LIVE- Valiant Lady- 1/14/23-1/22/23

[MeganGC1983]

Sneak peek. Great day at Rainbow Beach. Washing sand off and headed back to Frederiksted. 

[MeganGC1983]

[MeganGC1983]

56 minutes ago, CruzinMermaid said:

the pricing is actually quite good considering all the hidden fees on other cruise lines: gratuities, drinks packages that only cover some weird set of beverages, room service, water, wifi, fitness classes, etc

I agree. 

[AtSeaWithChris]

Does anyone know if the doors are magnetic and does Virgin allow for door decorations?

[Saint Greg]

43 minutes ago, Saint Greg said:

Yeah the ones I was looking at before had the solo insider not available. I see one now. It comes to a total of $2,200 for the 8-day after all of the fees. I never quote list prices. 
 

Actually that prompted me for a solo sea view upgrade and I didn’t realize it. $1859 without that.

 

[_tacocat_]

3 hours ago, LATTELOVE said:

Are there any pool side chair hogs on 

 this Virgin cruise??

not on this one, but holy crap were they out in full force when i was on VL in the beginning of december!!!

[_tacocat_]

2 hours ago, AtSeaWithChris said:

Does anyone know if the doors are magnetic and does Virgin allow for door decorations?

they are magnetic (as are all the walls).  vv does ask that you not decorate the doors, but a handful of people still do.

[Saint Greg]

2 hours ago, CruzinMermaid said:

the pricing is actually quite good considering all the hidden fees on other cruise lines: gratuities, drinks packages that only cover some weird set of beverages, room service, water, wifi, fitness classes, etc

 

I'm not well-versed in any of the cruise lines other than Carnival. I know the wifi and gratuities would knock $200-250 off. But I save 10% off of everything Carnival with their gift cards so most of that savings is offset right there. Then I get $100 OBC as a shareholder. I don't do room service or classes. The drink package pretty much covers everything with Carnival. I bet I could run up a 1k bar bill in 8 days on VV where a drink package would be less than half of that. 

 

I think they'd still need to come down some for me. This is the 3rd or 4th VV review I've followed and I've yet to see any activities or entertainment on the ship that interests me. I guess I'd only be doing it to try their food and visit St. Croix. I haven't been to Bimini yet, but I'm going next year on an 8-day that cost me $700.86 after taxes and fees. I guess actually $630 after the 10%.

 

 

[blarko]

2 hours ago, Saint Greg said:

This is the 3rd or 4th VV review I've followed and I've yet to see any activities or entertainment on the ship that interests me.

Same!

[CineGraphic]

2 hours ago, Saint Greg said:

I haven't been to Bimini yet, but I'm going next year on an 8-day that cost me $700.86 after taxes and fees. I guess actually $630 after the 10%.

 

The big difference is the entire vibe. No announcements interrupting your day. No photographers chasing you down, no main dining room, no specialty dining, no cruise director, no art auctions, no hard-sell. It's the most relaxing & fun cruise we've ever been on.

If your main concern is cost, stop wasting your time. It's not gonna get any cheaper.

[cantgetin]

On 1/11/2023 at 11:27 AM, MeganGC1983 said:

They have single supplement sales occasionally. 

THey waived single supplements for bookings made during a 2 month time in 2022, then it was gone for about 10 days and suddenly reappeared.  Stated dates for various promotions to end have a way of being extended...

[Saint Greg]

14 minutes ago, CineGraphic said:

 

The big difference is the entire vibe. No announcements interrupting your day. No photographers chasing you down, no main dining room, no specialty dining, no cruise director, no art auctions, no hard-sell. It's the most relaxing & fun cruise we've ever been on.

If your main concern is cost, stop wasting your time. It's not gonna get any cheaper.

None of that really bothers me. The art isn’t even on the newer ships. I like having a CD. The announcements don’t bother me. Photographers don’t chase me down. 
 

I guess we’ll see how long VV survives with 800 people cruising on a 2,700 passenger ship. 
 

[conandrob240]

16 minutes ago, CineGraphic said:

 

The big difference is the entire vibe. No announcements interrupting your day. No photographers chasing you down, no main dining room, no specialty dining, no cruise director, no art auctions, no hard-sell. It's the most relaxing & fun cruise we've ever been on.

If your main concern is cost, stop wasting your time. It's not gonna get any cheaper.

100% agree. It’ll be tough to cruise on any other line. It was just so relaxing, so fun, so elegant. Perfect cruise!

