Seriously!! Where are all the Seriously Suites? (Brilliant Lady Los Angeles)

[TYCruise]

 Woke up this morning to book a Seriously or Brilliant Suite on the 7 day LA voyage and the site shows them as all sold out!  All three categories of Cheeky and Sweet-afts were available as were all of the mega categories.

 

It still shows this on the website almost 20 hours later.

 

What gives? Could they really have all been booked that fast, even though all the other suites categories are still available?

 

Wondering if I should wait to book...🤔

Edited May 9 by TYCruise

[Lustate]

12 minutes ago, TYCruise said:

 

What gives? Could they really have all been booked that fast, even though all the other suites categories are still available?

 

Wondering if I should wait to book...🤔

It has been rumoured for a while now that a new suite type is coming out so maybe they have not released them yet, and will be more coming down the line when they confirm them on scarlet after the dry dock and on brilliant?

 

The other options is less favourable, and I really think VV should be stepping in on this. 
 

Sadly some agents go in and hold as many suites as they can. This blocks people who want to book direct getting suites, and forces people to book via an agent who will gain 16% commission per cabin or suite. 

[CruisingWalter]

One - this would have been a great reason to use a travel advisor, especially a Top 100 or Gold Certified First Mate. Many of them were up at 3am booking Brilliant cruises when the inventory came online. Everything was available for the first hour or so. The Panama Canal suites went first.

 

Sadly there are travel agents and agencies who go in and put down deposits on as many suites as they can to block them out from everyone else.  Then they can offer them 'exclusively.' If they don't sell them by final payment date, they will be released back into inventory.

 

I've complained about this to VV multiple times because there are VERY limited suites on the Ladyships. Allowing agents to simply grab and prevent people who actually want to book these cabins is wrong. But as of now, they continue to allow agents to do this. It's especially prevalent in the Caribbean where you'll see a standard sailing with all of the Cheeky Corner Suites gone because those are the most popular. For the most part they're just being held by TAs to resell them. 

 

To be fair, all cruise lines allow agents to put down deposits on pretty much any cabin on any cruise ship to hold them until final payment, but with the Ladyships there is such limited inventory because there are only 3, soon to be 4 of them. 

 

On the flip side of that, there are approx. 100k agents in North America alone who sell VV. So it is entirely possible that those suites were actually sold because there's only 2 LA voyages. Mexican Riviera and California Coastal. 3 counting the reposition up to Vancouver.

 

I would keep an eye on a future itinerary release because I would expect Brilliant Lady to come back to LA for about 4 weeks in Sept/Oct 2026 before she goes back through the Canal for the winter season in Miami. I'm hoping they have 1 Hawaii run. That would be a fun ship for the LA to Hawaii cruise.

[CruisingWalter]

5 hours ago, Lustate said:

It has been rumoured for a while now that a new suite type is coming out so maybe they have not released them yet, and will be more coming down the line when they confirm them on scarlet after the dry dock and on brilliant?

 

My Sailors on the Scarlet Transatlantic said they were told that Scarlet is going to get some new indoor Suite lounges and possibly a restaurant. That's the number one complaint I get from Rockstars and Mega Rockstars. Richard's Rooftop is near useless when it's windy and besides that there's not a whole lot of incentive for Rockstars. Especially if you're not going to Bimini.

 

The included Bar is nice, the Rockstar Agent is nice, but there is no indoor lounge or restaurant specific to the Suite guests. Folks are used to The Retreat, The Haven, The Yacht Club and soon The Sanctuary on Princess. So much is included with VV, there's not much to distinguish the "Suite Experience" from the rest of the Sailors. Now if those crewmembers were correct, it looks like VV will be making a distinction. And since Brilliant is a year away from launch, we have to expect that the same changes would be made to her as well. 

 

But this is all rumor until Scarlet comes out of drydock in October. 

[Lustate]

7 minutes ago, CruisingWalter said:

Richard's Rooftop is near useless when it's windy and besides that there's not a whole lot of incentive for Rockstars. 

 

100% back this view up on the rooftop. As soon as a breeze picks up (something the rest of the ship would not even notice) the rooftop becomes a wind tunnel. Two simple "I bar" steels and awnings, and they could have a covered frontage and more wind defence right around to the "bouncy" type beds.

