_tacocat_

58 minutes ago, WatermelonSugarHigh said:

And as far as being banned from future sailings, what a strange, negative and ridiculous comment. They’re not doing that, and as far as you know - no one is, so why even add that unnecessary comment. That sentence alone encapsulates everything that is wrong with this forum, making up false information on a whim to make yourself feel like an expert.

as cine cited, it does happen.  companies are allowed to "fire" customers for whatever reasons they like.  credit card disputes are expensive and annoying for companies to deal with, so some companies will just stop doing business with a customer that does this.  some are more notorious than others (ticketmaster for one, challenge a transaction and say goodbye to being able to buy tickets again), but it happens.

22 hours ago, CruisingWalter said:

VV rep Tamika said a new loyalty program is rolling out soon. Possibly within the next few months.

lol i did a double take to check that your live wasn't on groundhog day because i've certainly heard this before!! hopefully this means they're actually doing something, although i wonder if the "tokens" will be lost in the past...

On 2/3/2024 at 2:32 PM, Tralfaz1138 said:

The cruise I was on there was a group we ended up hanging out with most nights that would stockpile glasses of Moet so they could keep the party going past 6.

this happens on every voyage i've been on.  the crew always swings by at like 5:59 for "last call" to top you off, and they'll frequently offer additional glasses if they still have a bottle open that they need to kick.

On 2/2/2024 at 11:55 AM, WatermelonSugarHigh said:

As far as I’m concerned, it’s bad business practice (and unethical) to push bar tab purchasing prior to consumption, and then say too bad when it remains wholly unused to be kept as profit in their pockets. A compromise here would be the right thing to do.  I’m not asking for anything for free or that doesn’t belong to me. 

fairly certain they note at point of sale that bar tab is non refundable if not used.  they are definitely transparent about it in all of their FAQs/marketing material about it.  you're likely not going to get much help from amex on this.

ETA: it looks like there was a processing error and it went through multiple times.  why did you wait until you were onboard to try to fix that?  i would have been on that as soon as i saw multiple charges clear.

37 minutes ago, tbmrt said:

How late can we use loot in the shops and casino...Tx so much for all your help

as someone else above noted, shops close ~11pm and casino may be open a bit later; HOWEVER (big however!), if something happens that requires the ship to speed up to Miami early, everything will close earlier than that.  i've seen people fuming that they couldn't use their loot because there was a medical emergency and the ship got out of international waters several hours earlier than expected. 

don't procrastinate too much 🙂

5 hours ago, Lolou127 said:

can you use your bar tab to pay for room service? 

if you're buying drinks in lieu of paying the $7 fee, yes.  if just the fee, no.

pro tip - a shot of espresso was $3.  even if you don't drink it, it's cheaper than paying the fee!

11 hours ago, WatermelonSugarHigh said:

We got the small Seafood Tower at The Wake and it was incredible

this may be a controversial opinion here, but every time i've gotten the seafood tower, i've been unimpressed (i get them for free as a perk, so i'm not just paying over and over again and expecting a different result - they're there, they're free, and i'm going to pick on them if they're on the table).  the lobster has been rubbery and waterlogged, and the shrimp have frequently been meh.  i grew up in new england, so i know seafood, and this briney, waterlogged ick was not good.

55 minutes ago, tessacate said:

I know we have to pay for room service delivery.  But do you know if the cans of soda from some of the bars are free or need to be paid for please? 🙂

they're free from bars, but not all bars have them

3 hours ago, -The-True-North- said:

Not at the new prices. We age going back to land based vacations, and they are cheaper.

samesies - VV's caribbean ports kind of blow to begin with, so for warm weather vacations, we're just planning land based vacations where we actually want to go.  maybe we'd consider another voyage in europe, but getting from LA to barcelona or athens is a giant pain too!

3 hours ago, CruisingWalter said:

Still amazed the Ramen station is closed for dinner and late night.

I'm miffed they turned the ramen station into an express breakfast station!!  I dearly missed my morning ramen on the last voyage!  It seems like a waste to only have all those ingredients for just one meal a day.

