_tacocat_

depends how good your rockstar agent is. some go above and beyond, others seem to love the word "no!" if you're mega rockstar, the in room bar is kind of pointless - i'd rather have good drinks out and about vs. what we were able to make with the limited variety of mixers available in the room.

We brought wine shippers through customs full of wine & liquor and they didn't check. They asked if we bought any liquor/wine - we didn't "buy" any of it so we said no and he waved us through.

the first time we sailed was in a regular rockstar and we asked our agent for an invite. she claimed she had to pull some strings but was able to get us in. the next 2 times we sailed as megas, and the response was a resounding "no" both times. we were able to go on the trip before our last one a few weeks ago as a perk of being one of their top sailors to-date. there were also folks with red wristbands on, so the criteria doesn't seem cut & dry.

Fire & Sunset (Key West) on Scarlet - Feb 22-26, 2023: https://virg.in/J5D2

The welcome drinks were def a special thing. We had those on Richard’s bday, but have not seen them on any other VV we’d done. Trivia/risky quizness prizes are a free round of drinks for the winning team. extra virgin used to give a shot of limoncello after dinner, but they recently swapped to amaretto.

Nope not officially. Your servers at dinner might bring you a dessert with happy birthday written on it, but that’s pretty much it.

oh i certainly did! i'm also a 485c member and was debating emailing that "batphone" email address. i'll be back on next month so i might give it one more try before resorting to that...

OneSpaWorld. It's just weird because I've been to the spa a bunch across 6 voyages, including 3 or 4 massages and a pedicure, and I'd never encountered the spa-typical hard upsell, which was quite refreshing! My last experience was so off-putting and was definitely not relaxing at all. If I want to have the awkward choose-your-own-adventure upsell experience at every turn during a spa experience, I can certainly do that on land for much cheaper haha.

as mrbf said, it's 2 bottles of wine up to $90/bottle per day + unlimited drinks up to $25/drink. hint hint, if you know you're not going to drink all the wine, you can absolutely take the bottles home. we were megas for 9 nights and brought 2 wine shippers to take most of the bottles of wine + a few of the liquors home with us.

I was actually thinking this while I was on a couple weeks ago with a bunch of sailor loot from MNVV offers (and a couple upcoming voyages next month with $1k+ loot on each!). They've increased their prices every so often, then added regular sales and sailor loot deals. For reference, my initial booking was for Richard's Bday in 2019, and an XL Sea Terrace was ~$5k, so VV was by no means intended to be a budget line hah. My guess is they're getting people used to seeing the higher prices, adding perks like a ton of sailor loot, and will slowly wean folks up to the higher fare rates while reducing the extra perk offers.

your numbers are spot on. the only discounted drinks i've seen are buckets of beers, where you get $1 off each if you buy 5. it comes down to how much you think you'll drink - if over $300, yay you get some free money ($100 if you spend it all), if not, there are no refunds.

unfortunately, keep calling - every time i've had an issue with fare/charges, it's take multiple attempts to get someone who can/will actually fix it.

you also get some pressing and dry cleaning - i think it was 2 garments for each of those, but only took advantage of getting 2 things pressed

There actually is, but they do a good job of not advertising hah- the perch on deck 17 only on sea days

not actual treatment prices, but thermal suite passes are $39 on port days/$59 on sea days. i've been on quite a bit, and it seems like the deal of the week in the spa changes depending on who's working there haha. the first time, if you booked an appointment the first day (just booked it, it could be any day), you got an extra 15 minutes. the second time, you had to either book the treatment to be either the first day or the first appointment (i think 8am?) of any day to get the 15 minutes free. i was on last week, and the special was only valid for appointments made for the first day- so basically between 4-10pm on day 1. they must have gotten a new spa manager or incentive structure between july and now because they were never pushy with massage upcharges or product sales before. i did a couples massage as soon as i mentioned i had tension in my shoulders, my therapist tried to upsell us both to deep tissue. i said no, that i wanted a medium pressure swedish massage, but that i'd like her to focus on my neck/shoulders/back (the usual desk job suspects!) she proceeded to tell me that swedish was only very light pressure and i would like deep tissue more. declined a second time and proceeded to have one of the most meh massages of my life because she would not add pressure without the deep tissue upcharge (despite the fact that swedish and deep tissue are totally different techniques). so relaxing! after my massage (oily rub basically?), they immediately mentioned products to buy and asked if we would like one of the body scan consultations. go away! the other couple times i've done their massages, it's been zero hard sells, and one of the therapists even said "you don't need any products, right?" on my way out, but ugh i totally forgot how irked i was about last week's whole spa experience until just now haha

There are 2 main things- first, we were talking to a bartender last week, and he said that not everything is available at every bar by design because it kind of forces you to explore. I can see how that gets frustrating if you really only like to drink one thing, but I didn’t mind. The other thing is that because of that, all the bars are programmed differently in their system, so they literally may not have a 1oz pour button. Definitely agree consistency for at least THAT could be improved!!!

nope - officially, it's per cabin 😞 although we tried to use an extra $1.80 of sailor loot on our 'tweener day on the B2B and they wiped all $12 of coffee credit instead of $10, so TBD if they actually pay attention.

another tip that's seemed to work is to quit other RAM intensive apps (facebook, instagram, reddit, etc.) and reopen the app. just got off a back to back and seems the vv app is a little more stable and functional now. chats actually go through now! we had a couple voyages where we could see inbound chats in our iphone notifications, but they'd just freeze the app when trying to open!

