CruisingWalter

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 🙂

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.

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. 🙂

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. 😅

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.

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.

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. 🙂

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.

Yes absolutely. Many folks stay up or get up at midnight on the East Coast specifically to make their dining reservations. 8 hours later, it's no surprise the early slots are gone. I believe the second reservation at each venue is only allowed for 7 nights or longer. We've not sailed the 6 night itinerary so I'm not entirely certain on that one. We're on an 8-night in November and we do have the option to book a venue twice. There will be additional dining slots that are held back from the app to be booked onboard. My suggestion is to go directly to the restaurant of choice when you board to see what availability they have. There will also be walk-up stand by lines as well each evening. Your luck with those will dependin on how popular that particular restaurant is that evening.

There are vegetarian selections at every restaurant onboard. With the at table cooking, they will cook all the non-fish and non-meat items first.

Thank you @aviators99 for the kind words!

You had to go through the Uplift qualification process before booking. Basically Uplift pays for your entire cruise with a loan and you pay back the loan. If you simply went through the process of booking and paying, you bypassed that process. You should be able to set custom payment amounts anything through the app to make smaller payments before final payment. Travel agents do this all the time and they can also apply the 10% Pay In Full discount for you if you're ready to pay in full at least 180 days prior to sail date. Everyone else has given you great advice on your main questions. I'll add a few of my tips. When you get onboard, drop off your bags in your room and head down to the The Dock at the very back of Deck 7. Great tapas and beautiful space to start your vacation. The pool area is generally full on sea days, and even sometimes on port days later in the day. One of my favorite places to chill is what I call the 'porches' on either side of Deck 7 midship, right outside the Roundabout. Big open patios with varied seating down near the waterline. One of side of the ship will be in full sun and the other side will offer shade. If you want to partake in some of the fun group exercise classes like 80's Workout and 90' Boy Band Dance Class, register for those as soon as you're on the ship WiFi, they sell out fast. But even if they sell out, there may be additional space or some people won't show up. Just show up at the appointed time and place and they might let you in. If you're sensitive to really loud music, like outdoor concert loud, bring earplugs for the Scarlet Night pool party. It's a fantastic party that gets crazier as it goes, but it's basically the volume of an outdoor concert. Earplugs makes that evening much more enjoyable for me. Here's a food tour I created from our first trip on Scarlet Lady. It might help with some of your dinner planning. The Poke Bowl on Deck 16 is not here because it has irregular hours and we didn't catch it on this cruise. But it's a great alternative when it's open. https://youtu.be/pBolzKvXjMU