned as a dance bar capable of also housing diners who bought food from the nearby Blue Deli. However, in practice the ship was found not to have enough seating on the inside, especially for people needing a seat to eat in. Resultingly a separate Dance Pavillion was added in 2009 (see below).
Although the furniture and stylings of Red Rose are very attractive, the large size of the room combined with the single-deck ceiling height makes it unattractively warehouse-like. This is especially notable when the room is crowded (=always when the ship is underway).
Blue Deli takeway cafeteria and grill
Blue Deli was one of the more unusual features of Viking XPRS. Instead of a traditional dedicated cafeteria, there's a self-serve takeway café with a small number of seats adjacent. The plan was that diners would spread through-out the ship with their takeway foods. In realise this was found to be less than practical, as all seats near the Deli are likely to be crowded and finding a free place to sit and eat in can be stressful.
Xpresso Street café
A small dedicated café. The service counter for the café is also the reservations counter for the buffet restaurant. Another less-than-successful feature resulting in the café being almost inaccessible after departure while people are trying to make table reservation for the buffet. A tip: make your reservations beforehand.
Bistro Bella buffet restaurant
A very attractively styled restaurant serving the traditional Scandinavian shipboard buffet. Unlike on most ships, the food counters are housed in a semi-separate room at the forward end of the restaurant. While this does make the dining area more sedate, the arrangement does lead to congestion at the counters. In 2009 (after this picture was taken), an additional food counter for starters was added in the middle of the restarant.
Picture taken on 23 April 2009.
Xpresso Cabinet
A separate cabinet off the rear of Xpresso Street. Originally this was envisioned as a cabinet to be used by conference guests, but in practice it seems to have turned into an extra section of the buffet.
Deck 7: Shopping- and Conference deck
The hallway outside the Shopping World "Sea Shop".
Midship stair lobby on deck 7. One of the less stylish places onboard - although the photo does not perhaps do it full justice either.
Viking's Inn music pub.
Aft stair lobby on deck 7. All the staircases are attractively decoted with black-and-white photographs of past Viking Line ships, mostly from the 70's. Here we see SF Line's Kapella and one of Rederi Ab Sally's "Papenburger" ships, probably Viking 1 or Viking 3.
Dance Pavillion
Due to shortage of seats on the ship, especially during the winter months when the outer decks are mostly unusable, a new Dance Pavillion was built in the rear of Deck 7, in place of the former covered outdoors area Viking's Out (geddit?). Although built while the ship was in service, the finish of the new space is very good, and it's design is one of the most attractive on the ship, taking the retro stylings found all over the ship a step further, with chair models and colours schemes reminescent of 50's and 60's ocean liner decor.
