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Brunch at Razzle Dazzle: Bottomless Bloody Mary’s Jalapeno cheddar croissant Mushroom tartare Everything salmon bowl with a side of bacon Everything was awesome and fresh! Now at the main pool area. It’s not too crowded at midday on a sea day, but I can see where it would be a problem at full capacity.

It’s at 1300, I’ve heard. We were able to get booked for Duel Reality tonight!

Moved to the hammock. Already trying to figure out how to get one on our deck at home.

Im on VL right now, and we’re at about half capacity at 1300 sailors.

More views of Cuba:

Day 2 I woke up, thinking I had slept in, but it was only 6:45. However, I was rewarded with this great view, as we are off the coast of Havana. I came up to deck 16 to write my post for yesterday and I think I’ll hang out here for a little bit. My wife is still asleep, but I think we are going to do brunch at Razzle Dazzle once she wakes up. I hope it’ll be awhile, since I’m still stuffed from yesterday. Today is a sea day, we’ll be in Roatan tomorrow.

So…day 1 thoughts, everything has been great so far! Check-in was seamless and quick, and the food has definitely lived up to the hype so far. The crew is amazing, and it is great to see how happy and genuine they are and how they are able to live their lives on the ship, compared to our sailings with Carnival. The only complaint so far is the aforementioned issue with booking events.

Day 1 Driving is over…we made it! Got to the terminal around 1:30, where we dropped off our bags, and went to park in the parking garage. Garage was almost full (a lot of people were double parked), but we parked, went across the street to the terminal where we were able to go right in. There she is! Grandeur of the Seas and Carnival Celebration We had a small wait to go up the escalator, but once we got up check-in was a breeze. All they had to do was check us in, check our passports, and give us our bands. It was so easy, I had to ask the person checking us in if that was it. From there, we were given our boarding card and went through security where we maybe waited 5 minutes to go through. After that, we got to the boarding area and had maybe a 10 minute wait while we waited for our group to be called. We made our way on the gangway, and within a hundred feet or so, we had arrived on the Valiant Lady! First stop was to Sip, so we could attempt to book events. Pretty much everything was booked already, except for Untitled Dance Party and Never Sleep Alone that night. So I see complaint #2 people have about Virgin, as it was only 2:15 at that point. Oh well, we’re not huge show people, but it would have been nice to do some of the other events like the Grog Walk and the Culinary tour they were having for Food and Wine month. We got our first drinks, and headed up to our cabin, where our bags were already waiting for us. After unpacking and getting settled in, we headed up to the Galley for lunch. We both got ramen and sushi, which were both very good. By then, it was 4pm, so we headed back to Sip to do our muster, and within 5 minutes we over to Lick Me Til Ice Cream for a cone. My wife was ready to go back to the room at that point, so I left her and walked around the ship to get my bearings. We met back up and went up to the sail-away party just after 5:30, where the champagne was freely flowing and we had amazing views of Miami. NCL Encore turning around in the basin Our reservations were at Gunbae, and our experience was a little different that most people’s. The party they had scheduled to sit with us were no-shows, so it was just us. No worries, as our server, Goran, was amazing and we talked about life at sea and back home for him in Moldova. Food was pretty good, appetizers better than the entrees, though the marinated short rib was great. The soft serve was alright, so we went to the Sweet Side after walking out and I got the S’mores jar and Chocolate Cherry Marquis, which were both very good. I wanted to watch the Eagles game, so I went down to the casino and watched from the blackjack table. I hadn’t realized that blackjack on here pays out at 3:2, even at the $10 table. I got up briefly (by $25, but a wins a win), but I went back down just as quick, so I quit and moved along. At that point, it was time for the Untitled Dance Party, which was um…interesting. The dancers were great, but I feel like the concept was trying too hard to be different. After the show was over, my wife went back to the cabin to settle in for bed, and I headed to the Social Club for the remainder of the Eagles game. I had gotten there right before they closed, so I got the whiskey Coke float, which was good, but I didn’t eat the ice cream…I forgot that would have been my 4th dessert for the day. Lol After the game, I went and got a pizza at the Pizza Place, which was good. Even at around 11:45, service was quick, and I maybe had to wait 10 minutes for my Chicken Pesto pizza. I took it back to the cabin and ate it on the balcony, and went to bed.

From what I’ve seen on the schedule that’s been published so far, unfortunately not. I’ve seen him on YouTube videos and he sounds amazing.