 

Our rockstar agent was amazing (hi Mel if you read this!), and her, the sunset hour, and the in room bar are the only suite things I want. If i could buy an XL and an "upgrade" to a "rockstar on tour" etc we would drop another £250 a night on a standard Xl without thinking. 

[Jamesv281117]

2 hours ago, CruisingWalter said:

One - this would have been a great reason to use a travel advisor, especially a Top 100 or Gold Certified First Mate. Many of them were up at 3am booking Brilliant cruises when the inventory came online. Everything was available for the first hour or so. The Panama Canal suites went first.

 

Sadly there are travel agents and agencies who go in and put down deposits on as many suites as they can to block them out from everyone else.  Then they can offer them 'exclusively.' If they don't sell them by final payment date, they will be released back into inventory.

 

I've complained about this to VV multiple times because there are VERY limited suites on the Ladyships. Allowing agents to simply grab and prevent people who actually want to book these cabins is wrong. But as of now, they continue to allow agents to do this. It's especially prevalent in the Caribbean where you'll see a standard sailing with all of the Cheeky Corner Suites gone because those are the most popular. For the most part they're just being held by TAs to resell them. 

 

To be fair, all cruise lines allow agents to put down deposits on pretty much any cabin on any cruise ship to hold them until final payment, but with the Ladyships there is such limited inventory because there are only 3, soon to be 4 of them. 

 

On the flip side of that, there are approx. 100k agents in North America alone who sell VV. So it is entirely possible that those suites were actually sold because there's only 2 LA voyages. Mexican Riviera and California Coastal. 3 counting the reposition up to Vancouver.

 

I would keep an eye on a future itinerary release because I would expect Brilliant Lady to come back to LA for about 4 weeks in Sept/Oct 2026 before she goes back through the Canal for the winter season in Miami. I'm hoping they have 1 Hawaii run. That would be a fun ship for the LA to Hawaii cruise.

Whatever explanation there is for travel agents putting down deposits on a huge amount of suites I think it is unfair and is good of you to raise that. Why can't it just be the case that agents have access to what is available at the time like everyone else?

[CineGraphic]

4 hours ago, CruisingWalter said:

But this is all rumor until Scarlet comes out of drydock in October. 

Anyone booked on deck 13 post drydock have been reassigned elsewhere. Make of that what you will.

[TYCruise]

And just like that the Seriously and Brilliant Suites have been released.  I called to upgrade and the agent said that there were "plenty" available.😃

[CruisingWalter]

On 5/9/2024 at 12:08 PM, CineGraphic said:

Anyone booked on deck 13 post drydock have been reassigned elsewhere. Make of that what you will.

 

Well that is quite interesting. After reading this I poked around a January 2025 sailing for Scarlet Lady and sure enough, absolutely no Sea Terraces can be booked on Deck 13. XL Sea Terrace, Sea Terrace or Central Sea Terrace. Cheeky Corner and Sweet Aft Suites are the only cabins available on Deck 13 to be booked at this time. Well that will be interesting to see if it's the entire deck that goes away or just the front section where the XL Sea Terraces are. 

[CineGraphic]

19 minutes ago, CruisingWalter said:

 

Well that is quite interesting. After reading this I poked around a January 2025 sailing for Scarlet Lady and sure enough, absolutely no Sea Terraces can be booked on Deck 13. XL Sea Terrace, Sea Terrace or Central Sea Terrace. Cheeky Corner and Sweet Aft Suites are the only cabins available on Deck 13 to be booked at this time. Well that will be interesting to see if it's the entire deck that goes away or just the front section where the XL Sea Terraces are. 

My “guess” is more suites and a concierge lounge.😉

[-The-True-North-]

VV can call this group of sailors "Opening Acts" or "Headliners".

 

Not a good as a rockstar, but better than the normies.

[jon81uk]

1 hour ago, -The-True-North- said:

VV can call this group of sailors "Opening Acts" or "Headliners".

 

Not a good as a rockstar, but better than the normies.

We don’t yet know what they are doing with the deck 13 cabins. It might be like the current thing for influencers of standard cabin but black bands, but my guess is they are refurbishing and redesigning cabins to turn them into some form of suite that they can charge even more of a premium for.

