VV App - Not that bad???

[lesters]

I am not sure if I was just lucky but after reading so many comments about how terrible and frustrating the app is to book your dining reservations I was super nervous when our date opened up.   My experience worked out quite well so wanted to share...

 

In anticipation of them opening I was on the app the day before around 9:30 pm my local time which was 11:30 EST.  Someone on the FB  group had posted that Dining was open so I logged on to check.   The dining did appear to be live but when I tried to select a restaurant nothing would happen.  I thought to myself - oh here is the PITA app I've heard so much about.  I left it alone and then about 10/15 minutes later I went back in and low and behold the options were fully loaded.   If you use Open Table for dining reservations it looks and feels a lot like that app.   I was able to scroll to each day of the sailing and our ideal time and shows you what restaurants are available.  Click on what works for you and boom you are confirmed!

I just went in to have a look at how the reservations are looking now for our sailing (May 12th French Daze & Ibiza Nights) and there is a lot already booked but I could still make reservations for the two of us IF we didn't have any yet.  I also adjusted one of our reservations after I realized it was scarlet night - we tend to like an 8:00 booking but on that night I have us in a bit earlier. 

 

All the bookings are showing up in my agenda and after I made them they also went into my hubby's agenda as well.

 

Unsure if improvements have been made to the system or not but I did not have any of the frustrations that have been vented about so many times on here.

 

35 sleeps until we sail 🙂 but who's counting LOL (ummm me I am!!)

[Watchmen]

The app isn’t great but not nearly as bad as many make it seem. 

[jon81uk]

I agree, it’s slow off the ship and doesn’t flow through remembering the people selected well but it’s fine. The only time I had a serious issue it was because accounts got duplicated in the back end so was a system issue not an app issue.

[cantgetin]

It is a lot better on board.....

[CruisingWalter]

I will say you were lucky. I'm still hearing from Sailors who are spending 3 hours or more trying to get dining reservations.  The dining usually comes online around 11:45p ET, though sometimes as early as 11:30. 

 

We have had our TA book the reservations for us lately because when the booking engine works (it can be as flaky as the app sometimes) they can get our reservations done in a few minutes. Glad it worked for you, but you are an exception at the moment. 🙂

[bdever]

The app had me up all night and in tears a month ago.

[lesters]

4 hours ago, CruisingWalter said:

I will say you were lucky. I'm still hearing from Sailors who are spending 3 hours or more trying to get dining reservations.  The dining usually comes online around 11:45p ET, though sometimes as early as 11:30. 

 

We have had our TA book the reservations for us lately because when the booking engine works (it can be as flaky as the app sometimes) they can get our reservations done in a few minutes. Glad it worked for you, but you are an exception at the moment. 🙂

That is wild!  Hmmm I wish I had some advice or insight for those that are having a tough time.  I will be grateful though that it worked, and continued to work easily even when I went back in and booked a brunch reservation for our Sea Day at the Wake that I forgot to do.

@CruisingWalter thanks for all the great information you have provided here and on your channel.  With there being so much less out there compared to a line like Carnival I don't think I'd be half as prepared as I am without your valuable insight.  I hope to repay the great insight of this board with some posts along the way - won't be live but hope to find some time to share some thoughts throughout the sailing and then a review at the conclusion. 

[lesters]

57 minutes ago, bdever said:

The app had me up all night and in tears a month ago.

That is HORRIBLE.  I am really counting myself lucky - I was prepared for an awful experience but thankfully it was not. 

 

Now here's hoping all works when we actually board 😉

I do check daily to ensure everything has remained in place.

[calimn]

I am on pacific time, so checked about 5 pm the day before and could see it was populated but times grayed out. Expected I would sign up at 9:00. At 8:05 pm I checked again and was able to grab all my reservations for 2. So almost an hour early. So my advice you might want to check a bit earlier. We sail May 19 from Barcelona 

[zumbaqueen1]

What is the time range for dinner reservations?

[calimn]

3 hours ago, zumbaqueen1 said:

What is the time range for dinner reservations?

If you are asking how far ahead ours were 45 days ahead. It will tell you what day on the app ( I think once past final payment). They open at 12am eastern time that day

 

[zumbaqueen1]

12 hours ago, calimn said:

If you are asking how far ahead ours were 45 days ahead. It will tell you what day on the app ( I think once past final payment). They open at 12am eastern time that day

 

Thank you I should have formed the question better… I do appreciate this information and possibly can you let me know the earliest time slots available for dinner reservations? 

