Snizzlefry

Sounds about right.

Both were pretty cool...The bridge I'd give a 5 star and the party I'd give 4 star. I don't want to give too much away on the party. 🙂

I'm with you! I'll take the beach any day.

Thank you! I tried to mix up the vibe of the video.

Good call out on the Razzle. We did not find out about the secret menu until the trip was almost over. Did you check out the video? Just curious if you thought I captured the trip well. Thanks!

I would highly suggest you watch my video recap video first. It’s way more entertaining than the below text. Click here No talking, just eye candy. Ports: Barcelona, Marseille, Cannes, Olbia, Ibiza Date of Cruise: Oct 8th-16th Ship: Valiant Lady Room Type: Cheeky Corner Suite Married couple in our 50’s Cost for everything: Around $10k Summary: Best vacation we have ever taken. We both highly recommended Virgin for cruises. Were there some issues, sure, but overall it was fantastic. Virgin Voyage’s Pros: Best food overall out of any cruise line No kids Modern design with everything Friendly and helpful employees You wear a bracelet instead of using a card to pay for everything and to open your room. All restaurants and non-alcohol drinks are included with the cost of the cruise. Adult-themed but not in a porno way. Adults can talk like adults. Casino non-smoking Unique stores on board. Including a tattoo parlor. No dress code Eat with who you want to eat with. Cons: Non-usable WiFi in the Mediterranean Out-of-mainstay items such as Diet Coke Worst beer selection than any other cruise line. Non-responsive to loud music being heard in our room late at night Needs Work: Their food galley has great food, but slow service Their app is a great idea but buggy. Friday, Oct 7th: Uber to the Indianapolis airport. (It was cheaper than leaving the car at the airport.$50) Hoped on a plane to Chicago, Ill., then a 5-hour wait. Boarded an American Airlines flight to Barcelona. We paid the extra for Economy Premium, so worth it. I could stretch out my legs with no issues. With Economy Premium, you get free booze, two meals, snacks, headphones, a travel kit, a blanket, and a pillow. I picked the front row, so our seats reclined with feet rest that popped out like a Lazy-boy. I was asleep within the first hour of the flight and slept the whole way. Saturday, Oct 8th: Landed in Barcelona around 9 am their time or 3 am our time. So excited about the trip, we both felt fine. Customs took maybe 30-40min, which was not bad at all. We hopped in a taxi to our hotel, which was about $20. (Taxis are required to take credit cards.) We are big fans of the Kimpton chain of hotels, so we stayed at Kimpton’s Vividora Barcelona. We had a room with a street view. The room was simply awesome. Excellent service, nice modern amenities, and the employees were superb. I had scheduled a private food tour for 11:15, so we dropped our bags and went to it. We went around town and stuffed our faces with some very tasty Barcelona cuisine. The food was great, but our guide needed to be better. He talked way too much about himself. Nice fella, but IMO with a private tour, he can keep his life private. Don’t worry; we still tipped him way too much. After parting ways, we did some more exploring and then when back to the hotel. Barcelona is a mix of beautiful and dirty. They have a homeless problem like anywhere else. With only being there one day, we decided not to book any other tours. Which ended up being a very good call; we were exhausted. We showered up and went to the rooftop bar at our hotel, had a snack, a drink, and then called it a day. Sunday, Oct 9th: With us being “Rockstars,” what Virgin calls people with suites, we could check in on the ship anytime after 11:30 am. So we went around Barcelona to do some looking and shopping. Had a great time! We took a taxi to the ship, maybe a 15min ride, and were dropped off right in front. Went through the VIP entrance and was on the ship within 10min or so. Unlike other cruises, you can go directly to your room, so that’s what we did. Remember when you were 6-7 years, and it was the morning of Christmas? This is exactly how I felt opening the door to our suite. The room is spectacular. Modern lighting that can be controlled with a tablet they give you. A somewhat stocked bar. (Kettle One Vodka, beer, mixers, Johnny Walker, Barcadi rum, etc.) They have a record player in the room with assorted records; you can request other albums. The suite’s bathroom was perfect. The shower had a rainforest-type head, and the ceiling was probably 8 feet high. (Which is a rarity on a cruise.) The water pressure was great, and it never ran out of hot water. The Cheeky Corner suites take up one-third of the back end of the ship. So our deck was obscenely big. We could have had a small party on it. Came with a couple of loungers, chairs, a small table, and a very comfy hammock. Man, we were truly living the dream at this point. Went to The Dock House - Casual Mediterranean/Meze for some lunch. It was some of the best food I had all week. We went exploring the ship and then up to Richard’s Rooftop for free champagne and leaving the port. Richard’s Rooftop is for suite folks. We spent most of our outdoor boat time there. Every night they would serve up free champagne. Dinner: Gunbae - Korean BBQ; One of the reasons we chose Virgin for our cruise was because they are known to have the best food out of any cruise line. I agree that they do, but the restaurants could still be hit or miss. Gunbae was decent, but not five stars. They do play a fun drinking game. In most restaurants, you eat with whoever. Gunbae is the exception to this; they seat you with other cruisers. We got lucky and sat with some very interesting and nice people. Virgin is a good party ship, but we were in our room by 8 pm that night. Haha Monday, Oct 10th: (Marseille, France) We opted to do a half-day tour of Marseille. TBH I would have rather stayed on the ship. (But happy wife, happy life.) I don’t really remember much of the tour other