CruisingWalter

10 hours ago, PescadoAmarillo said:

I agree, the normal hold is 3 days, but TAs can sometimes extend for a couple more days. That’s what happened with our booking. 

Depends on the sailing and the flexibility of the cruise line. To have holds extended means a call to the Support Center to request the extension. 9 times out of 10 they will be granted the extension but there are times when that's not possible for whatever reason. 3 days should be more than enough time to make a decision on whether to book. 

On 9/29/2023 at 10:17 AM, cantgetin said:

While the TA was happy to do this, I was also warned that sometimes their access portal can be difficult.  Same TA also booked all 14 nights of a crossing for me!

To say the least, yes, yes it can from all accounts. The TA booking engine works about as well as the public website often from what I've been able to gather. 🙂 

On 9/29/2023 at 10:10 AM, tbmrt said:

Should we give TA our choices before the booking night/day?  I'm worried that by the time she gets to book resos things could be pretty well taken.  We have 6 in our party. Tx

Yes but be a bit a flexible. Provide a list of restaurants and times but know that the TA may have to get something close but not exactly what you wanted. I was on the phone with our TA last night making the reservations. 

On 9/28/2023 at 6:15 PM, cantgetin said:

If you used a TA, they can book dining for you.  That's really helpful when the app fails miserably.

You mean like last night when the Valiant Lady opened up for 11/18? Oy! White screen for over an hour. Fortunately our TA was on it booking most of our party's dinners within minutes. Geez they need to chuck that app in the garbage and hire Royal Caribbean, Carnival or Disney's App developers.

On 9/29/2023 at 7:47 PM, -The-True-North- said:

So, if prices do raise, will they also do last minute deals like other companies?

Highly doubtful since currently the prices of the cruise fares close to sailing can be 1.5 - 3x what they were when the cruises first go on sale. Our thanksgiving cruise on Valiant was more than 2.5x the original cruise fare when it sold out. 

3 hours ago, cantgetin said:

I DO expect that if they get a "circle" for a given cruise, we will each see the "loot" associated rather than the agent taking a free cabin for themselves,  

It's not an 'either or' thing. Circles get $50 / $100 / $200 Sailor Loot and a free cabin can be awarded for every 10th cabin that is booked. However, that free cabin cannot be booked / claimed until after final payment. If the cruise is sold out by then, no free cabin.  And the free cabin is not a bonus for the TA, it's for whomever they want to assign it to, namely the Circle Leader if it's an Affinity Group. Or the TA can take extra commission % instead of handing out free cabins. 

On 10/2/2023 at 3:02 PM, Pylon said:

The change seems to be effective today (or shortly) and I was told cruisers will have only 1 day for a hold.

I just put a hold on a cabin literally before visiting this thread. Today is Oct. 3. I have until Oct 6 to make my Deposit. At least in the US it seems the holds are still normal. Virgin Voyages has a 24 hour hold but so far Princess is still the normal 3 days at least. 

On 10/2/2023 at 12:03 PM, Swells1 said:

How much time should I reasonably allow for dinner? What’s a good time slot to reserve so we can also see shows? It looks like most things take place at dinner time. Should we plan on eating before or after shows? 

As others have noted 90 minutes is a good timeframe. 2 hours or more for The Test Kitchen and maybe longer for The Wake. We avoid The Wake for dinner now and just go for Brunch. Dinner service is slow and it's just not that great for the time you spend in that restaurant. Pink Agave and Razzle Dazzle are usually the fastest meals, sometimes as quick as 60 minutes. 

27 minutes ago, Travel-and-See said:

What lines are you comparing them to? Last time I checked (and things may have changed) Celebrity all included and Virgin were pretty close for similar sailings.

Except it's not "All Included"  As of Oct 4 it will only be drinks and WiFi, Gratuities will be removed. Not much "All included" when it's only WiFi and drinks up to $10.  No meals are included with the "All Included" package so any specialty restaurants you want to enjoy are extra. 