[cantgetin]

Whether the "bar tab" or the "drink package" is a better deal depends totally on how you drink.  My normal cruise companion and I are light drinkers.  There  is no way we would make a typical package worthwhile with our normal intake of a glass of wine at dinner and a cocktail sometime during the day.  Depending on the cruise line, drink packages are typically $80-130 pp per day, and then add 18-20% gratuity on top of that.  The bar tab is $300, gives you an addition  promo amount of $50-125 when it isn't just added as a freebie with booking, includes the gratuity, and the drinks are typically cheaper than other lines.  And we can share one bar tab.  VV already includes soda, water, brewed coffee and tea (not the garbage from syrup), so that leaves specialty coffees and smoothies in addition to alcohol.  We had a status match on our last cruise which included $10 credit per cabin per day at The Grounds Club.

If you are drinking 8-10 alcoholic beverages per day, the beverage package on  other lines might be a better deal for you.

[cantgetin]

5 minutes ago, conandrob240 said:

100% agree. It’ll be tough to cruise on any other line. It was just so relaxing, so fun, so elegant. Perfect cruise!

Exactly.  I didn't realize how nice "no kids" would be until I experienced it.  We  did 3 booking on board deals!  For those criticizing the cost, shop carefully.  We cruised for just under $100 pp per night in a balcony cabin...and that included the tips, wifi, and sodas.  Many short cruises are more than double that, but deals are out there if you look for them.

[AmyJA]

Megan...please come back and give us the full peak!  The kids are havin a argument!😊  

[Saint Greg]

9 minutes ago, cantgetin said:

Whether the "bar tab" or the "drink package" is a better deal depends totally on how you drink.  My normal cruise companion and I are light drinkers.  There  is no way we would make a typical package worthwhile with our normal intake of a glass of wine at dinner and a cocktail sometime during the day.  Depending on the cruise line, drink packages are typically $80-130 pp per day, and then add 18-20% gratuity on top of that.  The bar tab is $300, gives you an addition  promo amount of $50-125 when it isn't just added as a freebie with booking, includes the gratuity, and the drinks are typically cheaper than other lines.  And we can share one bar tab.  VV already includes soda, water, brewed coffee and tea (not the garbage from syrup), so that leaves specialty coffees and smoothies in addition to alcohol.  We had a status match on our last cruise which included $10 credit per cabin per day at The Grounds Club.

If you are drinking 8-10 alcoholic beverages per day, the beverage package on  other lines might be a better deal for you.

Again I only can speak for carnival but is like $60/day if you buy it before you board the ship ($54 for me). They do add gratuity to the cost of the package. The package includes everything. Sports drinks, energy drinks, coffee, milkshakes, and alcohol. If you’re drinking at the alchemy bar you can break even in 5 drinks.

 

I don’t quite understand what makes a bar tab better than just paying per drink. Do you get some sort of discount?

[MeganGC1983]

5 hours ago, AtSeaWithChris said:

Does anyone know if the doors are magnetic and does Virgin allow for door decorations?

Magnetic for sure. I’ve only seen one door decorated 

[MeganGC1983]

10 minutes ago, AmyJA said:

Megan...please come back and give us the full peak!  The kids are havin a argument!😊  

😆😆

[MeganGC1983]

Ok ok ppl. I had a day… I’ll catch you up. st croix was beautiful but I’m at test kitchen and.., cocktail pairing with corn. This is a gun cocktail with corn 

[cantgetin]

18 minutes ago, Saint Greg said:

 

 

I don’t quite understand what makes a bar tab better than just paying per drink. Do you get some sort of discount?

Yes, depending on the current promotion, for each $300 bar tab you purchase, you will receive $50-$125 applied to the tab.  So on our most recent cruise, you could purchase the tab for $300 and have $400 show up on your account to be used.   The other thing that makes a bar tab better is the ability to share it.  On Princess, all people of drinking age in a cabin need to buy a drink package or no one gets it.  They do sometimes make exceptions for medical conditions.  On Virgin, if my partner drinks alcohol but I don't, we can buy one bar tab for the cabin and I can use it for a smoothie or cold pressed juice if I wish while my partner can use the same tab for alcohol.  So we buy 1 tab at $300, have $400 applied to the account that we can share.

 

Most recently the promotion has been a FREE $300 bar tab with cruises of less than 7 days, $600 with cruises of 7-15 days, and that was on top of any other current deals like rebooking on board.  This is good on bookings made thru 1/31/2023  and applies to cruises thru 2023 as well as a few cruises in 2024!   November was declared "Food and drink month" and each cabin booked included a $300 bar tab at no cost.  If you do these bookings with the free bar tab, you can still purchase additional bar tabs with the current $50 bonus.  The bonus amount changes regularly; I've never seen it less than $50 or more than $125  (other than when totally free)

 

Edited January 19, 2023 by cantgetin

[MeganGC1983]

so this morning.., got off the ship…

[MeganGC1983]

There’s a whole shopping area and a free beach. It was super dirt. 

[MeganGC1983]

So we took a $5 taxi to Rainbow beach and it was excellent. Living all my beach and butt in the sand dreams. 

[MeganGC1983]

$5 taxi ride and we walK wAY down. Found a tree and shade. And lots of lizards.