jon81uk

No charge for the video games or for Air Hockey. Also a selection of board games were out all the time, with the more premium board games available in the afternoons when the cabinet was staffed and open.

1 hour ago, queenschick9b said:

Thank you so much for this review.  All of your photos are amazing!  I see a cruise on VV that I am interested in, but I feel like i can't figure everything out from their website and I'm trying to before reserving.

 

I have a silly questions. 

 

It says soft drinks on their website, what type is available? I can live without diet coke for one week, but I like to know my options 🙂

 

I know your sailing was a lower capacity, but was making dinner reservations challenging?  

 

You took a lot of those fun chair photos -- how was seating on the trip? I'm short and the photos look like everything would be uncomfortable to me.  I'm a lounge around during the day reading around the ship person.

Virgin Voyages serve Coke products. 
Coke, Coke Zero, Diet Coke and Sprite were all easily available as well as basic juices.

Can’t comment so much on what Scarlet Lady is doing right now from Miami but when we’ve been on Scarlet and Valiant form Portsmouth there was both the house band and a guest band so most nights there was live music on offer either in the On the Rocks bar or the Manor club. There was also sometimes a guitarist in the Dock House. 
After midnight the Manor switched to being a nightclub through to at least 2am.

The server will ask if anyone doesn’t drink alcohol and just not pour a shot for them. You can still play the game, just you don’t drink when you go wrong.

There is a cocktail and food photography class and a pub crawl that are both charged for. Think there is bingo on Scarlet Lady too (we didn’t see it on Valiant).
Otherwise not many activities are extra costs, except for the obvious like spa, treatments, haircuts etc.

pub quiz (trivia), game shows, shows, karaoke, workouts are all free.

15 hours ago, WheresWalter said:

That's kind of weird they allowed that loophole in the first place since it's a drink tab. I didn't realize they were allowing non-drink purchases for a while. The profit margins on drinks vs. products in their shops is quite different. 🙂

I think it was a bug not a feature. The rules didn’t allow bar tab to be spent generally, but the computer system hadn’t been set up to differentiate the bar credit from general credit, that’s now been fixed.

13 hours ago, Roel94 said:

 

I debated about the Korean place.I thought you ordered what you eat..which would be seafood. So guess I will skip it.

When we were on Scarlet Lady last year we had more than enough food in Gunbae, we did order what we wanted to eat and received a full portion of it. Got one full plate of raw meat/shrimp ready to cook per person and we cooked what we ordered, it wasn’t shared. Also I had two appetisers and shared a bibimbap with my husband, could order more rice with the mains too but chose not too.

Not sure if it’s because there was just two of us sharing a table with two strangers so the server just served as 2x groups of two but it does sound like the OP here got the whole menu brought out family style instead of just being allowed to order what they wanted, maybe it is because they were a bigger group.

But my experience would be that if you do just want seafood order that and the server will bring you just seafood for you to cook.

8 hours ago, dukefan94 said:

@thrifty99 

There was “hosted” karaoke a couple of time that was in the evenings (I want to say it was in the Social Club but it is in the event lineup on the app). We did the group as well as the private karaoke and had a blast!

 

Yep when we were on Valiant Lady earlier this year there was hosted karaoke in the social club one night. I think the drag queen was meant to host but she had covid.

We got free soda everywhere, all bars and restaurants.

At brunch at the Wake and Razzle Dazzle drip coffee was free and basic juice.

At dinner in Extra Virgin one of our group got free English Breakfast tea.

In the Galley there is self service drip coffee, teas and soda.

I don’t think any bars offer the complimentary coffee and tea but I never asked.

I think a lot of your negatives are due to comparing it to another cruise line, whereas I hadn’t done a before and thought of it differently.

If I wanted a coffee I would go and sit in a coffee bar, I wouldn’t assume the beer bar would serve me coffee. I never saw waited service in the upstairs atrium but didn’t expect it either, I might have found it intrusive and like they were constantly up selling being asked if I wanted drinks when not in a bar area.

There were paper newsletters schedules available if you wanted it too.

Personally I also thought of the daytime as being like in any other resort, time for the pool or hot tub, sunbathing, gym, reading a book that sort of thing. But we also did the VHS casual group workout, had brunch, watched a comedy show and played a game show during the daytime too so personally I wasn’t bored on both a three night and a four night sailing.

For evening entertainment there was Duel Reality, Never Sleep Alone (didn’t watch it as not interesting for me), UntitledDanceShowPartyThing, pajama party, a blues band and several other things. I also loved the Heartbeat clubbing night in the Manor and stayed out til 2am.

but I’ve never cruised before so what Virgin offered was what I wanted and expected. Sounds like many other cruises for me might be too much?

I think they just need to add a daily rotation option to each counter in the Galley. The Taco place only has two options, don’t like them and it rules that place out, Ramen counter only had 2-3 options too I think. So if there are ingredients you don’t like it cuts down the options. But add in a daily special and if you don’t like Mondays tacos you might like Tuesdays and so on.

