rebeccac

Pretty much all of the major cruise lines (except Disney) are doing an E-muster. Norwegian went back to in person for a bit, but it was so unpopular, they are back to the video version.

You will need reservations for dining. You can check on the app to see if anything is available at the times you want, but since you are going to be a Mega Rockstar, I would just let your "roadie" help you out with any reservations you can't get. We were regular rockstars on a prior cruise and did not have much luck getting in touch with our rockstar agent until we were onboard, but it may be different for the roadies.

All I know is that our first VV cruise of 5 days was not nearly long enough. I am looking forward to 8 later this year.

I'm aware. Still not interested. I just thought it was curious that there was no third option of not intending to attend.

Disney was doing e-muster right after the re-start, but they have gone back to in person.

Interesting that this quiz did not have an option for "I never intended to go". I did not feel comfortable with the idea of wearing any of the pjs I already owned in public (very comfy and super lightweight, but not enough coverage for me to feel comfortable in public) and I certainly wasn't about to go out and buy any just for this.

No insight on this particular cruise, but I can tell you that we are the cruise immediately before this and we got a notice that everyone will have to be off the ship by 10am which is a bit earlier than normal for Virgin.

I would agree that the cabanas are not worth the cost. They are just little stick shacks with nothing really special about them.

I have a friend who is considering a sweet aft suite. We stayed in a cheeky corner suite and it seemed to us that the sweet aft suites would have zero airflow due to be boxed in on either side by the cheecky corner suites. Has anybody actually stayed in a sweet aft suite? Did you get any breeze at all on your balcony?

I have a small pair of scissors in my first aid kit (to cut moleskin for blisters) and have never had an issue on any cruise line including Carnival.

We ate at both on the Sky Princess recently. While the food was good at Sabatini's, the meal took 3 1/2 hours. Not sure if they were short staffed or what, but that was a bit frustrating. I will say, my DH got the chicken main dish and did not like it. I had the branzino and enjoyed it.

Just to follow up, I was finally able to update my app recently and now I can actually use it. Yeah!!! Just in time for our April cruise. There is hope for us with old phones.

You willl even be assigned a Princess number just by signing up on the website, whether you reserve a cruise or not.

Another reason never to buy the cruise line insurance. We always go third party. Always better coverage and generally costs less.

And as with most things VV, there will be absolutely no issue if you choose not to participate or dress as suggested. I don't look good in red, so even for scarlet night, I did not wear red and nobody said a word.

They must have been out of them, because they were for sale when we were onboard.

There is no two ways around it, the pools are small. The other issue I had was the limited amount of seating in the shade. We were able to work around these issues by going to the pool on a port day where we were in one of the padded lounging areas under shade, although I hear early mornings or later in the evening also work. I did miss the lovely solarium pools on Celebrity. As for Richard's rooftop, even though we were in a suite, we rarely used it due to the lack of shade. There were hot tubs there, but no pool and I was not inclined to use hot tubs in the Caribbean in July. I would never book a suite on VV just to be able to use Richard's rooftop. I have bad knees, so I did find some of the seating uncomfortable or difficult to use, but that was mostly due to the fact that I had a hard time getting up out of some seats. That being said, I still found plenty of other seating that worked perfectly fine for me. As for the quality of the furnishings, I did not find a significant difference to other cruise lines.

Admittedly, I have not been on Princess since before the pandemic (we'll be on Sky Priness in a couple of weeks), but I was not impressed with Crown Grill at all. I don't know if it was because I had the seafood and not the meat, but it was definitely dissapointing. Sabatini's however, has never let me down and we intend to eat there when we get on the Sky.

Additionally, up to 48 hours before the sailing, you can even change both names on the reservation if you can find someone to take it over for you.

That is how I understand it as well. I believe you will then have 1 yr. to use the credit.

We did a really fun food tour in St. Croix which aside from good food provided some history and sightseeing. https://www.vifoodtours.com/

I am not getting a new phone for a whole host of reasons. Not sure what I can do to "be careful". Generally I don't do much with my phone except read emails and get directions. So far, all the other cruise line apps work on my phone. VV is the only one that doesn't.

My phone is as up to date as it can be. I am stubborn and won't replace my phone just because some apps are not supported. I have many other reasons not to get a new phone, so I guess I will just have to learn to live with some of my apps becoming "dead". And this is not just an Android thing, I have a friend with a very old IPhone that has done the same thing.

So, we sailed VV in July 2022 and I had the app, used it, had only minor problems. Now, we just booked a November 2023 cruise and I tried to go to the app to check things out, and was informed that I needed to update the app. Tried to do that, but apparently my phone will no longer support the app (Samsung S8). I find it very vexing that just because I have an older phone, I will no longer be able to use the app. Luckily, it still works on DH's phone (for now), so we won't be totally lost.

We are sailing later in February and while it isn't a specialty reservation, I had one MDR reservation that disappeared and then today just magically re-appeared. Keep checking the app and if it doesn't come back, I'm sure you can get it fixed onboard.