Our Scarlet Lady Experience

[The_Force]

Sit back and relax... this is a long post.

 

Embarking

We did not receive any instruction from Virgin prior to sailing.  There was not much information on the App – only selecting an arrival time (we chose 12:00).  I did find some information on the website in the FAQs.  Example – port address/terminal  information.  Upon arriving, the testing was in one terminal and check-in was in another.  However, it was a pretty smooth process to get from testing to check-in.  Once checked-in, everyone went to a “holding” area to await test results.  We got our negative results at 12:30, but didn’t know for a few minutes that we were to proceed to the boarding area to wait.  We figured it out.  We were given a boarding group card for group one and sat and waited.  Virgin boards at 2:00.  The whole time we were in the boarding waiting area, there were no announcements.  We saw a couple Virgin employees walk through, but no communication or announcements.  Shortly after 2:00 (and upon others noticing passengers boarding through an upper walkway), I feel like the crowd took it upon itself to board.  So we filed in the line and boarded.  I think the passengers that were boarding separately were the Rock Stars and B2B folks.  At any rate the actual boarding was very unorganized.

 

Central Sea Terrace Cabin

Loved the location.  Loved the decor.  The bathroom was small (of course), but nicer than a balcony bathroom on Princess (well, I haven’t had a balcony room category in forever).  The shower has a door instead of a curtain which is nice.  The bath products and fixtures are really nice.  The furniture is trendy/funky, but neat.  There is storage, but some you kind of have to look for (nice big drawer under the bed) and may not suit everyone’s taste.  We had plenty of room for our things and we are not light packers.  Also, we survived without the self-serve laundry services, but it was missed.

 

Dining

Luckily we knew this…dinner reservations are required and the App will not let you reserve the same venue more than one night or more than one venue in the same night (which makes sense).  The catch to this however is if you're considering a different venue or a different night for the venue you already have booked, you have to cancel your current reservation prior to rebooking, and risk not getting in anywhere. Dinner reservations should be made before boarding to get the best time.  Once onboard lunch/brunch/breakfast reservations are available on the App.  We saw many people approach restaurants without reservations and they seemed annoyed that they had to make a reservation.  It was pretty easy to make the reservations and check to see what was available through the App.  Menus are via scanning QR code, but they did offer paper if preferred.

 

Virgin’s concept is multiple restaurants and each is unique – not main dining rooms with the same menu.  We loved this concept.  Our favorite restaurant was The Wake.  Our favorite daytime hang out was The Dock.

 

The Galley was Virgin’s version of the buffet I guess, but more like a food court.  The hours were weird and not all venues open at the same times.  We had trouble finding open food venues several times when we wanted a late breakfast or lunch.  There were several places we saw open once or never at all.  However, we heard the ship was between 50 – 60% capacity so it makes sense that it might have been a waste for everything to be open.

 

The food was good everywhere we went.  It was more like going out to dinner here at home.  Very nice quality, flavor and presentation.  You can order as much as you like and only a few items have upcharges.

 

Drink prices and selection varied from venue to venue.  A couple of times it varied at the same venue for the same drink.  We just went with the flow since we had the extra bar tab.  We ended up leaving only around $14 unused combined on the bar tabs.

 

Shows/Entertainment

Tip – watch the App and make reservations as early as possible, they fill up fast.  The shows appear on the App in the daily listings.  We went to one show in the Manor nightclub.  It was a short, Cirque du Soleil type show.  It was good.

 

Some entertainment randomly strolls around the ship and performs pop-up entertainment.  Some bars had live music as well.  Again check the App.

 

Scarlet Night was fun.  We didn’t see a whole lot inside before the pool party because we had a late dinner.  The show at the pool was good.  The party that followed was unbelievable and crazy.  People were jumping in the pool with their dress clothes on.  It was a good time

 

New Year’s Eve - the night after Scarlet Night.  Nothing was going on inside the ship, but they had another pool party and fireworks.  No party favors, hats or anything like that, but champagne toast.  The dress varied from t-shirts and shorts to tuxedos.  Would have been nice to know ahead of time what the plan was for New Year’s.  It was two formal nights in a row for some folks.