On 1/24/2024 at 7:23 AM, rebeccac said:

Then you're lucky because earlier this month on Valiant, I only got a comforter.  

it's a "mattress pad" but not a topper like most people think of.  its basically a piece of batting between 2 sheets vs. a foam/egg carton pad

10 hours ago, tbmrt said:

Can some of these items be switched out?

i don't eat mussels/oysters - i asked for shrimp/lobster only, expecting them to just take out what i didn't want, but they subbed in a ton of shrimp and extra lobster!

15 hours ago, kaysha2004 said:

One detail to add.  From my experience, if you cancel after embarkation, the refund is in sailor loot unless you don't spend it.  Then they give you cash on the last night of the cruise for the amount that you haven't spent.  You'll have to go to Sailor Services on Deck 5.  So, if your shore thing was $100 and you cancelled it on board, you'll have $100 in sailor loot.  If your onboard expenses are, say $50, then they'll refund you $50 in cash.  One of my previous cruises, I went home with over $500 in cash.

i wouldn't bank on this though - by the letter of their terms, they don't need to give you a cash refund.   it's supposed to just turn into sailor loot for use onboard.

i also experienced something similar.  i had an excursion that i booked before boarding and cancelled while onboard, then i used that loot to purchase another excursion that was subsequently cancelled.  it looked like we weren't going to blow through that refunded sailor loot, so i asked sailor services if they could do anything because the last excursion was technically a VV cancellation.  without skipping a beat, they asked if i wanted to close out my folio that night and just get a refund on my card (but wouldn't be able to make any charges for the rest of the night/disembarkation morning) or they could give me a cash USD refund.  while in both of our cases, we did get refunds, it seems like it may be a YMMV experience.

On 1/14/2024 at 11:50 AM, gsutiger2 said:

Here you go - Virgin Voyages Valiant Lady Review: Finally Filling Their Ships, But At What Cost?

lol this guy is an absolute clown.  i would take anything he says with a ROCK of salt, not a grain.  he's gotten a ton of free cruises via casino comps and complains about literally everything.  i had the misfortune of being in his presence on one or two of my voyages, and it seems like he actively seeks out issues.  controversy = clicks, after all!

yes, that voyage in the video was one of the most crowded to-date, but i didn't run into most of the issues he "reported."

6 hours ago, arealcheapskate said:

Apparently there is an unlimited laundry benefit too.

on a B2B as megas, i think we saved up our actual laundry to just do once per leg, but we DEFINITELY took advantage of pressing/dry cleaning every day.  don't worry about bringing wrinkle free clothes or wrinkle release spray!

23 hours ago, AndyUK said:

I think the bridge tour is dependent on the Captain approval... we did scarlet last year in a MRS suite and asked for a badge tour, and was told no... noting that they were trying to push the the paid for tour. 

similar experience - we sailed as plain old rockstars the first time, and our agent was able to sneak us onto what at that point was the MRS bridge tour.  it was super cool, and we got to meet a bunch of the officers and see how the ship generally worked. 

we assumed when we sailed as MRS the next time that we'd get an invite.  nope, we were on a B2B when the captain at that time was still pretty new to the ship, so he wasn't allowing anyone on the bridge.

if it's any consolation, it's always at a terrible time in the middle of a sea day!  we've been invited several times since then, and have skipped it because we'd rather lay by the pool and get some sun instead of seeing the same bridge equipment and views that we've now seen like 3 or 4 times.  one of those was as part of the paid tour - we had a ton of sailor loot and felt it was a good use.  we were part of valiant's first ever tour, but there were only 3 of us.  the other guy left us at the end with all the champagne to ourselves haha.  i've heard it's gotten packed to capacity, so i probably wouldn't do it again.

On 1/4/2024 at 4:49 AM, CruisingWalter said:

Around the world in 80 Minutes with the Diva, folks usually start lining up about an hour before the show. That's in The Manor, first come, first served. 

from some recent voyage pics i've see, it looks like Carlos (not sure which ship she's on - i think valiant, but i'm not 100% sure!) has moved up to the big leagues - VV has retooled the show, and it's now only an hour, takes place in the red room, and has a full set of backup dancers!  it looks EVEN better than before.  i'd imagine it's a ticketed event now vs. first come first serve.

32 minutes ago, CineGraphic said:

 

Do you think the same would hold true if they took the entire bar every day, and 2 bottles of wine each day? I seriously doubt it. On board consumption, and filling a suitcase full of bottles are two different things.