3 hours ago, jon81uk said:

That additional loot is the agent giving you part of their commission,

Maybe, but most likely if you're getting $100 Sailor Loot for a Sea Terrace or above, that means you're working with a Gold Certified First Mate who automatically gets to award you $100 Sailor Loot for your sailing. On top of that, they can add as much as they'd like. Good agents do offer a portion of their commission back to the clients in the form of a gift of OBC. 

6 hours ago, Funsince1983 said:

Carlos is getting on Valiant the end of this month. 

NO. WAY!  We've had Carlos on both of our Scarlet Lady sailings and even had dinner with Carlos in Gunbae on our last sailing. Of course we had no idea it was Carlos during dinner, but OMG, I really hope Carlos is there! 

On 9/23/2023 at 10:16 AM, AlaskaNewbie68 said:

I called Amex to see what could be done. They said they are making a note of the issue and in 10 days we can file for a dispute, if the refund doesn't come in.

Based on all cruise lines, that 7-10 day is a standard answer. I've seen it take up to 2 months for refunds to process from other cruise lines. You will get your refund, it just may take a bit longer. Has your TA been able to get any assistance for you? They have direct contacts at the cruise lines who can look into these issues and when possible escalate them to the appropriate folks in management. 

Any shows that allow reservations will show up on the app once you're onboard. Around the World with the Diva is a fun show, at least it was with A Woman Named Carlos. Have never seen the Hostess show. 

7 hours ago, scottie99 said:

I was amazed next night when we were sitting in Pink Agave that a restaurant manager approached us, confirmed our cabin number and proceeded to discuss our comments on the previous evening.  They had obviously gone to some trouble to seek us out.

Yep, the Wake is just not a great dining experience for whatever reason. We had a great first meal on our first sailing on Scarlet Lady but the second meal was meh. It's now our brunch spot, but not dinner.

As for the survey, yes they do read them and thanks to the sea bands they can find us easily to discuss. We had the same thing happen on Sky Princess recently. A less than stellar meal at Sabatini's led to the dining captain finding us in the MDR the following night thanks to the Ocean Medallion. We had a pleasant 10 minute discussion and an invite to the Crown Grill the following evening. The dining captain brought out the head chef at dinner and also offered another meal the following night. For the rest of the cruise he checked in on us and even met us at the buffet on disembarkation day to check how our cruise was.  Good customer service will bring you back to a cruise line every time and those wearable devices make it so much easier for the management to engage with us. 

2 hours ago, MarkWiltonM said:

But maybe that's when they have two ships here.

Only with 2 ships in Miami generally November - April.  Right now it's the Valiant Lady offering the longer itineraries for this season. Scarlet will go across the pond in 2024 for a Med season, a drydrock and then come back to Miami in the winter to take over the longer itineraries. Valiant will remain in Miami and take over the 4-5 night itineraries. 

Honestly with only 4 ships, it seems a waste to have 2 ships in Miami for that long of a time period. They would be better served sending Brilliant through the Panama Canal in the Winter of 2024 and let her sail the Mexican Riviera and Hawaii itineraries instead. Let Valiant do 4, 5 and the occasional 9-10 night itineraries from Miami. 

22 hours ago, cantgetin said:

So, if "profitability" means "we grossly underpriced our product in the past and will make up for it now,"  that makes a difference.  Obviously there are people who are willing to pay the increase.

It's not 'grossly underpriced' but they are definitely underpriced for where the investors want to see the per Sailor rate. Where you might see a category starting at $2500 today you may see it start at $2750 in the near future. In other cases it might be more dramatic.

One area where I see a 'fail' at the moment with the new itineraries is just keeping the same old, same old in terms of Miami when there is one ship. Sure the 4 and 5 nighters are great introductions to the cruise line, but when you're running those same itineraries continuously for 3 years for 8-9 months per year, that does get old.