That was my main problem, ingredients we don’t like ruled out places due to the tiny menus.

The daily special doesn’t have to be completely new, can be the same every Monday all year because most people are onboard for under a week.

11 hours ago, demon_princezz said:

 

There’s definitely more than five different lunch options to cover the duration of a 5 night cruise - 4 or 5 restaurants off the top of my head, before you include around 6/7 locations in the galley.
 

for lunch/brunch there is just Razzle Dazzle and The Wake open out of the major restaurants. Then there is pizza or the options in the Galley of sandwiches, noodles, tacos, burgers.

So I do think a bit more needs to be done on cruises with lots of sea days to offer plenty of different options as the Galley doesn’t have quite as many things as I would expect. 

2 hours ago, cantgetin said:

Most other lines have SLIGHT differences among their ships of any given "class," although often those differences are a bit of decor and one or two different menu items.  Another typical change is in the variety shows as they have different entertainers on board from week to week.  That doesn't apply to Virgin since all their shows are done by their permanent cast members.

I think they are still trying to work out the details.  Between Covid and a war, this can't be an easy time to launch a new product.  Yes, some changes would be nice, but for now, I'm ok with things as they are.

 

Virgin have guest bands, singers and DJs. Yes the formal shows are permanent cast but the band and singer will change up. 

Pretty sure most of the limited view ones are behind lifeboats.

Yes you can invite others in the app so you can then make restaurant reservations for them. 
not sure how that works if you can book the extra in advance with rockstar status.

but on a three night cruise with friends in another cabin we managed fine to make the bookings we needed around a month before.

17 hours ago, Jeaannie55 said:

Thank you, might have to rethink my choice of beverage

There are enough wines by the glass that you will probably find something. Although when we were on Valiant Lady to Zeebrugge on the maiden voyage they didn’t seem to have all of the wine options anyway.

Don’t know if they will keep it as you will be in a different restaurant but might be able to take it back to your room, may need to be able to prove it was bought onboard to avoid corkage charges the next night. 

when my partner and I had a  meal at The Wake we didn’t finish out bottle of wine but they gave us plastic cups so we could take it to another venue. But at other meals we just ordered by the glass anyway.

We are doing the transatlantic on the 15 October and the app currently shows excursions can be booked June 18 which is four months ahead.

Also states restaurant and entertainment listings will up September 1st which is about six weeks before, although for our recent Zeebrugge cruise the entertainment lineup only showed maybe 2-3 weeks before, but that was the maiden for Valiant Lady.

For the shore excursions you can see a list of possible options on the website 

https://www.virginvoyages.com/shore-excursions

You may still be okay with stand-alone travel insurance or an annual plan but check the terms to ensure trips already booked are covered.

So I’ve only cruised with Virgin out of Portsmouth UK, so not as sunny as the Caribbean which makes it harder to say whether the Rooftop space is worth it as the sun decks weren’t busy anyway.

Maybe on a busy Caribbean cruise I would feel different about having access to an exclusive space.

But in terms of the room I think an XL Sea Terrace room has a bathroom as big as many suites, so in a suite you only gain the kingsize bed and in some rooms the dining area and huge balcony.

Also of course you get the first fill of the mini bar, so if you think those six half bottles of spirits plus the wine is worth it to you as you will be drinking in your room then consider what that is worth to you. Also Moët hour at around 5-7pm with free champagne.

I would definitely say the cruise is worth doing even if you can’t get a suite.

Hope that helps.

During the check in at the muster point and the life vest demo they encourage people to take seats if in a venue that has seats, so generally the distancing will be the same as when that venue is open as a bar/restaurant. 
 

2 hours ago, colesc15 said:

Sorry, another question. So new to virgin. With the Rockstar mini bar stocked once (not mega Rockstar), what is all included for the initial setup? 

Half bottles each of

gin

vodka

tequila

scotch

bourbon

rum

Moet champagne 

white wine 

red wine

2x cans Heineken 

2x cans Wynnewood ale

2x Red Bull

2x tonic water

2x ginger ale

Can request cans of the complimentary sodas anyway. We asked for Diet Coke and Sprite and some ice. The ice got refilled each morning and night.

Hope that’s helpful.

CPS did it for the Scarlet Lady sailings last year but not offering general parking for Valiant this year. 
can book the multi-storey at Portsmouth Port here http://portsmouth.apcoa.co.uk/home.aspx

we got a three nights for £35 rate for the Zeebrugge cruise.

11 hours ago, johnnylikely said:

Other lines do have some variety though, in the buffet and MDR, that's part of the excitement, but with Virgin it's exactly the same from ship to ship. The menus I had last summer are pretty much exactly the same as the one last month.

Yeah Virgin need to do a lot of work on the Galley menu I think. Add burger of the day and some variations on the other counters. The other restaurants aren’t so bad as you can order something different, but the Galley lunch/dinner menu feels small.

1 hour ago, colesc15 said:

It appears the 40% sale is only on sailings within the next few months. 

Hence the up to 40% off, think it is 20% off other sailings.