We did that to a certain extent- our roadie encouraged it, too.  We didn’t strip the whole minibar every day, but we got at least 4 fills out of it across 9 nights of a back to back.  Drank some, tossed most of it in the suitcases.  Certainly stuffed everything left at the end of voyage #1 into our suitcases!  We also knew we weren’t going to drink 2 bottles of wine a day, so we ended up taking probably 12-15 bottles home.  
 

We’d seen some folks talk about “buying rounds” for everyone and their mother- whether they were people they came with sailing in regular cabins or randos that they just met that night, which I think is definitely against the spirit of the inclusions. 

On 12/31/2023 at 7:43 AM, CineGraphic said:

If there's a bottle missing from your bar each day, and no sign of it being consumed, I think they'll stop replacing them. MRS or not.

Nope- we kept giving our Johnny walker away because we didn’t want it, and they kept bringing us new bottles!

16 minutes ago, CineGraphic said:

How you treat the crew may be more important than you think.

haha that certainly may have had a lot to do with it.  we didn't interact a ton with crew on our first voyage, but we were B2B for our 2nd and 3rd voyages then back on a couple weeks later for our 4th and developed relationships across those 3 voyages with a BUNCH of the happenings cast, bartenders, servers and even one of the somms (who we've now followed onto all 3 ships!).

we also gave good, thoughtful feedback on all of our post-voyage surveys and pretty regularly responded to their "pulse" surveys throughout the trips.  did we have service issues onboard at times?  yes, but we weren't whiners that expected comp for every tiny thing that was slightly less than "AWESOME!" across our trips.  one of the group's hypotheses was that members were engaged and gave them actual food for thought in interactions instead of just "well RC does this, and NCL does this, and why is there no organized ball room dancing like cunard" haha

10 hours ago, cantgetin said:

DCL has announced that if you haven't cruised with them in the past 5 years, they "retain the right" to cancel your Castaway Club status.

this makes a ton of sense to me.  i think 5 years is a pretty generous timeframe too!  if you're not sailing with them that frequently, you're not really "loyal" to the brand, and others who are more active can enjoy perks without the dilution that comes from folks who sailed a ton decades ago and decide to hop on again now.

OH i totally forgot about the elusive token system.  i think they've scrubbed all reference to it at this point, but for a while, they were going HARD into token accelerators based on spend and whether you were a sea rover/blazer or 485c. 

i have no clue how many tokens we accrued, but at the time, i was thinking it would be pretty neat if they had a tier-free system, and you got to DIY your own status.  want early booking of restaurants? 100 tokens.  early boarding? 250. guaranteed upgrade if space is available when you book?  5,000.  shake for champs? 100.  cocktail with dinner? 25.  things like that.  basically figuring out what's important to YOU (because it's different for everyone) and building your own set of perks per voyage.  some things might be more important to you on an 8 night cruise vs. a 4 night, or a voyage with more sea days/early port nights vs. a port heavy itinerary with late nights in a couple ports.

On 12/26/2023 at 3:21 PM, -The-True-North- said:

How do you get 485c?

no one knows haha - my husband and i are both in it, we sailed 2x as rockstars (cheeky corner and brilliant) and 2x as mega (gorgeous) and had a few future sailings booked at the time, so we thought it may have been $ spend, but we've met folks who haven't ever sailed in a suite.

i've been on vv quite a bit since late 2021 (so much so that i'm in their not-so-secret secret Club 485c).  i have no future voyages planned, so i have no skin in this game, but i think whatever they implement should be closer to airline/hotel loyalty programs - you have to regularly re-earn your status. 

obviously cruising is a bit different than earning airline/hotel status from mostly work travel, but i think your status should be valid for 2 years, and you have those 2 years to requalify - maybe 1 or cruises every 2 years for the base level and 4 or 6 for the next level... attainable tiers.  this eliminates the BS that you see on other lines where you get the "well, i'm a triple diamond upside down crystal status because i've been sailing since 1965 and new sailors are just poo under my shoe" attitude.

8 hours ago, Gretchendz said:

I was able to get people "refer a friend" On Board credit long after it was officially discontinued.  That's gone too now, sadly.

me too 🤫 my TA linked someone and said they just didn't know how to code the sparkling wine.  i told her i saw both the wine and the $$ and she was stumped.  ended up with both onboard!