It would be nice to see them mix in a few 7, 9 or even 10 day itineraries ala the Greek Starry Night itinerary when they just have the one ship in Miami. Such as a few 9-night itineraries going to the A-B-C islands. The repeat business is high when a first time sailor comes on board and experiences VV for the first time. But to continually keep coming back for the same 4 and 5 night sailings gets lower. There is a need to mix it up a little from time to time. 

22 hours ago, CineGraphic said:

When I read something like this, I instinctively foresee changes/cuts coming.

The biggest change will be the pricing will continue to move up. They're underpriced for where they need to be in terms of profitability as the new CEO mentioned. Investors want to see a higher income per Sailor so expect the cabin fares to continue to move up. That's why it was such a shock to many of us when they dropped their cabin pricing by about $500 recently. It's starting to self correct and I expect we'll see it inch up even more. 

It will be very interesting to see how that strategy works out because the current demand is not overwhelming by any means. The current cancellations and re-bookings notwithstanding, it's pretty easy to get a booking on most sailings. 

2 hours ago, warmwinds said:

I'm on the West Coast so I called at 9:00 pm (midnight Miami time) and almost didn't get some of my choices, had to choose different days.  It's crazy. 

If you're with a TA they can go into your booking and grab the dining times as well. Just send them your list of preferred dining times ahead of time. 🙂

15 hours ago, snarfbeast said:

This voyage _shouldn't_ be affected by the Brilliant Lady hi jinx, at least it didn't seem like it would be when I looked a few weeks back. It's immediately after the announced changes, so I thought we were good.

If the cruise was not cancelled / rescheduled at the time of the Brilliant Lady announcements, it's not being changed, or at least it shouldn't be since there have been no further announcements.

When bookings are removed from the schedule that means the ship is either sold out or they've put a pause on the bookings while they assign guarantees or any number of other reasons. Our November 18, 2023 sailing disappeared weeks ago because it's 100% sold out. 

15 minutes ago, cantgetin said:

From what I've been told, VV is very strict about agents needing to have training geared specifically to this line, and that each person who is selling the product needs to go to the training. 

That's true of every cruise line to be honest.  TAs have to go through training before they can start using the booking engines. The good ones go much further than the introductory basic training. 🙂 

22 hours ago, cantgetin said:

Here is a food review of VV that will give you some of the info you are looking for. 

I might have to do an updated version of that since we'll have 8 nights on Valiant in November. Maybe "is it still good?" type of thing. We're going to be on Oceania for the first time for Christmas/New Year's and that is going to be a gourmet delight. I have no idea how long THAT food tour is going to be. 😅

11 hours ago, Neilyboy64 said:

I think there is a big difference between  US and UK travel agencies.

I don't know about that, I've become friends with multiple UK agents and they're fabulous. There are good and bad TAs on both sides of the pond. You just need to look around to find the good ones. 

13 hours ago, Neilyboy64 said:

and i was getting assigned deck 5 right at front of ship but i would like to be higher and midship

Use a TA or call VV yourself to have the cabin relocated. TAs can easily pull up the deck plan and place you anywhere there is availability. 

20 hours ago, c-boy said:

  🤣  Walter cracks me up.   I learned some new things watching his video. A+ . 

Well thank you so much! I do my best to provide edutainment. I learned from the best, Alton Brown. 4 years as his Animator / Editor and Post Supervisor will do that. 🙂 

On 9/27/2023 at 8:34 AM, raphael360 said:

Using a good TA is absolutely your BEST option. However, the TA I used to book my last 10 Seabourn cruises DOES NOT book with Virgin. I have begged other members here to tell me the name of their TA but, due to the rules of this website, any posts mentioning TAs are removed.  So use a TA unless you're like me and can't find a good one

Well that's weird. I never understand why TAs would not sell a particular cruise line, especially VV who is awesome to work with from what we've been told. We've had Tamika from VV on our social channels a few times and she's amazing.