Travel and Leisure
Ok, so how was it you ask? In a word, awesome. You could stop reading right now if you wanted to, but I'll document some of our experience here for those that might be interested in a future cruise with Virgin Voyages (VV). Since
we've only been on one other cruise (with Celebrity) that's all we have to compare against, but from what we know, the other operators are pretty similar to Celebrity. Virgin on the other hand, seems like they try to do everything differently than the others; the no children allowed thing is definitely one that works for us.
Why Virgin Voyages?
Let's start with why we booked with VV in the first place. After our Alaska cruise with Celebrity, we were both open to the idea of cruising again, and she wanted to get away for the winter. As we always do, both of us subscribe to various travel deal emails and websites, and this offer came across her inbox. This particular cruise attracted us because it started/ended in San Juan, Puerto Rico; other cruises will make the long crossing from Florida. It also had Cartagena and other islands that we both hadn't been to, so that was enticing. VV had a special promo (there is always something being offered), but this one seemed pretty good: free upgrade to "Sea Terrace" (balcony), with a "
Lock-It-In" rate of around $210 CDN per night (that's US$150 for those down South).
Unlike other cruise operators that nickel-and-dime you to death,
VV has way more inclusions, as this price included tips, Wi-Fi and ALL the dining venues. While we don't have a lot of experience with ocean cruising, from what we've seen, this is pretty good pricing.
Drinks onboard
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| Decent juice and soft drinks included |
VV doesn't offer drink packages, but has "bar tab" options that you can pre-pay that will give you additional bonus for bevvies. e.g. If you buy $300, you'll get $50 bonus tab.
You can read more about the bar tab options here. Also, the prices for drinks are almost 1/2 of what you end up paying à la carte with other operators; e.g. a Heineken beer was US$7, with no additional tax (if at sea) or tip. I think a beer was US$10 on Celebrity, plus mandator 20% tip. So before actually stepping foot on the ship, value for dollar with VV is already very good!
With the
RFID sailor bands we wore, buying drinks was a 2-second affair, versus the paper-based chit that I had to sign every time I ordered a drink on Celebrity. Additionally, soda pop was available from the fountain machines free of charge, whereas Celebrity charged for cans of Coke etc. And while the Celebrity juice machine was free, it was heavily watered-down, versus the juice on VV was very good. As a self-proclaimed coffee snob, I was ok with the drip coffee on VV from the machines in The Galley; I had to supplement the weak coffee on Celebrity with my Starbucks VIA instant pouches that I bring everywhere.
Dining venues
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| The Wake steakhouse was very nice |
This is an area where Virgin excels. The traditional cruise operators usually offer the main dining room and buffet as the only two included options for dinner with the base fares, and higher categories of rooms and/or extra charges allow you to eat at the specialty restaurants. With VV,
all of the restaurants are included, except one dinner show ($50 for Another Rose) where entertainment and "continuous" drinks are offered.
Even
The Galley offers a different take on the traditional buffet experience. You can opt for table service by raising the flag on the menu, and your à la carte selections will be delivered to your table. This failed on me the first morning when I ordered a traditional eggs n' bacon breakfast. After 30 minutes of waiting, I gave up and grabbed a toasted bagel; I think this was an anomaly, as we did not see this happen to others. Most of the kiosks offered a grab-n-go option (e.g. breakfast croissant), but if you ordered something, they'd give you a vibrating puck to alert you when your choice is ready. The only downside to this model, is that if you didn't manage to make a reso for dinner, there was only one entrée offered at The Galley for your meal choice.
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| Filet Mignon at The Wake |
The five restaurants on board offered a great variety of cuisine, and the food was absolutely incredible. I'm not going to review each one, but my comment to others has been that the filet mignon at
The Wake would have been a $100 meal at a steakhouse in Vancouver. You do need to
make reservations, which start long before you get on board, so that is something to plan on. We typically ate at the early seating around 6 pm, so that we had time to get to the 8 pm show.
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| Gunbae Korean BBQ |
At
Gunbae, the Korean barbeque, dinner takes longer than the rest, but is a fun experience that we found worthwhile; don't plan on getting to the early show after. The only restaurant that we didn't go to was the
Test Kitchen. The menu was too eclectic for her tastes, and from what I saw, we didn't miss anything. Besides the meals at the other restaurants were so amazing, we got to try them most of them twice (three times at
Extra Virgin); we cancelled our second night at Gunbae, as the menu was too seafood-heavy for her. I would have liked one more night at
Razzle Dazzle just to try the fried chicken.
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| The Pizza Place for casual eats |
Then in addition to the not-a-buffet Galley and the dinner restaurants, there are a handful of other places to get small bites, like made-to-order zas at
The Pizza Place (decent), or the
Sun Club Café for beef short rib bao buns (delicious) or poke bowls. We never got a chance to try the Greek food offered late afternoon at
The Dock, for fear of filling up too much before dinner.
Of course there were cold treats too, with the
Lick Me Till Ice Cream joint, and the frozen juice popsicles available (with or without champagne) at Pop Star in The Galley. The burgers at The Galley Burger Bar were actually pretty good, and a couple of times, we didn't get a chance to eat lunch on shore, and split one once we got back to the ship. Bento Baby always had fresh cut fruit options set out in reusable bento boxes, as well as sushi rolls (just ok) later in the day; other bento boxes were placed at the entrance to The Galley with other grab n' go choices.
We did have a couple of disappointing lunches there when she and I had not-very-good meals from Noodle Around and Let's Taco Bout It, respectively. The made-to-order eggs lineup for breakfast at the Burger Bar was also usually pretty long, but you could get what we call "Fast Track" (scrambled eggs meal) at one of the other kiosks. Aside from that, and my first morning waiting for my order, we didn't really have any other negative meal experiences on VV.
