cantgetin

Latest time you can schedule to leave the ship is 10:45, but about 10:30 they start the "get the heck out of here" announcements. We allow about an hour for brunch, which gives us plenty of time to return to our cabin for a quick tooth brush or otherwise, grab our stuff, and get off. We prefer a nice "sit down and be waited on" as opposed to our one time in The Galley on the last day when the server didn't come over, we tried going to a station and were told to sit down and wait for a server, and I finally saw a supervisor and notified him that we were being ignored. Would much rather do RD or Wake. So, unless we are in a hurry for some reason, we get a 9 or 9:15 reservation and have an easy morning.

If you file a BBB complaint, they contact the other party, in this case VV, and ask for VV's side of things. Looks like it worked for the above poster.

It isn't as bad as a fold out couch, but the beds are pretty firm. Your host can always put an extra comforter or two under the sheet...the only question is whether they'll have a real mattress topper available. And yes, if you have time to purchase one in Miami, that will work. Or even check with your hotel and see whether they will accept and hold a package delivery for you. We typically come in the evening before the cruise and wouldn't feel like making a shopping expedition after a long flight.

Bed suggestion--get a mattress topper from amazon. THey are about $20-30 and come packed in compression plastic, weigh almost nothing. You can leave it or donate it to a crew member when you leave the ship as you likely won't be able to repack it into your suitcase. You can ask for one from your room host, but there is no telling what will be available on your ship, your cruise as it seems to change. Food...several Galley locations are open till 10:30pm, and All Day Breakfast is open 24/7. Pizza till 2 am. Room service well past midnight, but I don't know how late. Later than I was ever awake. We've gotten salad at 10:15 and put it in the fridge for later. Shows end by 11, but other stuff is happening on the ship until 2-3am.

Nook now and reschedule after boarding. We've always found it easier to reschedule than to start from scratch, even on days when you go to the restaurant to reschedule. We do a "divide on conquer" method after boarding--one of us deals with any dining changes on the app and the other with activities. If you have any trouble with dining issues thru the app, there will be a team to help you--on our last cruise, they were in Razzle Dazzle. The Sailor Services desk cannot help you with dining reservations; they will just direct you to the correct place. Absolute worst case, go to the restaurant in question with your early reservation and ask if you can move to something later...we go when they open and have never been denied.

Premium wifi on our cruise was 2 devices. The paid premium wifi is listed as 3 devices, but 2 was fine for both of us. You can rotate among devices, but only 2 can be logged on at any one time. The $10 was per cabin per day, regardless of who used it. One $100 bar tab, although others have mentioned getting 2. The written stuff says 1 set of DBE per cabin....but people are reporting getting more.

There are robes for sale in the Logo shop...at least sometimes.

My only comment on cabin choice is that many of the discounts available (like MNVV which can be purchased thru a travel agent and applied to even your first cruise) and other perks often start at the sea terrace level. It can sometimes cost less to book a sea terrace with the discounts than to book an inside cabin. That's even before the perks. Bottom line, it depends on the cruise and what discounts might be available. Just a hint for other first timers. Glad you are enjoying VV.

No robes or slippers except in rockstar suites. No soap normally, but if you ask your stateroom host, they will bring a nice white. NO ONE liked the original black. I always recommend a sweater or jacket for on deck at night.....if you don't use it, no big deal. We've never been cold around the ship, but I do have that black "go with everything" sweater in my cabin. All you need to do is to link your reservations on the app, then you can make dinner, entertainment, or whatever res for each other. It is totally easy to do. There are no connecting doors between cabins.,.. or at least not between most cabins.

We've never experienced taxes in the Caribbean while the ship is in international waters. Yes, some port countries have taxes. But as above, it isn't like Europe where if the ship never leaves the region, they are taxed for the entire cruise. FWIW, that' part of why many cruises visit Turkey--that takes them out of the Schengen, and means that they only have to tax while in port and territorial waters. rather than the whole Med.

Interesting.....my travel buddy swore that on Valiant it was from the packets. Will check again and see what's happening on our next sailing.

Yes, but the hot chocolate being served on our last cruise was being made from the packets of powder mixed in milk. My purist family member thought it was "OK, but not what you'd get at a real place on land." She felt that hot chocolate should be made from real chocolate, not chocolate flavored powder and that this was no different than what she could easily make at home by warming up milk and adding "Swiss Miss" or Nestle's powder. Now...do I care about powdered hot chocolate on Disney where I'm not paying for it? No. But a premium product maybe shouldn't come from a mix that would cost me 30 cents at my local grocery store.

