Meredith Vieira has been all over the world in her role as a reporter, but her visit on the Avalon View from Avalon Waterways was her first trip on a cruise ship.
Vieira (see my ship christening story) said she’s a little frightened of water, but loved being on a river where she could clearly see land.
“I would definitely do this again,” she told a group of journalists the day after the christening. “You can make it whatever you want, and they help make it whatever you want.”
“I didn’t realize how emotional I would get,” Vieira said. “I wrote my little speech (for the christening) two years ago, and it just hit me.”
“It’s very humbling.”
The christening was originally scheduled for the spring of 2020 but was understandably delayed two years.
Vieira said she also likes Avalon Waterways as a company and felt it was a good fit for her.
“I love the size of the ship. It’s got a nice intimacy to it.”
Vieira said she thinks a cruise would be great for a single traveller, as well as for families. She brought her daughter and her daughter’s fiancé on the cruise. She took a carriage ride in Vienna, while the younger family members went on a bike ride in the city.
“You feel like you’re part of a family,” she said of travelling with Avalon. “There’s an intimacy to it that’s really lovely. I use this word immersion a lot, but I really feel like I’m immersed in the culture around me because of the fact that we’re constantly stopping in these wonderful little towns along the way, and you have an opportunity to do so many different things.”
Meredith Vieira delivers her ship christening speech in Bratislava. Photo Courtesy Avalon Waterways
Vieira said she had such a great time she was already looking at the brochures in her room to decide what cruise to take next.
Asked about her first impression of the ship, Vieira said she was struck at “classy and elegant” it was.
Vieira is well-travelled, but she said the ports of call on the Avalon View cruise – Vienna, Bratislava and Budapest – were all new to her.
“Bratislava, I had no idea, and that was magical.”
Vieira spoke candidly with the media for about a half hour about the cruise experience and her career.
The 15-time Emmy winner said she was trying to figure out what courses to take to get her English degree at Tufts University when someone suggested she try a radio course.
“To this day I don’t know why I signed up for it,” she explained with a laugh.
Vieira said she did some voice-over work for a documentary. The head of CBS news in Boston who had volunteered to help critique the students’ work called her over after he heard her performance.
“He said ‘Who’s that? I want to talk to her.’”
“I thought, ‘Oh, sh–. Am I going to be in trouble?”
He asked Vieira what she wanted to do after she graduated, and she said she didn’t know.
“He said, “I know what you’re going to do’ … and he got me a job as an intern at CBS radio. He had a lot of faith in me.”
As a woman she had to work extra hard.
“I knew there was no free ride at all. You had to work harder than anyone else. And then I was just lucky. I kept getting things.”
But it wasn’t always easy.
“People aren’t always rooting for you. My attitude was ‘Do such a good job that you won’t get fired.’ But I was fired. My first television job in Providence, Rhode Island. I guess he (her boss) thought I was pretty slow. Which I wasn’t. I was always pulling paper out at that point and putting a new piece in. We didn’t have computers, just typewriters, and I was fired on a Friday. He said, ‘You don’t have what it takes.’
“I went home, and I was crying. My father came into the room and said, ‘What’s the matter?’ He told me, ‘What do you care what this guy says? You’re going to run into that the rest of your life.’
“I went into see the guy that Monday to clear out my desk. I think I might have cornered him. I don’t know if I was crazy, but I said, ‘You’re wrong. I am going to make it.’ And he gave me my job back.
“I don’t know if he suddenly had faith in me or if I scared the sh— out of him,” she said with a laugh.
“We became good friends, and then a talent scout came and that’s how I got to New York” with WCBS-TV.
Vieira said she permed her hair a couple times and it started breaking off.
“So I went to work at CBS News … in the New York bureau and I wouldn’t take my hat off.”
Avalon Waterways Managing Director Pam Hoffee, Meredith Vieira, and Avalon View Captain Ambrose Manolache. Photo Courtesy Avalon Waterways.
One of the network VP’s suggested she remove her hat in the office.
“I did. And two days later I was shipped to Chicago. And I know they went, ‘Holy, what’s the matter with her.’ But the good news is I got to wear a hat every day because I was in Chicago in the field” talking about farm prices and other issues of the day.
She was on the air almost every day for several months because of farm price stories, and her career took off.
Later came stints with West 57th and 60 Minutes, and then a run of more than 10 years with “The View” on ABC, as well as hosting duties for “Who Wants to be a Millionaire.”
When her contract was up at The View. NBC came to her and said Katie Couric was leaving The Today Show, which was a secret.
“I really wasn’t sure I wanted to do morning television, although it was the Today Show. My boss at the time (at The View) said, ‘Well, I don’t know. At your age there aren’t a lot of jobs out there.’ I was fifty something’”
She knew she had the Today offer but she played her boss a little.
“I said, ‘Really? No one would hire me? Oh my God, I have to think about this.”
The news broke a couple days later that she was heading to the Today Show.
“I should hold a grudge about the fact that’s such an ageist comment. I wonder if I should have said something. But in the moment you’re so shocked.”
“He later apologized to me. He said, “What I said was wrong.’”
Vieira said the Today Show wasn’t her career highlight because she’s “not a morning person at all.”
“Although 60 Minutes ended in a weird way, I love storytelling, so I loved that. And West 57th was my first documentary show and we did it from the ground up.”
Vieira returned to the game show world in 2019 as host of “25 Words or Less.”
Vieira was clearly captivated by the cruise experience. On the ship’s final night on the Danube, she went around the dining room and thanked nearly everyone on board, including the wait staff and the media scribes.
And now she’s got a whole pile of brochures to read through.
