CruisingWalter

On 11/20/2023 at 6:52 PM, _tacocat_ said:

Sounds like everyone has to pay by tomorrow night!

Nope, if you booked by November 22 you can still Pay In Full up until 180 days prior to the sailing. But your TA will have to call to have the discount applied. 

On 11/23/2023 at 12:49 PM, cantgetin said:

Some of the best YouTubes about Virgin are by "Where's Walter Travels", the same guy as "CruisingWalter" above.

You're very kind! I shot some new food review materials while on VL last week and will have a new food review up as soon as possible. 🙂 

4 hours ago, Tralfaz1138 said:

We talked to one of the reps about this earlier today on the cruise we are on.  He said, if you don't use it in 2 years, you can convert the $300 to a cruise credit for another year after.  So you loose the extras but not necessarily the $300.

That is a first for me. I've never heard of that and with the recent changes removing the Pay In Full Discount, that would surprise me if they will allow that to be extended moving forward. During our most recent Valiant Lady cruise our discussions with the onboard reps are that that MNVV will be the next item up for change. Possibly changing that Sailor Loot offer to $300/$600 following the Bar Tab model for length of cruise. Or dropping the Sailor Loot to $300 permanently.  It'll be interesting to see what changes roll out over the next 6 months after the abrupt cancellation of the PIF discount this past week. 

On 11/20/2023 at 11:41 PM, aviators99 said:

For my cruise next month on VL it's also listed as "with the Happenings Cast", which took me by surprise.  I've always just seen "with the Diva", including the last time on VL.  I hope you check it out this trip and report back.

If the Diva was in any of the Bingo shows, it would have been the first one that started at 9:30p. We did not make it to the Red Room for that one. The rest of the week on Valiant Lady it was hosted by other folks in the Happenings Cast. Carlos was hosting a lot of other events, but not much in the way of Bingo. 

7 hours ago, kasey68 said:

My question would be this: My company requires a VPN.  I can access email & Zoom with "normal" wifi, but without being able to log into my company's VPN, which I've heard is most likely NOT possible on Scarlet Lady's transatlantic voyage, I won't be able to access documents and certain programs I need.  Anyone have any updated info on this?  The last time I read about it was this past spring 2023, and it said that without Starlink, it probably won't be possible out in the middle of the Atlantic. 

I've tried to use a VPN on two different ships and it was not possible to connect to the ship's WiFi.  Just left the Valiant Lady yesterday and it was the first ship since the restart that I could not make outgoing audio or video calls. I could hear guests just fine, they could not hear me or only heard me sporadically. I was with a group of about 30 people onboard and everyone said the same, didn't matter if it was Apple or Android. I tried Calls over WiFi, WhatsApp and FB Messenger for audio calls, nothing worked and Zoom never even got started. 

Had no issues at all on Scarlet Lady with the premium WiFi but Valiant was a whole different animal. 

About the size of a Queen when pushed together. 

Literally anything goes except swimwear. Shorts and TShirts up to nicely tailored clothing at night. Basically your husband is free to be himself, if the sport coat is something he likes, that's what he should do. It's a freeing feeling cruising on VV. 

On 11/19/2023 at 6:16 AM, Rangerblp said:

Wife and I are considering a VV cruise and were curious about the average age onboard most vv ships? 

If you were on our current Valiant Lady Thanksgiving cruise you would have no idea you were on a Virgin Voyages sailing based on the guests. It looks just like any other adult centric guest list from the young to mature and everything in between. Except kids.

Basically it's the same mix of adults that sail on Celebrity, Princess, NCL, Holland America, Carnival, Cunard, MSC and any other mainstream cruise line you can think of. The cruising world has finally discovered Virgin Voyages and it's awesome to see such a great mix of folks onboard. 

On 11/18/2023 at 6:38 PM, jame_g said:

I've done it previously when booking online, so it was set up to do so. The FAQ even indicates how to do it when booking online. The option just hasn't been appearing the last couple days (at least).

It's not available online, not sure if it was ever available. Work with a TA who can apply the promotion for you. The best part about working with a TA is that you are not forced to Pay In Full at the time of booking. TAs are allowed to apply that discount anytime up to 180 days prior to sail date. So you can pay with a 20% deposit today, then make a 'final payment' with the discount at a later date, so long as you stay 180 days out with that payment. Another great advantage to work with a good VV TA. 🙂

Keep in mind that ability to apply the promotion at a later date is subject to change at anytime. VV really does want you to pay in full at the time of booking. 

NFL games were playing yesterday in the Social Club on Valiant, but keep in mind that is a very active area. There was a speed puzzling game going on for an hour, folks playing air hockey and of course the general noise. There were about a dozen people watching the games, but it's not a sports bar or a place where you are going to listen to the audio. The TVs are really background in the Social Club. 

11 hours ago, HBCcruiser said:

Any idea when these itineraries will be released? 

When VV is good and ready to tell us. Since they already messed up the original launch, we will not hear a peep from VV until Brilliant Lady is absolutely good and ready to sail. 

