_tacocat_

there's a $200/pp behind the scenes tour on sea days that's pretty cool, and i felt it was worth the money. it's like 2.5+ hours long, and you see about 10 different places on the ship, including backstage at one of the show venues, the food storage areas, a galley, laundry, waste management, engine control room and the bridge. leaders from each department give a brief talk at their respective stop, and you can ask whatever questions you have. it culminates at a bar (location changes depending on your ship) with champagne, and you get a small gift (also changes depending on the ship). I did it on valiant and have seen it listed every time i've been on scarlet since then, but i don't recall seeing it on resilient last week (although my sea day focus was relaxing by the pool so i wasn't really looking too hard!)

those activities are mostly afternoon. the morning activities are usually fitness classes - if you don't show up or if you cancel within 24 hours of the event, they may charge you $10 per person no show fee.

Yes, you pay for it when you book it.

You basically just need to show up before 10 mins prior to showtime, otherwise they may give your spot away. shows can start anywhere from like 7-10, sometimes later

It really depends on the crew, what special entertainer guests they have, how many passengers they have on, etc. if you generally book dinners around the same time every night, that’s a good start. You can tweak as needed once you get onboard!

you have to select which internet package you want when you board. you can do the full voyage or a day pass, but i've only done the full voyage so not sure how to add the day pass. the premium internet supports 3 devices (2 officially, but i've always had 3), so you'll want to log in using the same birthdate/cabin number info on 3 devices to share that. note the premium just unlocks streaming, the speed is the same as the basic.

waaaay back in the beginning, they did not have blenders at the outdoor bars or on bimini. their frozen drinks were limited to the froze and skinny pina coladas - whatever was in the big drink mixers were the only option. the traditional cruiser crowd complained and complained both in person and in reviews that they couldn't get a miami vice or mudslide or strawberry daquiri. i can't remember when the blenders showed up, but it was at some point last year. that's definitely contributed to the backlog at bars. a woman was kvetching on one of my voyages that she couldn't get a pina colada at on the rocks at night 🤯 they only have the blenders outside because they're so freaking loud, and they had long been closed for the evening.

not a secret 🙂 it's called "opa hour" and it's in celebration of their newly launched greek itineraries. i don't have the menu offhand, but it's a bunch of additional greek bites. you can also get the normal dock/dockhouse menu during that time. i'm sure some blogger has posted a picture of the menu somewhere at this point haha

i have no clue what the issue with the wake is, but i've had awful service there almost every time i've been there on all 3 ships at brunch and dinner no matter how many people are onboard - from 800 to 2,300. something is just broken with their setup. on resilient last week, i ordered the tomahawk and expected a longer wait because it was a special item - fine. then it took almost 45 minutes after our apps were delivered to get the steak! the couple next to us was waiting and waiting and waiting for their mains for even longer and getting a little testy. i've also never seen live music advertised there, though it does have a piano on scarlet and valiant (not on resilient). i'm also convinced the galley was never designed to have waiter service, but they added that for a covid precaution to keep large groups from congregating at each station. it would make SO much more sense to keep it in a food hall-style format. you'd do a lap to see what was on offer, then go wait at a station and order whatever. for most of the stations, they're pretty quick build items - e.g., tacos: tortilla, filling, sauce; salad - base, toppings, dressing; dinner carving station at the grill - meat, potatoes, veggies - so you could just pick them up as you ordered, then for the longer-lead items just provide your table number. that would kind of force everyone to pick something, eat it while still the right temperature, then go back to another station for seconds if they want something different. i was a bit peeved last week - they had a roast in the galley one night, which on scarlet had been able to be counter ordered. i had to order from a server, and the station attendant plated it and kept calling for service, but no one came to deliver the plate. the attendant was getting pretty ticked too. surprise surprise, it was cold by the time it eventually made it to my table.

someone did the tequila event with their pregnant wife - the wife obviously didn't drink, but they squeezed her in at one of the tables. i can't imagine that they made her pay, but you can always ask! the whiskey thing is an event at the duty free store, so i'd imagine it's standing only and they wouldn't care if you shared. for other things like loteria, paint and sip, etc. that have included drinks, i doubt you could share because they're pretty much unlimited drinks per person.

i've only seen it open once, very early on (late 2021).

missed this question the other day 🙂 no, the excursion we booked came with the bus transfer - we took the tender to the port to meet a bus, got driven up to oia, then driven to fira. i'm not sure about the water taxi bus but i think some folks did it on my cruise.