[cantgetin]

Time slots are generally 6p - 9:45p for seating.

[jon81uk]

32 minutes ago, zumbaqueen1 said:

Thank you I should have formed the question better… I do appreciate this information and possibly can you let me know the earliest time slots available for dinner reservations? 

First slot available now is 5.45pm with the latest 9.45pm

[Lustate]

The app back in 2021, before the first sailings, was really bad, but they have tried and made both the pre-sailing and onboard app much better. Yes there are issues when people try and all bounce to book dining at the same time, but that is just like when people all try and book concert tickets at the same time. stuff goes down and its just a fact of life.

[cantgetin]

Got an email last night from my sis who is on the ship now.  Full cruise, likely as her original was one of the canceled ones, and this is same cruise 2 weeks later.  She said biggest problem is that the app "keeps going down,"  initially "would not work at all." and SS attributes this to full cruise. 

Here is her comment on the bracelet....

 

Oh, another little glitch.  When I left the boat yesterday, my wearable crashed 4 of their tablets.  I held up the line leaving for at least 5 minutes. When I got back on we went to sailor services to get a new wearable and crashed that tablet.  They called IT.  They came and couldn’t get things solved.  So I have a new wearable that does everything fine until I try to leave or get on the ship.  It no longer crashes the tablet, just gives an error message that they can clear.  When I leave, the guys that don’t know the situation freak out and call somebody and the guys that know me just wave me through.  It’s kind of funny. 

 Figures that this would happen to  a passenger with a master's in computer programming....

[Gretchendz]

On 4/7/2024 at 11:55 AM, cantgetin said:

It is a lot better on board.....

Many people feel this is true. I am on Princess right now and I am WISHING for the Virgin  app.

[lesters]

Well I will report back in a month!  
 

it’s wild to me that our usual line - ye old Walmart of the Seas lol - has a fantastic app that is really quite functional when on board.  Will be an interesting comparison I’m sure!

[JCruise85]

It's gotten a lot better since our first sailing in March 2022. I literally couldn't even use it the first day and when I went to their IT person they couldn't figure it out either. 

Turns out the solution was literally hitting an invisible button on a random point on the screen. 

[CruisingWalter]

On 4/8/2024 at 11:58 AM, lesters said:

CruisingWalter thanks for all the great information you have provided here and on your channel.

 

Thanks so much for the kind words. I'm so glad the information has been helpful!

[lesters]

Ok had my first annoying glitch lol - looking at « Shore Things » and on a couple of the days it kept bringing up the wrong port info.  Lol. So if I was seriously looking to book a VV excursion on those days I would be annoyed.  I was just having a peek as I get twitchy on the days leading up to our sailing.  Lol 

[kruzgal]

When you are booking on the app can you book for more people than are in your party? We are considering booking and joining our son and partner but want to be able to dine with them. Our bookings will be separate and I worry we won’t be able to get reservations together as a result. Thanks.

[jon81uk]

1 hour ago, kruzgal said:

When you are booking on the app can you book for more people than are in your party? We are considering booking and joining our son and partner but want to be able to dine with them. Our bookings will be separate and I worry we won’t be able to get reservations together as a result. Thanks.

Yep you can link the bookings (or get TA to do it) and will then be able to book others for meals. Also linking will give a bottle of sparkling wine for each cabin.

[cantgetin]

VV tech is probably their second biggest problem, but since the first involves relatively few cruisers, we won't go there.

TV goes out mid-movie and no one can get it working again, App goes down and servers put on their polite "grin and bear it " faces.  
My favorite was our ghost.  At random intervals, with no one near a tablet or other device, our curtains would open or close.  On our second cruise, we had a high level supervisor in our room to deal with an issue that others hadn't been able to figure out.  He was leaving as the ghost struck.  He asked if I did "that," and I explained that it was "our ghost."  We explained and he asked if he could send the repair person the next day...with many comments about how "It is NOT supposed to be that way."

[kruzgal]

10 hours ago, jon81uk said:

Yep you can link the bookings (or get TA to do it) and will then be able to book others for meals. Also linking will give a bottle of sparkling wine for each cabin.

Thanks for this. Out of interest how easy would it be to book a table for 5 people at the 45 days ahead release? I really don’t want to spend a lot of money and then find we are left not able to try the different restaurants. It is the one thing that is putting me off this trip.