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We lucked out on our first Miami voyage in December 2021, and they still had the European coke syrups from launch. I LOVE European Fanta!!! It was the bright orange nasty US version at Bimini, but the European version onboard. Flash forward to my next voyage in June 2022, and it was crappy US syrups everywhere

?? No secret doors (for passengers at least…) and the planned speakeasy on deck 4 never actually opened, given initial Covid restrictions at launch + the medical theme of the bar.

honestly it hasn't gotten old, i've just observed things that seem like they have been directly lifted from a mainstream line over the past year. we've pretty much attended all the more audience participation or rotating events every cruise, but have skipped most of the static performances on subsequent voyages. i also wouldn't go on any other line, so can't answer that part haha. as far as being less "done," i think they're starting on a ruthless path to profitability ASAP. there are stupid little things like reduction of moet hour at the rooftop (absolute first world problem but it's a cutback) and per some FB posts RSs can't swap liquor, so if you don't like whiskey or gin or whatever, too bad it's yours; and bigger ones like reduction in events on my recent voyages and an increase in in-your-face branding/sponsorships/partnerships, among others. starting to feel hella corporate & traditional cruise-hokey vs virgin's original avant garde approach to the industry. re: changes making it less virgin-y and more mainstream, hating the introduction of paper agendas sounds petty and dumb, but one of their "big things" was being more environmentally conscious. even at the end of the night, there are still a ton of copies left from the day at all 3 locations. guess where they go? they're mostly a waste of resources and time, plus people who only rely on the paper schedules then gripe to any crewmembers within earshot about how THAT'S NOT WHAT MY AGENDA SAID?!?!?!? when something changes and they have old information. other changes i've noticed include: on valiant, some voyages have lost 1 night of show entertainment to have a movie night (whoopdie doo, it's almost as if you can't see a movie in your house or a movie theater on land), taming down shows to accommodate a more bland palate (rip NSA), adding more poorly-disguised sales pitch events in the shops that seem on paper to be truly an educational session - especially to an inexperienced cruiser who doesn't know that everything is usually a sales pitch, having happenings cast members walk around the pool deck with a megaphone to hype up their events later that day, and finally, hyping the crap out of the MNVV offer in every. single. event. yes, we get it, it's a great offer, but it's plastered all over the ship, mentioned at least twice in the communications within the room (also a giant waste of paper because those end up in the circular file every day!)

they do actually seem to be having issues selling the suites. TAs are apparently able to hold blocks of rooms, and a handful of them grab suites to sell to their clients. all of my recent voyages have shown "sold out" of suites for months, yet a week or 2 before the sailing, magically every single seriously suite, most of the brilliants, and even both posh and fab suites have become available. on my last few sailings + the one i have coming up next week, a lot of people have reported in the sailings' FB groups that they've gotten suite upgrades from plain old sea terraces with bids a hair above the minimum. i think they flew too close to the sun with their increased suite fares + exclusion of them from promotions. they can't be making more money off of the ~$1k/suite upgrades than they did when the suites had more reasonable fares last year + were eligible for sales.

eh i'd rather audience participation shows than sit through an adapted-for-sea broadway style show.

they've been gone for a really long time 😢 but some of the cast members have come back - shannon the hostess on scarlet was one of the phantom folktales members!

alas, most of them are. when was the last time you saw someone with a 6' selfie stick that was not totally self-absorbed and "enjoying" their vacation at the expense of everyone else around them? 🦗 if i wanted someone near me to narrate their entire vacation, i'd pay samuel l jackson to follow me around all day.

i've heard (very much so through-the-grapevine, so take this with a grain of salt) the details of the loyalty program will be coming out late february. the referral program thing was to get their name out there, and they seem to have done a decent job of that so far. given how generous they've been to-date, i wouldn't be surprised if they have a referral program 2.0 that's kind of dumb - like refer 1 person get a tshirt, refer 2 people get a sweatshirt, 3 people get $100 bar tab

you can also get room service 24 hours a day - it's breakfast menu between 5am-11am, but the all day menu from 11am-5am if you fancy a 2am steak or popcorn haha

1 or 2pm should be fine, and you should even have time for a leisurely breakfast at razzle dazzle or the wake before getting off the ship (you also don't need to bring your luggage to breakfast, as you don't need to be out of the rooms until after 10am). debarkation is only a problem when people book 9 or 10am flights, seeing the 6:30am arrival time and expect to be able to get off and through customs at 6:30.

dear god i hope not. that's one more tick off a mainstream cruise line checklist. i've been an ardent supporter of VV since day 1 (for reference - i booked in 2019 for a 2020 scarlet sailing, then a 2021 valiant sailing that both got covid-ed, rebooked scarlet for dec 2021 and have been on the 2 ships 10 times since then with 3 more booked), but i think i'm done with VV at this point after my 3 upcoming voyages. i was a "never-cruiser" before VV - i went on one NCL cruise about a decade ago, and it was hands down the worst vacation of my life. it was absolutely disgusting, the food was inedible around the ship, and the nickel and diming for literally everything was obnoxious even then - i'm surprised they didn't charge for toilet paper in the bathroom haha. every stereotype of a cruise was onboard, and i couldn't wait to get off the ship. VV came along and it looked so different and refreshing, so i figured i'd give it a try. i clearly loved it enough to keep coming back, but over time, they've started catering more to two groups: the "typical" cruisers and the casino comps. shows and activities are being cut to conform to things that you'd find more on mainstream cruise lines, they seem to be hanging onto the bar tab inclusion package as their answer to not having a drinks package, etc. i'm glad i got to experience the "good old days" of VV, but it's apparent that bain and blackrock are now putting the focus on near term profitability vs. the long term brand vision.