Yeah I found a tip online somewhere that you also should always take a picture of the menu before ordering, because if you get your bill and the prices are higher and ask for the menu, they’ll give you a menu with the higher prices that match your inflated bill 🤦‍♀️

Everyone we spoke to said Greece is phenomenal in September/October- still warm out, water is warm enough to swim, and not a ton of tourists left!

Not really, and if you happen to get a drink you don’t like, just have them remake it or make something else and refund you the original drink. I forget what i ordered the other day (maybe a classic mai tai or Daquiri?), either way, it was an off-menu but classic cocktail that tasted totally off. Turns out they just didn’t put enough simple syrup in, so it threw the whole drink off. Quick addition of simple fixed everything!

You just need to go to the cashier, tell them you want to use sailor loot, how much, and if you want slots or tables. You can split the slot $ on your bands with your cabinMate if you want. The only caveat is that you need to have loot left to spend it (sounds silly, but can get complicated sometimes!). If you have a charge like a coffee that’s supposed to get wiped out, you can’t use that loot until it’s been refunded (so if you had $90 of loot + a pending $10 coffee refund, you’d only be able to spend $90 until that $10 was refunded, if that makes sense!)

No only if you charge actual $ to your room. If you do that, it’s essentially casino credit, hence the charge.

It will be in the app once you board. They also have servers at the pj party that roam around getting drink orders. Bimini is really the only place I’ve had issues w long lines

Yep that’s basically why we chose that one. You get some good history/geographical context from the guide as you’re driving too. Check out cruisemapper or one of the other port tracking sites (I usually just Googled “[port name] cruise ship schedule”) to see who’s going to be there with you, how many passengers on those ships, and what time they arrive/depart. If you have 4 ships all leaving at 6, and you’re not leaving till 10, it’s probably going to be miserable to get down on the cable car between 3:30-5:30. That’s why we experienced so many line cutters (“I’m going to miss my boat!”) after the 3rd attempt, I just snapped at the next guy and told him that his poor time management wasn’t my problem, and if he really needed to get down he should just walk down the steps. Alas, the group behind me just let him cut anyway. It apparently gets worst in the summer because there can be so many twists and turns on the line when it gets long!

It seems to be a complicated algorithm with a bunch of levers hah. It all hinges on availability first, and then I believe they start upgrading chains of rooms that would maximize ancillary revenue. A maximum of 1 of your bids will be accepted, and that would be the 1 that fit into that upgrade chain. could you get an upgraded room for cheaper than booking it outright? Maybe. Is it likely at this point as voyages get more full? Probably not.

I think they started letting folks off a little after 7:30. Your only real bottlenecks are the elevators (have to leave via the mid gangway, and my elevator was basically full by the time it hit floor 10) and any waiting for a cab. someone said their friend got off around 8:15 and got to the airport around 9… then had to sit outside for a while until their check-in counter opened!

when you're in santorini, check out the boozery - it's a mostly-takeaway bar that has some really good cocktails! there are 3 locations, we went to one in oia and one in fira, and no clue where the other one is.