We found that sale merch was on sale from the beginning to end of cruise and didn't change. No, not like lines that put out the $5 t shirts near the end....

Have you guys been able to apply the 10% to existing bookings or did you need to cancel and rebook?

Actually, VV is quite specific. NOTHING carries over from your previous cruise lne. What happens is that you qualify as a Sea Rover on VV. This status gives you Deep Blue Extras which is a collection of perks including a $100 bar tab (in addition to any other you have), $10 per day credit in The Grounds Club (premium coffee and tea), a large bag of laundry washed, folded , and returned the next day, priority boarding, invitation to a cocktail party, free premium wifi (everyone gets free standard wifi), etc. All benefits are per cabin, not per person. Status match does NOT mean that they are going to give you what you qualified for on another line; it means that they are going to give you loyalty status on VV.

Just upload what you have. We found the same thing with Disney which now has pearl but the list on VV only goes to Platinum. No problem for us. Match came thru in a couple of days.

The bar tab can be used for your specialty coffee or tea. The $10 DBE benefit is ONLY good at The Grounds Club and Grounds Club Too and cannot be applied to room service orders.

The Grounds Club opens about 7. There is brewed coffee at The Galley 24/7. It is brewed from beans, not from that nasty syrup stuff...but being not.a coffee drinker, I can't comment on the quality. The only place that will have specialty coffee at 5 am MIGHT be room service. It is on the menu, but can be spotty in availability. The iced tea is from syrup. I brew my own by getting a tea bag and hot cut for brewing and filling my insulated mug with ice. Brew the tea, pour over ice, and I have GOOD iced tea.

But then you immediately get the $300 back because it is applied toward your downpayment. So you are not out anything--you are paying the TA exactly what she paid to buy the MNVV, and getting all the benefits from it.

Excursions are operated by outside companies, and most cruise lines have guaranteed them a certain number of participants. So no, they don't hold back slots for onboard booking. VV is more generous than most lines in allowing cancelation up to 24 hours in advance. You can use loot for any excursions you book on board, but you are limited to those that have spots remaining. Sometimes the tour companies can add additional spots if there is demand, other times not. Thus, it is pot luck whether there are spots that you want available after boarding. As above you can use loot in the casino. You cannot convert loot to cash, but you can get your winnings out in cash.

THere is NO website that can tell you how many cabins are unsold. There are websites that can tell you how many are unassigned, but they are operated by travel agents so we can't discuss them here. THe difference is that there are people who booked under "lock it in" rates, and they won't show up on sites until they are assigned to a cabin. The best you can get is thru a TA who can tell you that there are X of this type and Y of that type still showing as available. On the TA site if there are 100 cabins with 55 people who booked "lock it in," the number will show 45 available, but the map will show 100 spaces.

My first VV cruise, they decided my photo wasn't good enough as I was walking onto the ship....it showed up as no good when they scanned my bracelet. To their credit, it took then less than 5 seconds to shoot one they liked.

Greece is good....just limit to ONE excursion to visit ruins. We did a 28 night Med cruise with some amazing excursions. Ephesus was the best (other things were in that day as well), but we should have stopped there. The Acropolis and the theatre were good, Vesuvius /Pompei was good...but by the time we got to a tour guide named George on one of the Greek islands, we had hit the "if I never see another ruin" level.

Each of our upcoming cruises has doubled in price since we booked them, and neither is full at this point. My impression is that rather than worry about filling every cabin, VV is perfectly happy to provide an excellent product for 2000 sailors.

Walter kinda nailed it. Our first Celebrity cruise was pretty good. There was one issue on it that wasn't Celebrity's fault and one that was. This was way back when the fancy brunch was included. My travel companion has a progressive mobility deterioration, and one of the first issues was an inability to climb stairs. At that point, we did not need an accessible cabin or anything, but we were told that we could not be seated on the first floor for the brunch. Essentially "no brunch for you." So we. couldn't attend. We loved the food, the entertainment was good, etc. We didn't like the concept of the three classes on board. And then we started reading about things being dropped or becoming charged items, and it rather turned us off. Trying VV was sort of a fluke--I called my agent and did some quizzing as we aren't the "20 something cruising on daddy's money" crowd. I wasn't a bit sure it was right for us. But we loved it and got off tthe ship with 3 more booked.