Rogueperson

The last time I was in Disney World was in 2011. I remember coffee being in serious short supply and the best I could get was that nasty Nescafe they were offering. I'm glad they have totally upped the coffee game. Love getting a sneak preview before my entry on Saturday. I just found out that Aerosmith Rockin Roller coaster is down on an extended refurbishment. Booo....Hiss....At least Tower of Terror is up.

T minus 2 days until departure. 4 days until boarding. Slight snag. I didn’t know I had to email Virgin to get my DBE for each of us. I did it for only me thinking it was per cabin, not per person. So if this works, that’s an additional $100 bar tab for my wife as well making the grand total $800.00!!! Considering I don’t drink and I was hard pressed to get my 5 drinks/day on Royal due to my Status, my wife will be pretty happy. I called this morning and they say they received the request and its in progress. Here’s hoping. We started packing. Someone keeps getting in our way. She is appropriately named Punk. She is a recent addition to our family only arriving in January. She has the flower of shame because she was recently spayed last week. Can I tell you that keeping her from jumping is impossible!!!!

You can guess I'm going to try and tag you with a picture of the Oasis from the Scarlet Lady. However, you guys leave at 4:30pm, so you're getting a head start in our race across the Atlantic. I don't think we leave until 6:00pm Not quite what we're doing, but I'm picturing it in my head.

Its very likely you'll just see a couple of threads of "Squeeee!!!!!!!!!"

I'm in that area of Silver Spring where Rockville zip code is across the street from me. I moved from Rockville in 2012 to my own place in Silver Spring. It was a 2 minute drive.

Never. Wife and I are die hard fans. We had planned for a big Disney trip in 2020, but, Covid derailed it and we never rescheduled. Rise of the Resistance IS the plan, among others. The problem is my wife does not really do rides, so most of Disney is kind of lost to her. Me on the other hand, I have no problem with most rides. The ONLY thing that gives me pause to get on a ride is whether or not I will get wet. I can get on the tallest, fastest roller coaster with no hesitation or fear, but "hey, wanna go on splash mountain?" I'm like

About 10 minutes from my house. I've lived in this area all my life.

My gut says that the hour change will be mitigated by the sea days itself. Unless you NEED to be up early, the fact that we don’t have anything pressed to be at least in the morning other then breakfast.

I've never splurged on a suite before. But getting my cabin for $1,850 is amazing. My 14 night to Greenland on Royal was $500.00 more and that did not include gratuities. Plus, the $600.00 bar tab on top of that, and $100-$200 additional with DBE because we were able to carry our status over from Royal. Well, maybe, because I screwed up and only applied for myself thinking it was for the whole cabin. I have already submitted it for my wife, so she should theoretically get it because I booked this before the cut off date. Way before. We shall see on that front.

One of the things I noticed is that Virgin seems to cater more to the short 4-5 day cruise as opposed to the longer ones. There are way more of the 4-5 night ones as oppose to 7-8, much less a 14 nighters like this one. I feel like with what Virgin has to offer, 4-5 seems very rushed. Kind of like seeing how Royal Caribbean is scheduling 3-4 nighters on Allure of the Seas. It feels way too much for the kind of stuff they offer. I'm excited. I got such a deal on this.

Hey Hey Hey!!! Stop stealing my idea!!! Dang, you're already there, that means I'm stealing your idea. I'm kind of doing the same thing as you are. No, I'm not on Oasis...I'm on Scarlet Lady!!!! I'm actually flying out on Friday and just doing Disney/Galaxy's Edge on Saturday before I board on Sunday. I thought about taking the brightliner, but i decided on renting a one way car rental, which ended up being cheaper than the brightliner plus, the rentals have a cruise shuttle from the airport. The idea of trusting a train i've never been on was a little anxiety ridden to me. I too am doing a live thread over there, but I'll keep my eye here just to say hi and wave. We might even be within visual range as we're going the same way. We're in Malaga and Valencia together, I think. @little britain can vouch for me as we were in Greenland together. She really added to my live thread on that cruise catching things that I missed. So we're kind of racing to Barcelona, huh. See you in Malaga maybe, or Valencia? 😄