Waiting at ATH for a few more hours for BA to open up my flight's check in, so figured I'd do a report on my trip! I've been on Virgin plenty, but this was the first one I'd been on outside of the Caribbean. Embarkation/Ship Orientation This was SO laid back and much different than Miami. We got there a little early because our teeny boutique hotel had 11am checkout. After wandering around the Plaka area post-checkout, we decided to head over to the port in a cab. A LOT of cabs in Athens don't take credit cards, but Uber exists as a taxi-hailing and payment service. We ended up just going a regular cab and paying cash. I think we got to the port around 12:30, and we were greeted, bags taken by porters (who, refreshingly, were not hounding us for tips before even taking our bags like in Miami 🙄). We were then directed to one of two tents - I think one was for Rockstars/VIP and Deep Blue/Splash of Romance early boarding people, and the other was for everyone else. It was kind of chaotic once they started checking people in. Unlike Miami where you are directed to a specific desk to check passports/get your bands, we had roving checker-in-ers. As more people came in and sat down, it was difficult for them to keep track of who had checked in already and who needed to go back and get the newbies. After about 20-30 mins of "will they ever get to us?" we got our bands and sat for about 10 more minutes. At that point, they said if we had our bands already, we could proceed straight to security check. 5 minutes later we were on the ship! There's no big fanfare like in Miami, as you board from deck 4 in Athens. We had one Happenings Cast Member greeting on the way in, and then it was off to the races! It took about 15 mins to book everything we wanted/rearrange dinner reservations. It felt like we were missing something because we're usually in such a frenzy to book fitness classes, activities, and shows, but it was SUPER laid back. Given how port-intensive this itinerary was, there was a lot less stuff going on around the ship, but still enough so you'd never be bored. THE POOL One thing I've noted in comments on other threads is that the pool is different. The far shallow end across from the stairs is shorter, so the deep part of the pool is longer. I also swear they either expanded the width of the pool, shrunk the deck area where the daybeds are, or got bigger daybeds because the beds now fill the whole white part - I thought I was usually able to shove an ice bucket for wine in front of the daybeds on the other ships. Alas, even on a 1,400-passenger voyage, our sea day was stricken with "chogs" that reserved chairs for themselves and 20 comrades all morning. Yes, we were able to get seats by the pool, but why TF do people think claiming seats all day is okay? As pax loads go up, VV needs to do something about this nonsense. Restaurants All the restaurants are the same as the other ships, but Razzle Dazzle has a brand spanking new dinner menu. IT WAS AWESOME. They are still very veg-focused, but they've added a bunch more meat options. I got almost everything on the menu between two dinners there - nashville hot cauliflower, short rib pastrami, maple bourbon glazed pork belly, leek and feta pasta, fried chicken, and a few of the desserts. I liked Razzle Dazzle a lot before, but I could see how the menu didn't look that thrilling on paper. Don't skip dinner at RD! It also seemed there were more daily specials in the galley - there was a burger of the day at the burger place and something usually at the diner and dash counter in the late afternoon/early evening. The pizza place also had specials (anchovy one day, hawaiian, and one with chorizo and tomatoes), although I stuck to the tried and true Pretty Fly For a White Pie. Extra Virgin has a new treat yourself (Porchetta) and they fiiiinallllllyyyyy had white truffles, so I added those to my carbonara. YUM! Opa Hour is a new concept at the dock. From 4:30-6:30 every day except embarkation day, they had a menu with lots of Greek mezze plates, in addition to the normal menu. Only made it there once, but it was tasty! Shops I haven't been on the other ladies since LVMH took over, but holy crap do the shops on Resilient miss the mark. The retail has been reoriented, such that the tattoo shop is where the sundries store used to be, the left "logo store" retail box is now the sundries store (and it's essentially a candy store now - no fun games, hammocks, water bottles, etc. in there, and a very small selection of meds/personal care stuff). No visible sex toys, but I didn't ask the worker if they were just hidden hahahah. Where the right/main logo store retail box is on other ships is an LVMH "vintage" store. The clerk in there basically said they were "vintage" in that they were not the primary sale, but a lot of the stuff was just bought and returned new stuff. There weren't any vintage vintage items in there. It also seemed wildly overpriced for items that are still manufactured and available at primary retail prices. I didn't see anyone purchase anything whenever I was in there. The logo store is where the tattoo shop is on the other ships, and the merch was pretty crappy and limited. Most things with the Resilient mermaid were super pixelated and junky. This is the first time we haven't bought something in the logo store. The watch shop is similar to Valiant's was when I was on - lots of new watches, with the occasional pre-owned Rolex sprinkled in here and there, then there's a Bvulgari store, the men's and women's boutiques, Marc Jacobs and the jewelry store. There's also a sunglass store, but no makeup/cosmetics