 

Pool(s)

Uhh…SMALL, very small.  The pool area is nice, but once this ship is full capacity I don’t know where all the people will go.  The pool deck is small and very enclosed.  I didn’t like that you couldn’t really see off the ship from the pool area, the walls are solid with no glass. However, if you went up one floor to the top deck, you could see the ocean from there.

 

Shops

There was a Virgin Logo shop and several specialty shops.  The shops seemed higher end than a Princess shop.  You know about the tattoo parlor and there were people getting tattoos.  Not us!

 

Casino

Looked like a typical ship casino.  We did not use it.  We do not like gambling on cruise ships for various reasons.

 

Ship Layout

It was different in that the public decks don’t necessarily flow straight through the ship.  I didn’t mind it at all, it just took a little extra time to navigate at first.  There were a lot of seating areas and they were empty 95% of the time.  Much of the seating is funky for lack of better description.   A lot of wasted space, but this could be due to low capacity. 

The pool decks had some areas where the chairs faced inward instead of facing the ocean and they're stationary.  Also lots of space dedicated to fitness on the pool deck area I only saw a couple people using it.

 

App/Chat/Sailor Services

We did not have any issues with the App or internet while onboard.  Definitely works better than the Princess App and internet.  I used the crew chat feature a few times and they were very responsive.  I had an incorrect charge on my bar tab and used chat to get it resolved.  Sailor Services was also very helpful. 

 

Sea Blazers Perks

1. $125 extra bar tab money - the bar tab showed up on day 2 and the Sea Blazer bonus money was applied.
2. $300 off each for a 2022 cruise, we’ll find out if it works as we want to book for October.
3. Free gift in the room – we didn’t receive any free gift in our room (or elsewhere) and there was no mention of Sea Blazers anywhere.

 

Miscellaneous

• Water -  Tip, take your own refillable bottle.  I’m not crazy about that concept, but it would have come in handy.  The cabin has water in a carafe and the steward will refill water upon request (still or sparkling).  There is no bottled water onboard (not Perrier or anything - even at the restaurants and bars). 
• Masked Required – right after sailing masks became required indoors (previously recommended).  Initially it seemed people were following the rule, but it didn’t last.  More passengers were unmasked than masked.  Crew was not actively enforcing it, but masks were being handed out upon entering a venue.  We masked at all times.  I felt bad for the crew.
• Smoking – we saw vaping indoors and outdoors – not in the designated smoking area.  Again, the crew didn’t address it.  We ignored it.
• Service was good most of the time.  Only a couple of hiccups.  Once at Razzle Dazzle, we arrived at the restaurant when they opened (which was also the same time as our reservation) the hostess took us to a table we didn't care for (one seat was positioned staring at a wall), so we asked if we could have something different. The hostess said sure, pick any one you like.  So we chose one by the window which also happened to be a four top, as all the two tops were already taken. We were seated, and then a few minutes later the hostess returned to tell us that this table was reserved and we had to move, back to the table they took us to initially (it was kind of embarrassing). The for top remained unused the entire time we were there. Then... all of our food came out at the same time (appetizers, salads  and main courses).

 

All this being said, overall we loved our vacation and we're in the process of booking our next cruise on Scarlet Lady, this time in a Mega Rock Star Suite.

[_tacocat_]

1 hour ago, The_Force said:

Free gift in the room – we didn’t receive any free gift in our room (or elsewhere) and there was no mention of Sea Blazers anywhere.

 

You didn't miss much - the Sea Blazer gift was a super low quality tote bag with "SeaBlazer" pressed on.  After seeing the MerMaiden voyage trinkets, I was hopeful for a cup or something like that, but the Bar Tab bonus for life and $300 off our next cruise certainly made up for the crappy gift!

 

1 hour ago, The_Force said:

• Smoking – we saw vaping indoors and outdoors – not in the designated smoking area.  Again, the crew didn’t address it.  We ignored it.

This was also really annoying and something VV has to get a handle on.  It's awkward for the crew to have to tell people who know they shouldn't be smoking to not smoke, but someone has to.  Also, the outdoor smoking area is right next to Richard's Rooftop, so depending on the wind and where you're seated, you could be sitting in a gross plume of secondhand smoke.