Hello everyone. I'm not a frequent visitor on this board until recently. However, I'm in the habit of posting these live threads. I hope you enjoy my trip as I enjoy writing about it. This is a couple of firsts for me. First and foremost (ha, made a joke), this is my absolute first Virgin cruise, so i'm a bit anxious. I'm normally a Royal Caribbean cruiser, but am very open to other cruise lines as I've done Princess, Celebrity, Carnival and NCL in the past. On this trip, we're leaving Miami and going all the way to Barcelona. 14 Nights!!! This is also my first transatlantic cruise. I'm a bit anxious because this is the first cruise with the most sea days, as well as the most sea days in a row. The record was my Panama canal cruise with 8 sea days total, but they were not concurrent. The most sea days in a row was my last cruise to Greenland where we had 4 in a row. Here, we have I believe 8 sea days. This will also be my first time in Europe, though my wife has been to England and Ireland. But not with me. It will also be my first long haul flight since I was a kid when i flew to Hong Kong. I have not had a flight longer than 4 hours total since then. Its about 40 years now, as when i went to Hong Kong, it was still under British rule. Also tagging @FionaMG as I always do. Hey look, i'm coming to your neck of the woods!!!! My trip actually starts on Friday as I fly out to Orlando. Yes, Orlando, because I'm also taking advantage of the fact that I will be in Florida to check out Galaxy's Edge as I have not done that and have been wanting to since it opened. We had planned on a Disney Trip in 2020, but that died with Covid and was never reinstated. So, I hope you enjoy my trip with me.

Good luck boarding in Norfolk. The one time i sailed out of Norfolk was not the best experience for me. Okay, it was the worst. Its the elevators that take you up that bottlenecks severely especially when everyone arrives all at once. We got lucky because we found the stairs when everyone else was lined up for elevators. It was open to the public. We just took our luggage up and got in line. The staff at the elevator saw us come up and was like “man, wish more people would just do that” At the time, we were late leaving because at 5:30, people were still lined up around the corner because of the bottleneck.

Not just my first Virgin cruise, my first TA as well

I'm glad I found this review. You have a similar background to me as I'm primarily a Royal Caribbean cruiser, but discovered an amazing deal that got me to book Scarlet Lady. And not just a short one like this one, but a major 14 night transatlantic crossing. I also plan to do a live thread and will definitely tag you for hints and suggestions as well as referring back to this thread.

I'm always curious about the legal ramifications of this. Speed cameras are charged against the vehicle, not the driver. They are like parking tickets. I hate them because they require you to proof you didn't trigger the speed camera or are automatically guilty. There's also a whole hosts of ramifications on why this is legally gray, because unlike a parking ticket, a vehicle cannot speed by itself and must have someone actually doing it, but you're trying to hold the car and its registered owner responsible for all its actions. This is specifically true here, as a corporation literally cannot drive a vehicle. I always thought the rental company would just charge you the fine and a "service charge" to do so as the rental company would be on the hook for the fine as owner of the vehicle.

I was at 96. My double point cruises put me just over 176 on last year's Greenland cruise.

I think we talked about this before. I got 4 cruises under that as well, though only 2 were short solos. Mariner 2021 =12 points Brilliance 2021 = 16 points Enchantment 2022 = 24 points Adventure 2022 = 28 points. I got exactly enough to go from Diamond to Diamond plus!

Oooh, I've had issue with this and its tricky. A while back, a friend of mine and I were looking at 2 solo cabins specifically for double points. A gty popped on I think it was Brilliance and it was cheap. We were talking to one another when we were in front of a computer. He clicked the gty and it gave him a price like 300 for a 4 night on Brilliance. But when i went to the site, I did not see this price. Turns out, there are THREE studio cabins on Brilliance. one was available and in the gty pool. That's why he got 300 and I got the regular 600+ with the solo supplement. Funny thing, some time after that (this was when covid was on the decline), we ended up booking solos for December 2021. We had planned for the solo supplement and ended up sailing without them when they dropped them later that year...AND we got the double points promotion, so it was a win win for us.