Ship spaces
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| The main pool was rarely full |
The first thing that regular cruisers will notice is the distinct VV overall ship design. Modern-looking, all
four ships in the Virgin fleet are identical, and lack the large open atrium that most other ships feature. Instead, the ship has many smaller venues and spaces, each with a unique style and flair.
In the afternoons and evenings, performers play and/or sing different styles of music in these areas, and you simply choose the one that suits your style. Since VV is so new, their ships look modern and inviting, versus some of the older ships that other operators haven't updated recently. Some complain about the size of the pool, but aside from the parties (see below), we never saw the pool near capacity.
Our room seemed spacious due to the design and light colours used, but the bathroom was pretty small; we've had larger ones on our river cruises. The room had modern features as well as the standard inclusions like fridge, hair dryer and on-demand TV. I particularly liked the "Bimini Beach Vibes" music channel, which hit my 80s genre on the nose! The remote controlled curtains and lights only seemed to work if you had opened or closed them with the app on the tablet. e.g. if you had turned on the lights with the switch, you couldn't turn them off with the tablet. As noted, we were upgraded to the
Sea Terrace room as part of the promo for our booking, yet we did not use it that often. It was often too hot, and the other parts of the ship received better air flow to keep us cool (the 7th floor deck with the comfy blue couches is recommended). The signature red hammock was not that comfortable, as it tended to push your shoulders in, so wasn't great for extended periods of time.
Entertainment and parties
Another way that VV excels is the shows that they offer. Unlike other operators that will run a given show twice (early and late seatings), VV will offer a few nights of each, in smaller venues than the massive 2,000 seat theatres on other ships. As such, performers are often on stages that are literally right in front of you, sometimes brushing by as they transition between dances (e.g.
Persephone). We only saw one performance that was average (Mind Mangler), and the rest were good to outstanding. We particularly enjoyed
Lola's Library and Persephone - both offer dancing and acrobatics that you might see at a Cirque du Soleil show.
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| Staff couldn't pour champagne fast enough |
We also enjoyed a couple of the party nights on board, specifically
Let's Set Sail and Scarlet Night. On the first night, as you sail away (technically we were still docked), champagne pours freely for about 2 hours at the main pool, as the Happenings Cast dances and gets everyone moving. It was a great way to meet some of our fellow sailors, and swill some cheap bubbles.
By the time
Scarlet Night rolled around, most folks had met new friends and despite not getting free drinks, the mood was electric! Sailors from all walks of life were dancing in the pool or swaying on the deck. There were other theme nights (
PJ party and
Klub Rubiks) that we did not attend, and we thought they missed an opportunity by not hosting these events by the pool as well.
In general, I think the demographics on VV swing a little younger than other operators, but can't say for sure, as we're comparing against an Alaskan itinerary with Celebrity, which definitely attracts a different audience than the Caribbean. Additionally, VV seemed quite popular with gay cruisers; guys we met and got to know that have done 12 VV trips said that the ratio can be even as high as 50%. With these factors combined, I think that the sailors on Virgin were more fun than other operators, but obviously a subjective opinion.
Staff and service
We found that pretty much everyone that worked on board was friendly and attentive. Our cabin steward was available almost immediately; select "Ice" on the tablet in the room and a few minutes later, he'd show up. The service we received in the restaurants was great, with the one exception I had in The Galley waiting for eggs. Any time we were in port, the crew was busy maintaining the ship; re-lacquering the wooden staircases, cleaning the decks and making sure the common spaces were in tip-top shape. By contrast, our Celebrity ship was in dire need of maintenance; sure it was old compared to the
Resilient Lady, but some things didn't need to wait until dry dock to take care of. We did have one substantial issue that was not handled well by the
Shore Things staff (refund request for an excursion that went horribly wrong), but other than that, 5 stars for the ship staff.
One thing that we found out about late in the cruise, was that the
Happenings Cast (that replace the traditional Cruise Director and Entertainment Coordinator) engage with sailors on a more one-on-one level, and sometimes invite selected individuals/couples to private parties and mini-events. This typically only happened if you met and chatted up one or more of the cast early on during the cruise, and then randomly, a note will be slid under your door inviting you to some special event. It doesn't happen a lot, and the couple that we met that have done 12 cruises have never been invited to one of these. We did meet however, a couple who had bid on a
Mega Rockstar stateroom, and so had access to services and spaces that the rest of us $150-a-night sailors didn't have. It also gave them access to free drinks and services like laundry and some more things that
standard Rockstar sailors. Both Rockstar categories get a Rockstar Agent assigned to them, which is basically like a butler/concierge. Need a dinner reservation? No problem. Change your booking for something? Taken care of. While these services come at a hefty price, this might be something that certain folks are looking for.
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| The Resilient Lady sails away from San Juan |
Anyhow, as you can probably tell, we think VV is a great ocean cruising operator for the reasons stated above. Yes, the Caribbean had more desirable ports of call than our Alaska cruise, but I'm not comparing destinations here. We would be looking to book again with Virgin, but with only four ships, their options and frequency for places we want to go are somewhat limited.
One last parting note, is that if you want to make the most of a Virgin Voyages cruise, at least one person in your party needs to be somewhat smartphone savvy. Everything you do, from booking restaurants, to seeing who's playing at the Dock and almost everything else is done through the VV app. And as mentioned, room things are done using your tablet, like requesting more towels or changing the channel on your TV.