Day 0 We left Charlotte just before 7:30am, stopping before we got too far on the road at a Bojangles in Fort Mill, SC. I drove and didn’t stop until the gas light turned on, which put us just north of Brunswick, GA. Traffic was extremely stop and go for no apparent reason on I-95 through South Carolina, but it opened up once we got to Georgia and we had 3 lanes. At that point, my wife spelled me from driving, and right around 1:30pm, we made it to the state line. I passed the time by watching the Michigan/Ohio State game on my phone. My wife decided her turn was over right around St. Augustine, so we stopped at Buc-ee’s, which was an absolute zoo. However, they do a good job at staffing and everything was well stocked and didn’t have to wait in line at all to check out. We got back on the road and drove the rest of the way to Melbourne, stopping at Target once we got close since my wife forgot her pajamas for the pajama party. On our way to the hotel, we stopped to pick up our dinners - Cracker Barrel for her, and Wawa for me. I grew up outside of Philly, so I am clearly biased as to who has the better gas station food. 😉 We got to our hotel, which is a Hampton Inn. It’s a standard Hampton Inn, which definitely isn’t a bad thing. The rooms seem to be recently refurbished. We were both beat from the drive, so we ended up going to bed around 9:30pm. I woke up early, around 4:45am, since I’m excited. It’s cruise…ahem, voyage day! I’m going to attempt to go back to sleep until our alarm goes off at 7:30am. The plan is to eat breakfast downstairs and leave around 9am to drive the 2 1/2 hour drive to Terminal V in Miami.

Prologue I may be person with the lowest post count in Cruise Critic history to post do this, but I guess I have to start somewhere! I’ve been a long time lurker and excited to be able to do this live trip report! My wife and I are taking Virgin Voyages for the first time aboard the Valiant Lady’s Western Caribbean Charm itinerary from November 27th thru December 3rd from Miami, stopping in Roatan, Costa Maya, and Bimini. We had never cruised before this year, as our first cruise (aboard Holland America’s Nieuw Statendam) was supposed to be in April 2020, but yeah…you know what happened. We ended up going on the Carnival Sunshine in April 2022 and immediately fell in love with cruising. Obviously, you know why, otherwise you probably wouldn’t be on this site. 😉 When we were in Nassau on this cruise, we were docked next to the beautiful Scarlet Lady, and immediately I was intrigued, as I had never heard of Virgin Voyages at that point. When we got home, I had fallen into a YouTube and CruiseCritic wormhole of Virgin Voyages videos and posts and at that point, I knew that this would be our next cruise without the kids. After we had done a family trip on the Carnival Valor at the end of July, it was time to start planning our anniversary trip in November. We took advantage of the 50% second sailor they were running over the summer, giving us a great rate for this 6-day cruise. We were booked with an Limited View Sea Terrace, but due to the rumored low capacity on our sailing, we were upgraded first to one of the standard view balcony cabins towards the front of the ship that doesn’t have a hammock, and later upgraded to a standard view balcony with the hammock next to the forward elevators. Probably given that the fact that we’re leaving on Thanksgiving weekend, flying was way overpriced (~$600 per person round trip from Charlotte), as were hotels in Miami, so we decided to drive. We had briefly considered taking Amtrak down, but the it was going to take too long - driving 1.5 hours to Columbia, SC followed by a 16 hour train trip vs. a total 10.5 hour drive. We’ll be leaving early tomorrow morning, spending the night at a Hampton Inn in Melbourne, FL, using Hilton Honors points, to break up the drive (8 hours tomorrow, and a little over 2 1/2 on Sunday), since check-in in Miami isn’t until 2pm anyways. We got the $300 bar tab promotion that Virgin was giving everyone, plus paid for the $300 bar tab with the $100 bonus, which should be plenty for the two of us. The fridge and pantry are stocked for our sister in law to watch the kids, the car is gassed, my out of office message is on, and the bags are…oh nevermind, I still need to finish that. I’m looking forward to everyone coming along with us this week!

Based on the current event schedules (https://spark-aws.virginvoyages.com/api/v1/ext/ddp/5a3193a0af8e4c3fb714386b/2022-11-23#events - Scarlet Lady/https://spark-aws.virginvoyages.com/api/v1/ext/ddp/618f05232eaf6a1a16e17505/2022-11-23#events - Valiant Lady), they are showing the games in the Social Club and the Athletic Club, respectively.

I'm on this sailing too!

Nope, got off the Valor this morning and blackjack was still $6.

It's up to date - I just prepaid for the wifi for my sailing at the end of the month this morning, and it was $14.45/day.