And this morning on Valiant looks like people are reverting to the 'ways they've been trained on other cruise lines.'  More lines this morning which is silly to be honest. I much prefer to sit and relax vs. standing in lines. 🙂 

7 hours ago, crusinthrough said:

How crowded is the pool and seating around the pool?

Doesn't matter how full the ship is, the pool area will be completely full during sea days. Very small pool and small seating around around it. Much more room up on the sun deck above. So for this cruise, it's typical during a sea day. 

Currently sailing on the November 18th Thanksgiving cruise on Valiant that has been sold out for some time now. We're on here with a group of about 30 or so, many their first time on VV. Everyone has commented on how this does not feel like a sold out ship.  Even we have been pleasantly surprised with this being our 3rd sailing but first with a full ship. The Galley service has been great, no excessive queues anywhere other than the Red Room for Bingo but that's normal. The pool deck is full on a sea day but that's normal.

But getting around the ship, getting services, getting food, enjoying the entertainment hasn't really been an issue. Sure there are a lot more people in On The Rocks and I wish it was a larger venue, but that is to be expected on a full ship. I'm really happy to see that the service and quality has scaled up nicely with a full ship, at least on our sailing. 

Here on Valiant this week seems most folks are opting to sit when it's busy and be served. Queues when it's slower and you can just walk up. We had a great breakfast this morning in less than 10 minutes being served. Doesn't seem to be a problem on this sailing that I can see. I'm not sure why anyone wants to stand next to a food station when they can simply sit and order. We're onboard with a group of about 30 folks, most of whom have never been on VV and that's one of their favorite compliments so far coming from other cruise lines. 'We don't have to stand and work our way through the lines.'

What we really are noticing is that there are a LOT of people on this cruise from other cruise lines. So they've been 'trained' on one specific way to do things in a 'buffet' or 'food hall.' It takes a while to break that muscle memory. 

10 hours ago, cantgetin said:

Fair....we've had various people of various quality on different cruises.....in many different positions.

But honestly how hard is it to host Bingo?!? Especially when you have the Diva as your cohost. Especially when you are a 'professional entertainer' on a cruise ship. The Diva takes the heavy lifting, all you have to do is follow her lead. Bingo with a co-host really should be one of the easiest gigs on a cruise ship next to Trivia. 🙂

On our current Valiant Lady sailing it's only listed as "Happenings Cast" twice, no mention of the Diva. On Scarlet it was specifically the Diva and we had a near sellout in the Red Room. We didn't go to tonight's show so I'm not sure who hosted tonight. 

There have been some weird happenings but having a cabin just disappear like that is among the weirder ones. As mentioned above, not only will working with a TA help in this situation, they usually have direct connections inside VV so they can have issues escalated above the 'manager' level. 

It definitely looks cleaner and more user friendly.  Still a little busy on the home page, but definitely an improvement!

On 11/8/2023 at 11:50 AM, jcarter4551 said:

but hoping they have NBC for the NFL games on Dec 23. Thanks for any information. Going on Scarlet Lady btw. 

Social Club and your cabin are the two places to see sports. There are two large screen TVs in the Social Club. That's it for sports on the entire ship, any of the ladyships. Usually we see English Football and even cricket on there, but I'm sure they'll have the NFL games on. If you don't see them you can always ask to have them put on there if they are available. 

17 hours ago, cantgetin said:

it might be worth determining whether it is worth booking on a "normal" rate with discounts, loot, bar tab, DBE, etc, or whether you will benefit more from the casino rate. 

We did that very consideration recently and booked at the full public fare for our two upcoming cruises because we want to take advantage of DBE and the $600 Bar Tab. Neither of which is available for Casino or severely reduced cruise rates. 🙂 

8 hours ago, conandrob240 said:

another warning- it took us. 45 minutes to exit the parking lot at around 10:30ish. The line of cars was so long!

One of the reasons we walk off by 7:30 - 8am. Yes it's nice to be able to stay onboard longer, but we'd rather get out of Miami before the day really gets started. 🙂 

On 11/15/2023 at 9:10 AM, Homosassa said:

MSC caught onto the fare cheaters for solo passengers that routinely booked a ghost second passenger.

But in the case of a "No Show" that second fare is not refunded. Only the port fees and taxes for that second person.  Or did MSC used to actually refund the second fare?  I've honestly never heard of that from any cruise line. It's always just the port fees and taxes that are refunded, not the fare for the second guest. 

Itinerary changes are par for the course on any cruise line. Whatever the actual reason you just roll with it. What the other cruise lines are doing is irrelevant to what MSC is doing or will do.

That's why it's super important to have all the contact information for any private third-party excursions you might book. When your itinerary changes, and they do more often than you might think, you can get in touch with them if you have to change or cancel. 

Most everyone's Black Friday "deal" is out now. But if you have not tracked actual cruise fares these past few weeks you don't know if the current deal is a 'deal' or not. Cruise lines are amazing at flashing big numbers up on the screen to distract you do you don't notice whether the actual cruise fare has gone down or in some cases actually went up. We've seen it multiple times from various cruise lines where the 'special' goes from 20% off to 40% off but the actual cruise fare or the add-on package went up by $10 or so because they just raised the 'brochure rate' base fare. 

Happy shopping and happy cruising!