care to elaborate?

they seem to pull most of the same crew back as the "openers" for the new ships. i spoke to a bunch of folks who were on subsequent contracts, but a few of the happenings cast started on scarlet, then bounced onto valiant. a few of them were about to find out if they were tapped to open resilient. i think they've either started staffing resilient up already or plan to pretty soon - hopefully doing some "friends & family" cruises to break the ship in. i'm on voyage #3 and didn't realize at the time, so we shall see!

also your "biddable pool" seems to be limited by what you initially book. when i've been in a suite, i've been able to bid all the way up to massive, but when i've been in an XL, my bids top out at gorgeous

when it affects the ability to enjoy my vacation, there's the harm. the idiots with their gimbals and selfie sticks getting in the way everywhere are obnoxious and can be a safety hazard.

Beach is usually more than enough for me! I’ve done the 2 tank dive (don’t really recommend, as they don’t tell you the first site is a stationary shark dive until you’re on the boat, and the other site is a nice but shallow reef area- could have just snorkeled it!), and the sapona snorkel (cool, but smack in the middle of the day, so your beach day is cut way short)

Nope our sailing was RT from Miami. I think the first SJ sailing is this December

the only downside is it's at 9am on sea days (or has been so far), so that's smack between prime gym/fitness class time and pool time on a nice day!

oh god please don't give that idiot any more views. i was onboard with him, and he's even MORE insufferable in real life, if you can imagine that! he made a total jerk of himself, whining, complaining and filming at literally every chance he got (and tripping at times because he was too busy filming to pay attention to the world around him). got that out of the way haha... i thought it was worth it. it's a really small group, so you have ample time to ask any question you could possibly think of. without giving too much away, you get to see behind the scenes of one of the entertainment venues (how the stages/rigs work, what backstage looks like), the galleys, food storage, water treatment, engine control room, laundry, bridge, and i think a couple other places but can't remember off the top of my head. depending on the ship you either end up in a crew bar or sip and get drinks at the end - we had 3 people and were given 3 bottles of bubbly to share. the 3rd person left so my husband and i just chilled at sip for a while. you also get a different souvenir depending on ship. valiant has been a special hat, and i believe scarlet is a cup or glass.

yep, the first time we were there, we hoofed it all the way to rainbow beach (20ish min walk down the street). a bunch of people in our sailing's FB group were absolutely raving about how nice this beach was and it was only 5 mins from the port vs. our 20. we caught a cab back to the ship from rainbow beach, and our driver told us about the sewage canal. it had also been raining a ton that week, which means everyone was swimming directly in sewage runoff 🤢 didn't want to burst anyone's bubble in the group but still gross haha

and it gets LOUD in the social club with the rowdier games on. we had a bunch of bigger games in jan on valiant, and we consciously avoided the social club, loose cannon and arcade because everyone was screaming at the TVs and the ceilings are so low there.

binge drinking is formally defined as 5 drinks at one occasion for men/4 for women, so take from that what you will haha there's about 30 mins of basically all you can drink sparkling wine from all the bars on 15 and 16 during sailaway. sometimes they have servers floating around with trays too. plenty of folks end up either missing their dinner reservations on night 1 or being too pooped to go to PJ party as a result

really depends on your sailing, the capacity, and the passengers' interests. usually grog walk and some of the fitness classes like bungee (currently only on valiant) and spin book up super quickly, but in january, there were spots left on the grog walk even that night. i think most things have a 24 hour cancel policy worst case, so if you see something you like towards the end of the voyage, you can book it asap then cancel it later if you decide you don't actually want to do it! bar tab can't be used for the activities with booze, only sailor loot or charge to your folio.

i see you have ~800 pax onboard. it seems that they REALLY scale back on activities when there are fewer people to entertain. on our 8 night in december with 2200, we had ample opportunities to see all the shows, there was plenty of music events around the ship, and we were up late partying in the manor almost every night. there was also always something going on around the ship on port days, whether it be trivia, jigsaw puzzle contests or a DJ at the pool in the afternoon. flash forward to 800 on our early january sailing, and we were legitimately bored on multiple occasions. the manor wasn't open every night, there were much more limited options to see shows, they had a movie screening of jurassic park (i don't go on vacation to watch a freaking movie, but that's a whole other post haha), and it seemed stuff wrapped up a lot earlier than in december. there were a few more fitness classes, but i think that was due to overlap of old fitness crew wrapping up their contracts and new crew coming onboard to start their new contracts. i don't think there was anything going on during port stops, so if you didn't feel like getting off, you had to make your own fun.

i saw something on FB that one of the may 4 night key west voyages was cancelled for a charter, but haven't heard anything since then. i believe they get upwards of $1mm for a charter, so if the booking was light, it probably makes more financial sense for them to buy goodwill from those pax and collect the $$$$$$ charter fees. sucks if you're impacted, but they've certainly been VERY accommodating whenever they've had to cancel (whether due to covid, ship readiness, or filming the bachelorette hahaha)