RBCal

Amphora is good usually. I've found the vegetarian mains consistently good. The green beans and carrots are often undercooked. Asparagus is great.  Butter is a bit over the top in some sauces and sugar is also in the desserts.

After eating in Stella and Candles I have changed my mind. Those restaurants are excellent though some entrees and desserts are more to my taste. For longer cruises the menu is a bit repetitious too.  The Windstar staff are all excellent. I don't know how they can work so quickly and efficiently. Windstar's best selling point is it's flexibility in going to smaller and more interesting ports. The giant cruise ships are best suited to young families who want a Disney theme park like experience.

I am currently on a Windstar cruise in the Caribbean. I previously took a Tahiti cruise which was among the best I have taken of the dozen or so I've done on other cruise lines.  In comparison to my earlier Windstar Tahiti cruise there is a remarkable decline in both the food quality and service. Unless I see a remarked improvement in the next 12 days I doubt I'll take a third.

I'll probably see you disembarking next Saturday.  We'll be in St. Maarten a few days before we board on March 9th.

In case anyone else is interested in a Le Barthelemy day tour following is info

Conde Naste Celebrating Seven Years in a Row!
With immense joy and gratitude, we are thrilled to share some truly remarkable news. For the seventh consecutive year, Le Barthélemy Hotel & Spa has been recognized as one of the Top 5 Best Resorts in the Caribbean in the prestigious Condé Nast Traveler Readers’ Choice Awards. Notably, we have also been named the #1 Resort in the Caribbean in 2018, 2020, and 2022

Le Barthelemy is a bargain then.  Two drinks and lunch is included for $400.  It' rated #1 on Grand Cul-de-Sac on TripAdvisor.  I'll be sure to wear my ripped jeans and t-shirts.  The reaction I get from snobs will be a lot of fun.

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g147341-d10898501-Reviews-Le_Barthelemy_Hotel_Spa-Grand_Cul_de_Sac_St_Barthelemy.html

Has anyone done a day trip excursion to Le Barthelemy?  It's offered on a my upcoming cruise.  Since it's rated as the best hotel in the Caribbean and costs over 2K a night I'm wondering if it's worth the money to check out the hype.

A good rockstar agent will get you into every restaurant and show whenever you want.  I found it embarrassing to be escorted to the front of the long lines for shows.

Miss Behave and Duel Reality are must sees.

I guess I should post my wallet. Premium wifi is $30 a day for slow service

It's $30 a day which is the only amount I purchased.  I had to have faster speed for an international call.  At a maximum speed of 8 Mbps the premium wifi is outrageously overpriced IMHO.  

Any data intensive needs I use my cell phone as a hot spot in the ports.  The TV selections are extremely limited and the signal drops in and out.  The Virgin App crashes repeatedly.  VV needs to upgrade their wifi and recode the app.  Everyone complains about the app crashing repeatedly.  

If you are satisfied with the poor service it will never improve.

Whatever, I'm on the ship now.  I believe people should have the most recent info.  I will sail with Virgin again but it's not my first choice due to it's limited port options.  I prefer smaller ships with interesting itineraries.  To each their own.

 Cool. I love to pay 100x over cost.  Sir Richard

sure needs the money

FYI

The Galley does not have diet coke.  Our flag server had to run midship to get it.

Gunbae does not have iced tea.  Since it's like 40C in Spain who would drink hot tea?

Since I don't drink I'm not a connoisseur of every bar on the ship.  I'm sure they are full of loud people who think they are fascinating tho.

I forgot to declare that I have zero financial interests in Google besides being an owner of mutual funds which buy their stock.  

I won't make many comments just post my personal data from using the free and 'premium' WiFi services on Valiant Lady

Free Internet  speed is <4Mbps 

'Premium' Internet speed is <8Mbps

Over 3 year old Pixel 6 Google Fi personal hotspot Internet speed is <1Gps

So the $150 per week 'premium' wifi is only twice as fast as the free wifi but my 3yo cell phone is over 100X faster as a hotspot than Virgin's server.  My cell phone could provide wifi service to over 100 people at a cost of $1 each per month.

I won't be flying on Virgin Galactic anytime soon.  Their technology is basically stone age.

Okay, I'm a convert.  Gunbae is excellent and all the staff are fantasic.  The manager escorted us to a private table and we had no peer pressure to drink.  Most everyone on Virgin likes drinking and since we don't they are not as experienced with dealing with sober living folk.

I don't mind anyone else drinking but nobody should be pressured into partaking.  Every 'prize' at the shows (except bingo) was a free drink.  None of the bars carry iced tea or diet coke.  This seems like a somewhat obvious and successful effort to have customers run up big bar bills.  To each their own.

What does your question have to do with anything,?   But thanks for your scintillating question,!

To answer the question about why an all gay cruise.  The answer is that the entertainment is a big step above mainstream straight focused cruises.  You also get to interact with famous drag performers.  The gay bingo is hilarious.  I saw a gay acrobatic Cirque du Soleil level show on an all gay cruise that was better than the Vegas Cirque shows (I've seen all of them).

Anyway, you get your money's worth.

I wish to clarify.  Somehow my agent knew I skipped Gunbae.  I didn't make it clear enough to the maitre d' that our party were non-drinkers.  He attempted to seat us with drinkers.  This was my fault not his.  I hope the staff at Gunbae do not get into any trouble over my error.  The agent arranged for a private table for us tonite.  It's a bit scary that they know everything I do though.  Kinda Big Brother/1984 Orwellian.

Currently every restaurant on Lady Valiant is almost always fully booked except for GunBae.  I was going to eat there but the staff did not seem very cheerful so I left.  Is Branson getting rid of it?  IMHO, they need healthy asian restaurants but the group grilling thing may not be to everyone's taste or health safety level requirements.

As an aside, I am impressed with all of the Virgin staff I've interacted with.  They are consistently helpful and friendly.  The Virgin App is not though.  They need to get a decent coder to fix it and improve all the internet connectivity on their ships.  The app routinely crashes and the TV goes in and out.  Definitely less than a 2 star rating for their internet and app.

I want to thank everyone for their 'well meaning' advice.  It sure is helpful for naive people like me who actuallly believe everything they read or watch in the internet.  I sure love getting skewed info from people who pretend to be watching out for us stupid newbies!

However, I'll be sure to use a VPN from a country which actually regulates scams on the internet.  Germany is great for that as well as many other European countries.

Make sure your IP address is easily found so Zuck, Bezos, Google, yada yada yada can sell your info (soul?) easily and figure out who to sue (god forbid!)

Love and Kisses!

However, since I'm a Virgin that's all you'll ever get.

1 hour ago, Charles4515 said:

Which blogger? I would like to check if they are disclosing the freebies.

I'm not going to say.  They would probably sue me.  Everyone does these days.

Any blogger should be taken with a grain of salt unless they clearly state they are compensated IMHO.

I am on Valiant Lady now.  I can confirm that 'influencers' receive free cruises.  A blogger with over 10 million followers is on the ship and received two free suites.  They were proud of it.  

I feel ripped off but am still enjoying myself.

Facebook/Meta is a useful tool but many don't know that everything you post is stored forever on their servers even if you delete your account.  Neary all sites do this though.  What I don't like is that if you block cookies or use a VPN you cannot use FB.   My mother is not computer savvy and has fallen for numerous scams from FB posts.  It's taken hours to days to fix her computer and cancel credit cards.  IMHO, FB is at least partially responsible for not weeding out the scammers and spam.

My last post since this topic is tiresome.

If you fall for influencer spiels you should be careful.  You can probably get the same service or product someplace cheaper.