TechSurfer

Right now there are 3 or 4 bikes, three different styles. I think they’re TechnoGym. Only one of them has cleats, but it also has cages. The bike I used Friday had an expandable holder for a phone, landscape mode only. I didn’t try the holder; I crank away to music.

I’m on the Nova currently. I don’t think I’ve seen any tipping. Or wallets at all. Bringing additional tipping in seems antithetical to the relaxed luxury Silversea is about. But yeah, the food is very pretty, with very good ingredients, but under spiced/seasoned and slightly over-cooked even when you ask for otherwise. 10/10 for presentation, let down by aiming, I suspect, for food middle-America would be comfortable with. If you find the staff isn’t on their toes, talk to the hotel director. Tipping is the wrong answer. But, at least on the Nova for our first three days, everyone has been beyond reproach. My SO is giddy with the experience.

I'm well over half-a-century old. That change happened starting in the '60s and '70s, first as we destroyed all of our heroes and then as adults became more bratlike and less responsible than kids have been. And really it was overdue. If your "elders" are abusers, drug addicts, multiply-divorced parents or even just self-absorbed, why should their age garner them respect? But our (older) generation does get a disproportionate amount of respect, because we have most of the money.

In fairness, I'm on OneWorld's side on this. Those business practices were screwing it for everyone else.

Wow, I'm going to go against the grain here. We got a travel agent, a well regarded one. It's been terrible, largely because... She doesn't know as much as we can quickly research. She didn't know anything about the transfers the line provides. If I hadn't accidently found out about them, we'd be out a lot of extra time and money. Because she did the booking, SilverSea won't speak to us directly; we have to go through her for even the simplest of stuff. And her being a Virtuoso agent is not resulting in an automatic OBC; it seems dependent on how many Virtuoso customers are on-board. If you don't need the help with other arrangements, my experience here and elsewhere is that a TA often results in more pain than gain.

We booked an "Essentials" fare for the Alaska cruise, primarily because we couldn't get a good sense of what would be included in the regular Inclusive fare but expected most of our choices would be extra-cost anyhow. Silversea has remarkably little hard information on their website, and the travel agent we're trying out (who was well recommended here) is a complete disaster, a useless mess, so we've had to do the legwork ourselves. For example, we've booked: Helicopter glacier with dog sledding "Flight-Seeing" over the fjords Hovercraft I suspect, but couldn't verify, that the White Pass railway would have been "included", but it seemed less likely that these others would have been. And they do add a lot to the cost, but if we were going to pay anyhow...

The other answers are accurate and important. You want to be there as early as you can, because the WiFi doesn't work until inside the ship, and many events - including the exercise classes and the drinking games - fill up pretty quickly and only book via the app on the ship's wifi. But the answer to your specific question is, no problem showing up past your boarding slot. Don't push it too far; it can take 20 minutes just to drive around the "Port" to get to Virgin, so you could be half-a-block away and not able to get there.

Exactly that. And, to be fair to the respondants who pointed out how much better Virgin is than Norweigan or Royal Caribbean... I've never been on those or Carnival, because, again, exactly that - I can afford not to.

Not even remotely the point. The point is, it is (as I called it) diming us. Not that they aren't up-front about it. They don't hide it. But the reality of a thousand small cuts was annoying. All together, it didn't come to a lot of money. Hence the "dime" part, rather than being centuried.

Fascinating. We saw Ship Show three-ish days ago. It was one of our favorite shows. And the dinner was about the best we had on-board. (I had the chicken.) That's partly a commentary on how bad Razzle Dazzle was and how inconsistent the Galley, but it was good.

We just got off the Scarlett Lady. Our final invoice was quite long. Even espresso isn't included. (Drip coffee is, but come on, this isn't the 70s.). No concept of well cocktails. Many of the on-board activities are fee-based. If you're accustommed to mass-market cruises (e.g. NCL, RCL, Carnivale), this may not be a surprise. But this was the opposite of the Paul Gaugin, for example.

I'm on Scarlett right now. We did make some reservations, but also... Walk-ins are decently common. Not always available, but sometimes. Having a reservation doesn't guarantee that their app will recognize it at the restaurant. (My worst experience on the ship so far was a snotty and incorrect Matre'd. I made him call a manager.) Some of the shows (e.g. Ship Show) include dinner. And it was pretty good actually. Regardless of reservations, room service is decent (and one of the very few things Virgin doesn't dime you for), and the Galley is often open. Although... from 11:30am to noon, you have almost no options. I think the choice was a few breakfast options - eggs and chicken sausage. Because the menus are switching over and lunch starts at noon. I personally despise the normal cruise-ship assigned seating-and-time thing. Hate it. This is more like being in a nice city... make reservations for fine dining, nip out for something fast or order delivery.

Just ate at Test Kitchen Thursday. It wasn't that communal. More like eating at a sushi bar.

The porters at Miami, or at least the one of the twenty that we dealt with, was aggressive. Something like, "You don't have to tip, I'm not saying you have to tip, but it is up to you." I tipped. $5. If he hadn't said that, I wouldn't have tipped because I thought one point of Virgin was to be tip-free. So, in that sense, the open mouth gets the worm. But regardless, our luggage barely made it on-ship. Fortunately it was iTagged. Shortly before boarding, I sent Sailer Services after it. My guess is, a cart wound up off to the side. As for avoiding the porters, I wouldn't. I'd prefer they be less aggressive about the tip, but you're going to be hauling those bags through the line and multiple checkpoints into floor 4 (I think) of the ship. If you've let the porter handle those, you just have your purse or backpack and can nip off for a drink or the view instead of having to go find your room and drop the bag off.

Not about shorts and definitely not about jeans, but hats are a huge issue in certain U.S. based sub-cultures. They are used essentially for tribal identity and often result in physical fights or worse. These are not issues for the demographic and style of Virgin Voyages, but I would expect Carnivale, for example, to be vigilant about it.