[CruisingWalter]

1 hour ago, jon81uk said:

but my guess is they are refurbishing and redesigning cabins to turn them into some form of suite that they can charge even more of a premium for.

 

Our Sailors on the Scarlet Transatlantic were told new indoor spaces for the Rockstars are coming when the ship comes out of drydock. That's the biggest complaint from Rockstars that come from other cruise lines. Other than the items in the cabin and Richard's Rooftop (when you can actually use it) there is not a lot separating the "Rockstars" from the "Sailors." They're looking for an indoor lounge and possibly a separate restaurant. 

[jon81uk]

22 minutes ago, CruisingWalter said:

 

Our Sailors on the Scarlet Transatlantic were told new indoor spaces for the Rockstars are coming when the ship comes out of drydock. That's the biggest complaint from Rockstars that come from other cruise lines. Other than the items in the cabin and Richard's Rooftop (when you can actually use it) there is not a lot separating the "Rockstars" from the "Sailors." They're looking for an indoor lounge and possibly a separate restaurant. 

yes I expect that is happening as well, but given the non-availability of deck 13 it does sound like something is happening with cabins there too.

 

I doubt they would do a rockstar only restaurant, but a dedicated bar/lounge with decent snacks would be good. Not sure where it would go. Maybe The Den event space. It does feel like a lot of deck 6&7 is utilitised so not much available space. 

[CruisingWalter]

7 hours ago, jon81uk said:

Maybe The Den event space. It does feel like a lot of deck 6&7 is utilitised so not much available space

 

The Den was converted to the WPT Poker room. I have no idea if anyone actually uses that space it was an odd idea and not very well executed. 

[jon81uk]

5 hours ago, CruisingWalter said:

 

The Den was converted to the WPT Poker room. I have no idea if anyone actually uses that space it was an odd idea and not very well executed. 

On Scarlet Lady the world poker room was removed, on the recent transatlantic the Den hosted a sewing activity and was also available for people to use as a quieter space for playing card and board games. 
Not sure if they’ve added poker to Valiant Lady instead. 
Having a space like the Den in theory makes sense to me as you may need meeting room space for corporate bookings or charters, but in practice I don’t think it is very well used. I think it’s the only really under-utilised space on deck 6/7 though.

[Lustate]

16 hours ago, CruisingWalter said:

Other than the items in the cabin and Richard's Rooftop (when you can actually use it) there is not a lot separating the "Rockstars" from the "Sailors." They're looking for an indoor lounge and possibly a separate restaurant. 

 

Maybe a lounge at the front by combining the spaces at the front of deck 13 below the bridge? Looking at the current layouts its just empty space (maybe storage). So option one could be to use that space better. Of course the IV bar never opened, so the other option could be there, but in real terms would people want that space, as its so low in the ship its far from the other rockstar facilities?

[Wildcatllamas]

I was just looking at the deck plans for Scarlet and with the majority of the suites on decks 14 and 15 I can't see why they wouldn't take the XL Sea Terraces and Sea Terraces on 14 and convert them over rather then going down one whole deck to 13.

[cantgetin]

We were given lots of "teasers" on the transatlantic, but it is all really a "wait and see."  I suspect the rockstar lounge is a reality.....maybe less so a full restaurant.  The 2 hammock sea terraces was an official announcement.  Totally agree that the suite experience on VV doesn't offer much compared to other lines.

 

There were issues in getting restaurant reservations even after boarding, which was quite different than our previous cruises.  The ship sailed at 2348 Sailors...the most of any cruise I've been on.  Previously we had no trouble with same day reservations or making changes as long as we were flexible with times.  On this sailing, we got waitlisted a couple of times and had them come thru, but no luck with showing up at 5:45 with fingers crossed (other than waitlist)

[CruisingWalter]

And just like that, Deck 13 is back for Scarlet Lady for post-drydock sailings with nothing changed on the deck plans at this time. So if there is a new Rockstar space, it won't be on Deck 13, at least not that's being shown currently. 

[CastleCritic]

If you haven't looked again, check now, I was playing around with the Panama cruise and started to see a few suites pop up (they look expensive to me but Im not a suite cruiser) and it looks like some have appeared on other sailings as well.