store. Interestingly, not a drop of JLo Beauty aboard! Entertainment The entertainment on resilient is on SUCH another level. There are 3 new shows, as well as Miss Behave, Around the World with the Diva, etc. from the other ship. Duel Reality, Ships in the Night, and Untitled are not on Resilient. Summary of the new shows below: Persephone: this is kind of an Untitled Dance Party-like experience, but with a Greek mythology twist. This is a standing-room show in the red room with lots of different stages/platforms. It's a fun retelling of the Persephone story, so you'll get a nice refresher if you didn't pay attention in high school world history 😉 I recognized a few of the cast members as former Duel Reality cast members from prior voyages. I thought it was cool, but it did take a little while to get the momentum going. I heard from one of the entertainment ops managers that they were thinking of bringing it to other ships, but I think it's most effective while sailing around Greece! Lola's Library: I really wanted to love this. I really did! This kind of fills the void NSA left, but execution was a little meh. For anyone who sailed on Valiant towards the end of NSA's run, Dr. Anna (aka Meg) now plays Lola, the ship's sexy librarian, and a former Happenings Cast Member, Dean, plays her goofy assistant, Dewey. Without giving too much away, the show is split into three chapters - you can pop in for 1 or stay for all. Each chapter covers a different genre of books, and there's a LOT of action throughout each: aerialists, dance, singing, etc. My bone to pick is that it's such an awesome concept, but the pace just drags. Every time they have to re-set the stage or aerial equipment, they take a 5-10 min break and walk around telling you to go to the bar and grab a drink - both verbally and with signs that are shoved in your face. Felt kind of tacky. On top of that, there are 15 min intermissions between each of the chapters, so there's a lot of waiting for stuff to happen. My other issue is that they never opened the doors for shows in the Manor until at least showtime, then it took about 30 mins for everyone to get settled before they started. If you wanted to catch one of the later chapters, they'd basically be 30-45 mins behind for all of them. Another Rose: This is the first paid show that is happening on VV. Waaaaay back before launching, there was rumor of them having a paid dinner show called Another Rose... 4+ years later, here we are. When the Resilient lineups were initially posted, it showed three different seating tiers, ranging from $55-75 per person. All entertainment and food is supposedly included onboard, so this was kind of a shock. After their friends & family sailing, they bumped everything down to $50 per person. For science (and because I had a ton of Sailor Loot to spend), I went to the show last night. It was awesome. The whole experience was super immersive, lots of stuff going on, and included your unlimited choice of their 3 signature cocktails during the pre-show period, then free flowing sparkling rose throughout the rest of the night. I got way more than $50 of value out of those drinks! The food was phenomenal - nothing like Ship Show's dinner experience - and the entertainment was top notch. I still do think it's BS that there's no way to see this show without paying, and if you don't drink alcohol, you're not really getting your money's worth out of the experience. Maybe they'll add a free option at some point? Nightlife SO different than any other voyage I've been on! Usually we're in the manor or some other party every night until the wee hours, but with the early wakeups for tours, long port days, and activation of the Manor for more shows, there were only 3 nights of actual nightclubbing in the manor - 80s dance club (awesome), scarlet night afterparty (I was in bed at that point haha), and We Fancy (gold themed party - this one was kind of weird. We thought it would be like Heartbeat or Boomvang on the other ships, where cast members from the shows and Happenings come out, do a 10ish min performance, then open up the dance floor. We Fancy had 6 Happenings Cast members clearing the dance floor what felt like every 15 mins to do a choreographed dance for a song, then bringing people back. Still fun, just kind of odd). This was also the first voyage we've skipped PJ party. We both got into our jams looked at each other, looked at our alarm for the next morning, and just went to bed in said PJs hahahaha Ports/Excursions Virgin's excursions seemed pretty limited at most ports, which was kind of disappointing. We had a ton of loot to use, but we didn't want to chance our desired excursions selling out, so we booked a few ahead of time. Also, you need to remember to bring towels from the ship for water-based excursions. Santorini - this is a tender port. If you book an excursion from VV, they'll message you when/where to meet. We were directed to the Red Room, given a card with a number on it, and directed to a tender that drops you off at the bus meeting point port. If you tender without an excursion, they'll bring you directly to Fira and give you a roundtrip cable car ticket. We had booked Scenic Island Valleys & Oia Village, but it was changed to the Scenic Santorini & Oia on Your Own tour right before we got on. Their message said that based on Sailor feedback, rather than going to a viewpoint, we'd have an extra hour and a half time to experience the breathtaking Oia Village. Our tour guide Hara was great, and we got to Oia pretty early in the day so it wasn't too crowded. After about 90 mins of exploring on our own, we