Is it only 7-10 days? Or is that an additional 7-10 sea days? I kinda of feel that 7-10 days is a little short. My rough estimate is its almost 10K nautical miles to sail around the cape from Oman and make it to the mouth of the Med, vs. 2500K nautical miles from Oman to the Med through the Red Sea and the gulf. An additional 7500 nm is like 2 weeks of 18 knots average with no port stops. I'm not sure if its relatable, but our 14 night Greenland Cruise, Nuuk, the farthest port was about 1650 air nm from Bayonne. I mean, 13 since we actually overnighted in Manhattan and left the US coast straight to Nuuk. We needed 4 full sea days to cover that distance. 7500 would need at last 16 sea days by that math. That's not counting the day we left manhattan and coming in at 10am, later than our scheduled arrival of 7, i think?

This is such a lynchpin in the itinerary. If the Red Sea and Suez is closed off, then you either disembark early, and an entire segment is cancelled, or they have to go around the Cape of Good Hope adding significant time to that next leg to get you back to Miami.

Hmmm, these pictures looks so familiar.....😁 Did you know that where they are Serenade is about 150 miles from the Antarctic Circle? Nuuk is about..150 miles from the Arctic Circle. I'd say we got pretty decent weather since they're in the middle of summer and we were there around the equinox.

@little britain, You're already on another cruise? You stayed on after Greenland. I don't cruise again until April 😞

This maybe more work than you want to do, but if you're like me who needs a good cup of coffee and feel that Royal's coffee is not up to par, I bring my own. I go against my instinct by grinding my coffee before i board (because i don't want to chance losing my grinder). I bring my aeropress coffee maker and all you need is hot water, which most ships have available 24/7. The only issue is that its not THAT hot, which does affect the quality of the brew. Edit: Also, if you use an aeropress, take a couple coffee mugs from the MDR as the ones in the Windjammer are narrower don't fit the aeropress well.

I did a B2B two years ago on Adventure. So i said... The b2b consisted of a 5 night to Bermuda and then 9 nights to Canada. We did the UDP for 5 nights and then MDR for the remaining 9 nights. We also threw in Chef's Table because of the discount for the 1st 5 nights. Adventure has Izumi's, Giovanni's, Chops and Johnny Rockets, but since i don't like Johnny Rockets in general, that really wasn't in the running. I ended up eating at Izumi's once, Giovanni's twice and Chops, 3 times. Anytime lunch was offered, I took it. I also, at the time, was able to get chili cheese fries from Johnny Rockets, but i'm not sure you can do the same thing anymore with that silly one time credit they have now. Did i enjoy the UDP? Yes, but to be honest, after 5 nights of nothing but specialty restaurants, I was done. The menu is fairly limited and visiting twice, with someone, and you've tried everything on the menu already. After that, it starts to get dull. Second, i realized that with Giovanni's and Chops, I skew heavier on steaks there. When i came back to the MDR, I was like "no more steak!!!" I did not eat another steak until maybe day 4 of leg 2, i was that done with it. I do have to say, that Chops burger at lunch is amazing. For a while, best burger at sea was Guy's on Carnival. Then i went on Princess and Salty Dog Gastropub blew Guy's away. and then at the last lunch on Chops, I got a burger, and was like "wow, this is an amazing burger" and Royal took the prize. They never had the prize. However, the burger is absolutely not worth the price you pay for Chops at lunch and even less so if they offer for dinner, which i don't think they do. So, technically, yes, they have the best burger in my mind, but I will ONLY get it if i get the UDP, and given how expensive its been since i got it 2 years ago, its unlikely I will get it again. How did I fare going from all specialty to all MDR? Easily. MDR service will ALWAYS be better than the specialty restaurant. The MDR mixes it up a little better, though the new menu has a little less choices, they still mix it up more meaning they go longer. Also, the specialty restaurants are even more limiting if you have any dietary restrictions like my wife, who is gluten free. She was quite happy to go to the MDR where they tried a little harder to accommodate her. Bottom line. I will get a meal or two at a Specialty Restaurant, but that's it. I even stopped going to Chef's Table because they haven't change the menu since 2017. I used to go to it for every cruise, but until Royal changes up the menu, its getting kind of stale.