CruisingWalter

VV dropped testing on Valiant Lady starting July 24. She's sailing out of Barcelona.

The US ports never required testing, it was the CDC as part of the cruise program. That program was dropped on July 18th. Now the cruise lines can make their own rules for sailing out of the U.S. The caveat to that is the local governments of the ports the ships sail to. VV has a very limited itinerary and all of their destinations no longer require a negative test to enter. Hence it was easy for VV to drop the testing in Miami.

You can make the ship as quiet as you want to be. But depending on where your suite is, you may hear the big Scarlet Night party up on the pool deck. IT. IS. LOUD. 🙂 If your cabin is on Deck 14, you just may well hear it. Our aft Cheeky Corner Suite couldn't hear anything on Deck 12. But we are not all night party people either and we totally enjoyed the experience. Looking to book a Valiant Lady 8 nighter if we can while she's here for the winter season.

One thing I will note: It's MUCH easier for VV to drop the testing requirements because they travel such limited itineraries that at this time, do not require a negative test to enter the countries. The other cruise lines visit many more islands with a patchwork of rules from their local governments. They will have a tougher time making a blanket "no testing required" protocol.

Who else already dropped testing requirements in the US? NCL dropped testing requirements in Europe but they have not updated their US policies yet. I just looked at their site and they're still requiring Negative Tests for all US based cruises.

I just started posting our culinary journey today on TikTok with The Dock tapas. I'll be releasing TikToks on each restaurant over the next week and then compiling them all into a YouTube episode next week. It's fun to relive the experience as I edit these. 🙂

Virgin drops all pre-cruise testing as of July 24 for Valiant Lady and July 27 for Scarlet Lady. I believe this is the first for U.S. based cruises. The most interesting part of the announcement for me is no differentiation between vaxxed and unvaxxed passengers. I assumed unvaxxed passengers would still have to provide a negative test, but according to the note, they make no mention of that. https://www.virginvoyages.com/voyage-well#general-information

We arrived around 11 ish and the porter was ready to take our bags. They will NOT take your carry ons, so you have to keep those with you. Since we drove, we left those in the car while we went to the Bayside Marketplace. I will say getting back from Bayside was a cluster. As we walked back to the meeting place for the shuttle at 1:30 we saw it leaving. Waited 45 minutes, no shuttle returned and no phone number to call to get information. We ended up taking a Lyft back to the Terminal with another couple who were also stranded. When we checked in the Rock Star agents were rather upset and told us we should not have been left there and the shuttle should continue to run much later. They didn't reimburse the cost of the Lyft but our friends were given on board credit on the ship to make up for it.

We weren't starving but we were hungry after the meal. It was absolutely delicious, but we ended up grabbing a couple of pizzas from The Pizza Place after the Test Kitchen dinner. That's the way to do it, don't 'pre-eat.' If you're still hungry after, grab a pizza. 🙂

That is the current menu on Scarlet we had last week. It was yummy though the beet was my least favorite. I will say that while the meal was absolutely delicious, we were all a bit hungry afterwards so we grabbed a few pizzas at The Pizza Place to share. 🙂 But since the Test Kitchen is included, no extra fee, it didn't bother us at all.

The only thing I forgot on Scarlet Night were my ear plugs. The show in the Roundabout was awesome but then when I went up to the pool deck for the finale, it was a bit too loud for me. I lasted 10 minutes. If I had my ear plugs I would have stayed much longer, that was amazing up there.

They have a major TA program and encourage folks to book through TAs. I met one on the Scarlet Lady who is in the top 100 agents for VV and said they have one of the better programs for agents.

@gatorgirl1971 We just got off the Scarlet Lady having booked the cruise 3 years ago! The food was the first reason we booked it and I can say it did not disappoint. The entire vibe of the ship reminded me of Celebrity with the age groups and the level of service. Some folks said it reminded them of an Adult Disney ship. We learned that many of the crew have come from Celebrity, Seabourn and Disney so that's the level of service you can expect. The ship was remarkable in that it doesn't feel like a big ship, it feels more like a mega yacht. In particular, no high ceilings, no grandiose atriums and public spaces. Ceilings are all single story for the most part and there is so much seating and so many nooks and crannies to gather that the entire ship really feels like it was designed for socialization. They've created a lot of spaces where you just want to sit, relax and enjoy some conversation together. The main entertainment is certainly different, but then that's how it is on all ships. We don't particularly care for the main shows on the Celebrity Solstice class for example, but we love cruising Celebrity. I absolutely loved Duel Reality and could totally see the influence of West Side Story/Romeo and Juliet. Untitled Dance Party Thing was interesting, we watched about 10 minutes. Never Sleep Alone wasn't our cup of tea, but the Revelry with the Diva was hilarious. One thing that was originally supposed on the ship was a drag brunch in Razzle Dazzle but that idea got scrapped after the pandemic. I would love to see VV bring that back. The bars and cocktails were outstanding throughout the ship, I did not have a bad drink anywhere from the pools to the Dock House to On The Rocks and Sip. If you're into beer, you can get a beer growler at the Draught Haus to take anywhere on the ship. As others have noted, every restaurant is as good as or better than any specialty restaurant on any cruise ship, with the exception of Remy on the Disney Wish. That's still the single best meal I've ever had at sea. But everything we ate on the ship was consistently delicious and prepared fresh to order. It was so nice to not have to nickel and dime for every little thing we wanted to eat. Even the chocolates, taffy and candy in the Social Club were included. Pizza was great, ice cream was not bad. The food at the Bimini Beach Club was meh and the meh was really amplified by how amazing the food onboard was. Service was excellent throughout. Nobody was working for tips, nobody was pushing drink packages or dining packages and NO PHOTOGRAPHERS! That was worth the price of admission. 🙂 If you are a fan of Princess, Celebrity, Disney or Holland America, there's a lot to like about Virgin Voyages. We were completely converted by our first cruise, the only negative was 5 nights was not nearly long enough on the ship.

Yep, that's what the CEO of Royal Caribbean said a few weeks ago. The Icon class will be larger than the Oasis Class.

Yep, they make very minute changes to the insides of the Oasis class so each successive one can be the 'world's largest' by GT. But they're all basically the exact same size.

Hi all, I did a search for "Coffee" in this forum but only saw folks recommending where to buy coffee in San Juan. Has anyone ever taken an excursion, either private or via a ship, to one of the coffee plantations in Puerto Rico? I was watching an episode of Gordon Ramsay's Uncharted and he visited one during his visit to Puerto Rico. I found this website that lists a bunch of the plantations that are open to tours and visits, but didn't see any coffee excursions on my next cruise. So I'm curious if any of you have visited these plantations during your visits. Thanks! https://theculturetrip.com/caribbean/puerto-rico/articles/the-coolest-coffee-plantations-you-need-to-visit-in-puerto-rico/