got back on the bus and went over to Fira. I really liked this format of tour, as I abhor giant follow-the-leader group tours. Hara gave us a quick orientation on the highlights of each area, plus some directional orientation. We did a ton more exploring (and eating and drinking!) until we wanted to head back to the ship. There were several ships in port, and when we were in line for the cable car at about 4:30-5, a bunch of idiots from these other ships kept trying to cut in line - some more successful than others - because "they'd miss their boat." We waited for maybe 30-45 mins to get a cable car down, but I'm sure it would have been quicker if we'd gone later, as we were the last ship in port. I've heard it gets absolutely insane during the summer, like 2+ hour waits with rampant cutting throughout the line. No thanks!!! Rhodes - I had no clue what to expect from Rhodes, but we booked the Tsampika Beach Break & Ancient Lindos excursion. We started with a ~50 min ride to Lindos, a bit of a hike up to the Acropolis, and a lightly-guided tour of the Acropolis. We then had about an hour of free time to wander around Lindos, then got back on the bus to go to Tsampika Beach. You get a lounge chair + umbrella + 1 soft drink included, and they have alcohol and food for purchase. The weather was pretty garbage, but it was still a good time. Back to the bus, then back to the ship. Bodrum - booked the Coastal Gulet excursion. Our guide was an archaeologist, so she had lots of tidbits to share as we sailed around. There were 2 opportunities to get into the water, then we had a full lunch of grilled chicken, fish, various dips and veggies and sailed back to port. Mykonos - we had booked a beach club excursion that was supposed to come with chairs/umbrellas and maybe some credit, but we never figured it out. This was cancelled on us a few weeks ago, and it turns out that the beach club got in trouble for building illegally on their property, so they got shut down. Womp womp. VV's excursions in Mykonos are super limited, and I haven't heard a positive review yet of anything that anyone's done. I heard terrible things about the beach hopping sailing this week due to weather (they should have cancelled, but didn't and everyone felt really unsafe), and the beer and wine excursions from the maiden sailing. I opted to charter a boat myself and sailed around the island. The weather was hot garbage - SO rainy and windy, but the island was still really neat to see from the sea! I think they expect most people to just arrange their own beach club or boat activities. Note that beach clubs are stupid expensive, as is the transportation to get there. There are like 30 cabs on the whole island, so you need to arrange your own transportation. We went back on the ship around 3 or 4, grabbed an early dinner, and trekked back out around 9pm. LOTS of bars and clubs, and it was fun to wander around town once it finally stopped raining. Such cute alleyways and neat colors. We ended up heading back to the ship again around midnight. Tenders run constantly all day and night, but they may switch the pickup/dropoff location mid-way through depending on their logistics. You'll be able to tell in the elevators on your way out and by the bright red VV tents they have set up at the correct location. We woke up pretty early on Saturday and walked around town a bit more, did some shopping and took a bunch of pictures before heading back to the ship for the final time around 12:30. Disembarkation So uneventful. We proceeded down to 4 Mid around 9:20 to zero fanfare, just 1 Happenings Cast member waving us off. There was no passport control, no customs line, no wait. We opted for the airport transfer shuttle, which was $35pp. We heard some folks ended up paying $90 for a cab, so our $70 (including great air conditioning and not crazy driving) felt well worth it. Crew Lots of familiar faces across the ship - I've had almost all of the current Happenings Cast on Scarlet/Valiant, lots of re-casting of other ships' show casts, and seemingly a ton of promotions in the FOH staff. One of our favorite bartenders has gotten a couple promotions and said he was in-line for more promotions in the future. Survey feedback and mentioning great crew members by name really does make a difference! Overall Impressions Again this was SOOOO different than any other VV I've been on. It was neat to get a taste of all the islands and see where I'd like to spend more time. I wish VV had more/better quality excursions to choose from, but we were able to make do with what we had. I also wish it were easier to get from California to Greece, because I'd love to do a back to back of their 2 Aegean itineraries. I think there were like 120 people that did that between this week and last! One random parting thought... Anyone considering buying a bar tab on the European itineraries should really consider how much you'll actually be on the ship. It's not like the Caribbean where you can drink all day on your tab at Bimini and have a couple sea days - we were pretty much only on the ship to sleep, eat dinner, and see shows. We were next to a few tables this morning at the Wake that were panicking trying to burn the rest of their bar tab by buying cocktails and bottles of wine before leaving!

Yes, it’s a bottle of moet

This sounds dumb, but if you value the things that it includes, then yes. If you were planning to get 2 spa passes and a shake for champagne, the other stuff is pretty much all a bonus. The early boarding can be worth it if you’re on a more crowded sailing because you can get a head start on booking activities.