 

People were also smoking on their balconies with their doors open on our voyage.  We were on deck 11, and the entire Z side stunk of cigs and weed all the way from the mid to the aft elevators.  Vaping is gross too, but at least its stench doesn't linger for too long...

 

All that aside, we're also super excited to get back on the ship!

[xerenthar]

5 hours ago, _tacocat_ said:

You didn't miss much - the Sea Blazer gift was a super low quality tote bag with "SeaBlazer" pressed on.  After seeing the MerMaiden voyage trinkets, I was hopeful for a cup or something like that, but the Bar Tab bonus for life and $300 off our next cruise certainly made up for the crappy gift!

 

This was also really annoying and something VV has to get a handle on.  It's awkward for the crew to have to tell people who know they shouldn't be smoking to not smoke, but someone has to.  Also, the outdoor smoking area is right next to Richard's Rooftop, so depending on the wind and where you're seated, you could be sitting in a gross plume of secondhand smoke.

 

People were also smoking on their balconies with their doors open on our voyage.  We were on deck 11, and the entire Z side stunk of cigs and weed all the way from the mid to the aft elevators.  Vaping is gross too, but at least its stench doesn't linger for too long...

 

All that aside, we're also super excited to get back on the ship!

wait were we on the same sailing or does 11Z mid to aft always smell of cigarettes now 

[_tacocat_]

3 minutes ago, xerenthar said:

wait were we on the same sailing or does 11Z mid to aft always smell of cigarettes now 

hah i was 12/5.  movin on up to 15 for our next one...

[xerenthar]

10 hours ago, _tacocat_ said:

hah i was 12/5.  movin on up to 15 for our next one...

 

literally smelled like cigarettes in that hall on 12/24 and 12/29 sailings

[_tacocat_]

1 hour ago, xerenthar said:

 

literally smelled like cigarettes in that hall on 12/24 and 12/29 sailings

Yikes.

[The_Force]

We were on the 12/29 sailing deck 12A mid ship. In addition to the cigs and vaping, we smelled weed several times at various places around the ship. Hopefully they figure out a way to get a handle on the smoking.

 

We're now booked for the 10/9/22 sailing, Mega Rock Star 15Z... right below the smoking section. Oops! 😬 (lol)

[harbormaster]

We just got off after staying in 11011Z. The hallway down the way from us smelled strongly of cigars.  Not good.

[Jasukkie]

Agreed, they have to do something about the smoking. They also placed the crew smoking area in the middle of the jogging track. The closed in design of the pool deck traps smoke from above as well. There's room on the ship to give people a nice closed in smoking lounge/weed bar. I'd much rather that than the current state of affairs.

[drewdawg199]

27 minutes ago, Jasukkie said:

Agreed, they have to do something about the smoking. They also placed the crew smoking area in the middle of the jogging track. The closed in design of the pool deck traps smoke from above as well. There's room on the ship to give people a nice closed in smoking lounge/weed bar. I'd much rather that than the current state of affairs.

They already have a large outdoor area on the forward starboard side as well a large indoor smoking room off of the casino, but apparently that's not enough! 

[cruzsnooze]

I was considering a cruise on the Scarlet but changed my mind after reading here about the smoking. Anyone with any lung issues needs to be careful to avoid second hand smoke. 

[drewdawg199]

every ship allows smoking, not sure how you will avoid that.

[CruzinMermaid]

On 1/23/2022 at 7:00 PM, cruzsnooze said:

I was considering a cruise on the Scarlet but changed my mind after reading here about the smoking. Anyone with any lung issues needs to be careful to avoid second hand smoke. 

 

I sailed in mid December, with the exception of one sailor who decided to ignore the guidance regarding where to smoke, I never smelled any smoke nor had any issues.

[dcgrumpy]

I hardly ever encountered any smokers on my Scarlet Lady cruise 2 weeks ago. At most I saw 3 or 4 people at the outdoor smoking area near the pool. I never saw anyone smoking in a non-smoking area. 

Edited February 1, 2022 by dcgrumpy