than we got on a bus, drove around a bit, and the highlight was stopping at Notre-Dame de la Garde. (Which is beautiful.) I spent most of the time trying to figure out my new 360 camera. Back on the ship, we start to find our routine. Eat Play music trivia, which was incredibly hard. I thought I would kill everyone, nope. Lost every time. Haha Go to Richard’s Rooftop. Jacuzzi, hang out, drink. Go around with my camera and look like a creeper. Make some drinks in our room, and hang out on our deck. Shower up Go to dinner The pool on the ship is small, and that’s okay with us. We didn’t use it once. Dinner Razzle Dazzle - Naughty & Nice Vegetarian/Vegan: The Razzle Dazzle was the worst food by far. Neither of us liked what we got. The decor was also low-budget. I would avoid it next time. In the room by 9 pm, and fell asleep watching the movie Old School. BTW Not that you want watch movies while on the cruise. But Virgin has a really good list of movies you can watch at no extra charge. New and old flicks. I was really surprised by the selection. On the topic of room entertainment..Although the turntable was kind of cool, I’d rather that let us connect via Bluetooth to the speaker so we can listen to whatever. They had zero Black Sabbath records to listen to. Haha The wifi sucked too, and we were supposed to be on the “premium” plan. Tuesday, Oct 11th: (Cannes, France) We did a full-day tour of Monaco/Monte Carlo. It was about an hour and a half drive from Cannes. For me, it was a great place to shoot some videos, but other than that, not my thing. This is where the uber-rich hang out and flaunt their lifestyle. (Which, to be fair, if I was uber rich, I’d probably do the same thing.) It cost $20 to step foot into the famous Monte Carlo casino, so I opted to not to go in while my wife felt the need to go and lose some money. One cool thing was seeing the streets where F1 drives race in Monte Carlo. Oh and it was a scenic drive. If I went again, I’d stay on the ship. Back to the ship for a fast visit to Richard’s Rooftop, drinks, shower, and dinner. Dinner: Extra Virgin - Upscale Italian Top-notch food, no complaints. After dinner, my wife goes gambling; I shoot video. The casino is small but does the job, and you lose your money like you would at any other casino. Wednesday, Oct 12th: (Still in Cannes) Went over and did some shopping and looked around. Cannes is very beautiful, if I had the money, I could def live there. Dinner: The Test Kitchen - Cooking Lab This is where you they do innovative cooking. Think futuristic type meals. I was looking forward to this experience. But it was a bit of a letdown. The food was good but could have been better. And it was not that innovative either. They have rotating menus, so maybe we went on the night when they reuse leftover ingredients? Went to their place for beer drinkers called The Draught Haus. OMFG, this was the biggest joke on the ship. They had like maybe eight different bottled/canned beers and three taps. The website plays it up as a beer drinker’s paradise, it wasn’t. Even the guy behind the counter seemed embarrassed when I was like this, is it? Come on, Branson!! Haha Thursday, Oct 13th: (Olbia City in Sardinia, Italy) We booked a tour, but it got canceled due to rain. TBH I was thrilled, more time on the ship. But we did venture out to check Olbia out. Other than eating, not much to do. Went back to the ship. When we got back to our room, there was a red envelope with our names on it. It was an invitation to meet the captain of the ship and go to the bridge. There were only 10 folks out of 2k that got this invitation. I think we got it because the captain is a fan of my Black Sabbath videos. We did our standard, played trivia, day drinking, Richard’s Rooftop etc. Oh, we did try out the pizza shop for lunch; hands down the best pizza I’ve ever had on a ship. Loved it! We get into Ibiza kind of late in the day. Ibiza is known as a party spot for the wealthy and young. Us being neither, we stayed on the boat. ($70 each just to get into the clubs.) Dinner: Pink Agave - Upscale Mexican Loved it! Awesome food! Thursday is also Scarlett Night on the ship. A big party and everything is red. We got another private invite for this. There were about 20 of us that got picked. We got free booze, a private tour of the employee's living quarters, a private magic show, etc. The Scarlett Night was a pretty good time, and we stayed out until midnight or so. (Watch the video.) Friday, Oct 14th: Ibiza Spanish island in the Mediterranean Sea The first part of the day, we were out at sea, which I loved. So a lot of goofing off and a bit of dread that we are nearing the end of our trip. Around 11 am, we went up to the bridge and met the captain. He was very cool and had an awesome view. He did not let me drive the ship, though; I wonder why. I filmed a game of dodgeball that was pretty crazy. This guy was the last one on his team, so it was one versus five. And he made a comeback and won. I wish I knew the dude cause I have some awesome footage of him dismantling the other team. Dinner: Wake - Elegant Steak & Seafood It was better than any other steak on any other cruise ship, but I would not call it St.Elmo’s quality steak. Very good but not great. Saturday, Oct 15th: Still in Ibiza We opted to just walk around in Ibiza and not do a tour. Very cool town. I would come back and spend a few days here. In my video, a lot of the cool shots came from here. Came back around 3 pm or so and did our standard trivia, drinks, eat, and Richard’s Rooftop. We realized we had a few hundred dollars to spend from our “loot,” aka onboard credit. If we did not spend it, we would lose it. So we went around like crazy people and bought a bunch of nothing. My wife gambled, and I crept around with my camera in bed around midnight. Good times! Sunday, Oct 16th: Barcelona All good things come to an end. We had an early flight, so we had to be out the door around 6:30am. Was back in Indianapolis by 5 pm or so. Overall we loved this trip.