notme2012

Celebrity has on their website, pre-cruise you can order a case of 12, San Pellegrino 500ml or Acqua Panna 1 liter bottles delivered to your stateroom.

We did the Resilient Lady Auckland to Sydney for 12 nights. Our food was good the first few nights and then just dropped off into mediocrity. Mainly food temps. Dishes would be served at room temps that should have been hot. We had dinner in Extra Virgin, the first night. The food was very good. We ate there 2 more times as walk-ins. The food was disgusting! Cold, coagulated gloop! That is sub-standard food and IS NOT subjective opinion. We asked at our last meal for a warm up and it came back barely warm. This is a service issue and a kitchen issue and NOT a taste issue!!! AND, it is a shame because it wastes resources and costs Virgin extra money to re-serve dishes.

From a land based creator, who have produced shows on land for over 20 years. They are not any different than the other shows that "7 Fingers" have produced. I have read that was part of the contract that 7 Fingers had made with VV, I just can't find the source. 7 Fingers retains the rights to the shows. Virgin Voyages has dozens of creatives who provide their product/services to VV. Not any different than any other cruise line!

Did you not read what I wrote? I stated exactly that!!!

7 Fingers Theatre Company, the creators of "Dual Reality", are land based in Montreal, Canada. They created the show for Virgin Voyages. 5 of the 6 artistic directors have previously worked for Cirque du Soleil. 7 Fingers also created "Ships in the Night" for VV. 7 Fingers is also touring "Dual Reality", not Virgin Voyages. It really bothers me that people publicly post falsehoods. A little thing called a Google search reveals a lot of facts. For example, each resturant on VV was created by a land based chef. -Razzle Dazzle - Eric Kim Haugen, a judge on Food Network's "Big Restaurant Bet." -Pink Agave - Silvana Salcido Esparza of the Barrio Cafe -Gunbae - New York City chef Sohui Kim -Test Kitchen - Matt Lambert of New York City's The Musket Room -The Wake -Chef Brad Farmerie of AvroKO Hospitality Group came in to help develop the overall culinary program. Most of this info came from VV press releases.

Um, on our cruise, I witnessed many times, multiple employees clustered around the restaurant reception counters. Literally standing there with nothing to do, because there were very few guests in the restaurants until 730PM...

We sailed on the Resilient Lady, Auckland to Sydney, 12 night cruise. Passengers were at 2550 or 91% full. We were albe to get all our reservations for dinner done before boarding. But there was absolutely no changing. We met at least a dozen couples who were not able to get a single dinner reservation for all 12 nights. Yes even 930PM slots were not available, but I think VV did that on purpose. Because we were told in a round-about way that VV plans on 600-800 passengers per night eating in the Galley. The dining reservation system on VV, is severely flawed in this way. Many times we had 6-630PM reservations. Many times, there were hardly any other diners in the restaurant until we were leaving at 730PM. Which means that they hold seats open until 730PM. Because all of these restaurants were turning passengers away, saying they were full for evening. VV could easily just do 530PM, 730 PM and 930PM sittings. That way they could accommodate more passengers. But VV knows everything. Besides our food not being hot 10 of 12 nights...

Don't count on that being a smooth cruise. The North Atlantic can be rough. Furthermore, the Lady ships have flat bottoms and were designed for warm weather cruising areas.

I am a stockholder in the Disney Company. Plus I was a travel agent for 30 years. I know plenty about the cruise business. My point goes was that Virgin thought they knew it all! VV's original CEO Tom McAlpin was originally from the Disney Cruise Line. VV had the inside knowledge to create a cruise line from scratch. But, McAlpin retired last year. They have a new CEO who may not be up to the job. I know for a fact that they have a funding problem. People think that Richard Branson is the pocketbook behind VV. His funding was about 10%. The rest came from Bain Capital, then Blackrock, and now Ares Management. Who's next to loan VV money?

Yes and no. How to start a cruise line from scratch was defined by Disney Cruise Lines. Start small, DCL had just 2 ships for years. Stay in a market that you know that your inventory will always sell, DCL sailed just from Port Canaveral for years. Virgin Voyages could have followed that formula and would have been very successful. Just by staying in the Caribbean, they could have been more successful financially, etc. Instead they ordered all these ships, then Covid, then all the cancelations, etc. Logistically running a cruise line is basically the same. VV just changed the on-board experiences. Like many have said, VV just does not have the logistics to operate worldwide. Our cruise from NZ to Sydney was 90%+ full. But many of the other sailings, were less than 50%, even with huge price incentives. Princess does plenty of cruises from Australia, many times they have 3 ships in that area. The market exists in Oceania, but VV just isn't marketing in a way that attracts people to book.

American car companies have stated numerous times that car models were being discontinued because they did not make money on that model. Heck, even Toyota and Honda have done the same. It is generally accepted when a company discontinues a product or service, the rationale is they're not making a profit. Some companies are forward and state the facts, others let media draw the conclusions.

Our cruise, March 15th sailing, was 91% full, or 2550 pax. The design of these ships does not work with that many people. Also, most of our 6 sea days, the deck areas were closed because it was raining or windy.

The quality in the reservation restaurants for us, was mainly food temps. A cold steak, rates a zero for me. Food temps are a safety issue. Some of the dishes were disgustingly cold and coagulated. I am guessing that with exception of Gunbae, Razzle Dazzle, and Test Kitchen, the other restaurants share a main kitchen. Yes, the ramen was very good. But so was the breakfast all day, pastries, fruit, made to order salads. I did not care for the bento boxes as they all seemed stale. Did not eat the tacos, as I had low expectations, with them. Now we had better meals at the beginning of our cruise. By the 8th night, restaurant meals went way down. But here's the thing, after we started complaining, they became even worse. With nothing ever being near the temp that it should be. Which means VV marks your name/cabin as being a complainer. After we figured that out, we dismissed any idea of doing a VV again. Being married to a chef, we know what is good and what is meh. This was my 56th cruise. I never thought any cruise line could have such poor food.

Most cruise lines have at least 4 weeks of menus that can be rotated through. That's for mass market and premium lines. Deluxe lines have more because they usually do many longer cruises. From what I have been told on many tours of ship kitchens, the menus are all planned months in advance, due to supply constraints. Everyone seems to think that Virgin Voyages does everything different from other lines. They really don't. VV has 2 menus for longer cruises. There is an A and B dinner menu for each restaurant. We experienced them on our 12 night cruise. Now are VV A and B menus really different? Not really. Only Razzle Dazzle and Test Kitchen were distinctly different. Matter of fact, Extra Virgin, in which we dined 3 times, the menu never changed.

If you have no intentions of rebooking with Virgin, then you need to challenge the charges with your CC company. I sincerely doubt they will provide any help because they did the cancelations almost a year prior to your sailing date.