if there's a $$$ spirit you want, poke around at different bars - some offer a 1oz pour for half that price. one that comes to mind is blue label at the casino bar.. $48 pour at all other bars, but casino had 1oz pours for $24... perfect! they also started giving discounts on drinks and bottles above the limits - it's either 20 or 25% off, can't remember. so if you do want a more expensive drink or bottle of wine (or a 3rd bottle), you'll just get that discount off the full price. for the daily bottles of wine, we ended up becoming one of the somms' best friends and just hit him up for the best <$90 wines every night. you can also get them at any bar or to go from the restaurant bars.

bed is actually mattresses! they are firm twin mattresses that are parallel. i like firm mattresses, but i thought i saw you can request another mattress cover if it's too firm? don't quote me on that! 45 days appears to be midnight eastern, but it might be a little slow in loading sometimes. i'm on the west coast, so that's fine for me, but i can see how that is annoying if you're on the east coast/europe! as rebeccac noted, brunch ressos only open up once you're checked in and on wifi. you can make as many brunch ressos as you want between the wake and razzle dazzle, and those don't count towards your 1 per restaurant limit. service can be a little long in both of these, so if you're planning to venture out in a port, i'd recommend room service or popping up to the galley for a quick breakfast. i just got off but didn't think to double check - razzle dazzle also did bottomless brunch for $25. not sure if they still have it. It was bloodys, mimosas, "razzle dazzle" which i think is basically a bellini with edible glitter, and maybe sparkling wine? 1:45 is on the earlier side. no one actually gets on the ship until close to 2pm, but once you're checked in, you can log onto the wifi and start booking things in the app.

we were on a back to back from 10/23 until today. we ran into a lot of what i'm guessing is "end-of-contract-itis" with sailor services and some other crew members during the second half. it was like we were on a totally different ship once our voyage rolled over! sailor services was pretty unhelpful in answering questions/resolving issues (even with our supposed dedicated sailor services/and 485c "club within a club" resources). i've been on 6x now, so i know this is not the norm; however, if this week was my first voyage, there's no way i'd be back on.

dupe - accidentally quoted myself

Ship: Scarlet Cabin#: 11326Z Deck #: 11 Cabin Category: XL Sea Terrace Sleeps: 3 (normal sea bed + an ottoman with a fold-out cushion that becomes a bed perpendicular to the main bed) Cabin Location: Forward Terrace/Window/Obstruction: Terrace with no obstruction. Champagne table & chairs on terrace. Noise Issues?: No external noise issues. You could usually hear a pin drop in the room, but the ceiling panels started rattling like crazy when we docked this morning. Wind Issues?: None Connecting Cabin? Where Does it Connect?: No Hammock: Yes Metal/Glass Terrace: Glass Advantages/Problems: Breaking this into two because there are a lot! Advantages Not sure why everyone gripes about XL sea terraces - they are a great bang for the buck. There's a ton of room, considering you're on a cruise ship. We got the bed made into a couch on one of the sea days, which gave us even more room. The third "bed" was also great to use as a comfy seat because the cushion is double width when stored, and you can use the table as either a snack tray on its end or a coffee table if flipped 90 degrees. The bathroom does not have a main door, but there are individual "cubicles" for the toile and shower. This configuration was actually the best out of all the rooms we've been in because you could keep the shower heat/moisture isolated to just the shower. You can still use the sink and mirror without getting all steamy yourself or steaming up the room. We were on a B2B, so we had a ton of luggage - 2 checked bags, 1 carry on sized suitcase, a backpack, a big tote, and a couple small tote bags. We fit both checked bags under the "always a bed" part of the sea bed and the small suitcase/other bags in the closet. We had plenty of hanging space for all of our clothes, and there were 2 very small drawers, 2 medium sized drawers, a few shelves and baskets for those shelves. The bathroom storage also felt sufficient - - I left most of my stuff in a makeup bag on the counter, but I also used the small shelves over the counter to hold things like lotion and my toothbrush. Disadvantages The XL sea terraces are all far forward, so it's kind of a pain to get food if you just want to grab a quick bite (everything is mid-aft). I can see how the bathroom might be weird for non-couples, but one person can just stay in the main room or go elsewhere while the other is in there if that's an issue. This particular room had a bunch of maintenance issues, ranging from mildly annoying to *****. On the mildly annoying side, the blackout curtains are just a hair lower than the windows, so you get a little stream of light at the top. Additionally, they didn't lay flat when closed, so there was a strip of light along the middle too. Not to harp too much on the curtains, but the automatic button on the wall didn't open them - we always had to start pulling them and they'd automatically go after we started. The door to the shower cubicle was very difficult to close all the way from the inside (either a design issue or our door was just not hung properly), so water dripped in the bathroom quite a bit. Apparently, at 10:30am, all room lights go on and curtains open across the ship. We've never been in the room to verify that before, but there was an issue with our sensor, and that happened at 7:30am the first morning. Maintenance immediately knew exactly what the issue was, so that leads me to believe this is a common occurrence. Not the best way to wake up after a late night at PJ party! Would You Book Again?: Yep - I think this is a great value if you want a bit more room but are not spending enough time in it to justify the cost of a suite. We just booked another XL Sea Terrace for Greece next year because we're going to be exploring the ports all day anyway!

There have been some slight changes to the food at Bimini - previously, there was a lunch menu from I think from 12-3 and then "light bites" from 3-5ish. They've consolidated the menus and gotten rid of a couple things (the ones I noticed were the rice & beans from the lunch and ribs from the light bites) and now serve everything from 12-4 or 4:30 straight through. It's good that there's less confusion about what's served when, but I loved the rice & beans with the pork! It seems like it's a relatively new change because last week our rockstar agent gave us the old time details in her message the morning of Bimini.

I believe using the Bilt code (or any access key) negates Deep Blue Extra/Red Hot Booking perks and possibly isn't combinable with other discounts from reports i've seen