jlovely

13 hours ago, DMS1 said:

@VintageCheap  Thanks for the updates, we are going on a Summit 4-nighter in February.

I would be interested to see wine prices/selection at Cellar Masters. We have the Premium but even that looks limited. Also interested to see MDR menus if possible.

Enjoy your vacay!

 

 

We just got off yesterday and noticed that there are wines they had at the bar and in the back rooms that weren't on the printed menus. A few times I asked for a 'great cabernet that's on the premium menu' and was given something off menu. All of the menus seemed VERY limited!

Same in the MDR. They always only had the same 1 wine that was in the Premium price range but brought out a separate wine menu as well as offered other suggestions. 

Just got off the Summit yesterday as you boarded. Enjoy the cruise! If you see Yoga and Eunice in the MDR, tell them Jenn & Raphael say hello! They were AMAZING! 

On 12/9/2023 at 8:59 AM, Sailing12Away said:

Enjoy your trip. Overall things were fine, but Celebrity is not as foo-foo as I thought it would be. It's a standard mainstream line no different from NCL, Princess, etc. They just charge more because they think they're fancier 🤣

 

We did book the 2025 New Orleans Mardi Gras trip with them, but not in a suite. Our personal feeling is that NCL does the suite experience much better than Celebrity, especially when you consider the price of admission for both lines. So we'll continue to follow the itinerary first, and choose the cabin that offers the best value for what is important to us on our trips regardless of which cruise line it's with.

Thank you! We’re just docking back in Miami this morning and I def agree with everything you said. Celebrity was fun and enjoyable but we didn’t think it was any different than Royal. We actually said the staff was much much friendlier on Royal than Celebrity. There were def the outliers that were above amazing too though. Food also was on par with Royal as well. 
 

We’ll continue to stick with Royal for most of our cruising and jump on Celebrity if the price and itinerary are right. 

We're heading on Summit in less than 2 weeks for the first time and this is great, thank you! First on Celebrity too and all of the holier than thou comments from the devout Celebrity fans all over FB and CC has been making me CHUCKLE. 

I'm with you on the dress code. I have to remember to tell my husband to pack pants/jeans. I usually just pack dresses but he's a button down and dressy shorts kind of guy with dressy sneakers. 

Hey all, we'll be in Key West on a Celebrity cruise and would love to get some bubble time under water. Doesn't look like our ship offers any scuba excursions. Can anyone recommend any dive shops? 

Looks like we dock at 8 and leave at 5. I'm guessing that's why there's no excursion offered directly from the ship. Hoping to find a dive shop who starts their dive trips around 9/9:30. 

We did Ship Show with dinner and then went after to our actual dinner. We did try the food at the show and it was decent. But only had a few bites to try it. 

Just got off Irresistible Med. My husband wore shorts a few nights and felt comfortable! He paired it with either a nice tee or a polo/button down and either nice sneakers or even leather flip flops some nights. 

Hi everyone! My husband and I will be in Ibiza on a Virgin cruise in a week or so. We're not crazy partiers so wanted to rent a scooter in the morning for most of the day. Any recommendations for a rental company near the port? Thanks!

Thanks for this! What was your favorite port and thing you did in port? We're heading on Valiant Lady in 3 weeks and getting excited! 

On 7/13/2023 at 9:53 AM, Tyler414 said:

The price I paid through Virgin was $30 USD.

Not sure Google translate would have been very helpful in this situation, the conversation/disagreement back and forth lasted 15 minutes with a fluent Spanish speaking person.  

Not sure why I would expect people in Spain to speak English.

On a side note, while in Ibiza, was talking with a local business person who needs employees, he will only hire Spanish and English speaking people.  I asked what about French,  he laughed at me.  

Ahh I misread then or it's a typo. Your original comment said it was a crap show bc the driver didn't speak English. 

4 minutes ago, cantgetin said:

I don't remember what people paid for transfers thru VV, but I do remember that our taxi was cheaper than transfers for 2 people and that there was a lot of on line complaining about the transfers.

 

Thanks! We booked a car service to meet us at the port first thing around disembarkation time. Crossing fingers! 

4 hours ago, Tyler414 said:

I got off at 9:50am, could have stayed longer...  I had the Virgin bus transfer to the airport at 10am.  I would not do the bus through Virgin again, it was a real sh*t show.  The driver didn't speak English and wanted to drop folks at terminal 1 without their luggage, then drop off the remaining folks at terminal 2, he was then going to return to terminal 1 with the left over luggage.  Thankfully there was someone to translate this horrible idea, and was able to talk the driver into a more sane idea... Bottom line, just get a taxi.  

Yup we have a car service booked for speed of getting there. Also always have Google translate ready whenever we go to a non-English speaking country always bc I wouldn't ever expect anyone in Barcelona to speak English. It's come in handy all over the world and they're so appreciative that we don't expect them to just speak English for us. 

Nothing worse than the pickpockets all around Italy and Greece. Just be smart, use a crossbody in front of you, don't leave your bag on the back of a chair or on the floor, etc, etc. 

Great review, thank you! We'll be on Valiant in August. And we're also on the 14th floor so I might be calling tomorrow to request a change. 🙂

43 minutes ago, _tacocat_ said:

https://spark-aws.virginvoyages.com/api/v1/ext/ddp/5a3193a0af8e4c3fb714386b/2023-06-22#events

 

this is a link to scarlet's current daily.  if you go back in the calendar, you can get a feel for what happens on a voyage.  valiant is kicking around too, but i don't have that on the top of my browsing history 😉  if you search "spark" here or in any VV FB group, you'll find it!

Thank you! I had no idea what to search for 🙂

1 hour ago, cantgetin said:

Here is one..,assuming I can post it. Well, I tried to get the photo to post here, but at least you can download it and see.  I just grabbed a random day.

IMG_1997.HEIC 2.56 MB · 0 downloads IMG_1996.HEIC 2.45 MB · 1 download

thank you! 

Is there anywhere to find a sample daily schedule of activities for any of the Virgin cruises? Like a Royal Caribbean's Daily Compass or Disney's Navigator? I haven't found anyone post screen shots or anything. Just wanted to see roughly what they schedule every day. 

2 minutes ago, cantgetin said:

We were not in any hurry, so we signed up for the latest possible 10:45 disembarkation time.  That allowed us to have a nice breakfast and not rush.  Yes, you can do self-disembarkation starting about 7:15-7:30 if everything is going normally.  You can choose to put your luggage out the night before and pick it up in the terminal; it will be arranged by floor.  You sign up for a disembarkation time under "shore things" for your last day.  About 10:30, they start the "get off the ship NOW" announcements (more politely, but that's what it means!)

It works basically like any other ship at any other terminal; you can do it whichever way you want.  They don't enforce disembarkation times, but do have you select them to spread things out.  You do not have to vacate your room until the time you selected, so you don't have to drag luggage and stuff to breakfast.  That part is really nice.

Thank you! We'll be the crazies standing at the ramp waiting for the ship to be cleared with all our bags. Sigh. We might have screwed ourselves with an early 11:30am RyanAir flight on disembarkation day. If all goes perfectly we'll make it. 😕  Honestly wasn't even thinking straight when we booked the flight and it just hit me this morning so now hoping for the best. Did just sign up for express security checkin at the airport. Send all the luck! 

For those that have already sailed in/out of Barcelona, what time did you actually step off the ship? I know it docks around 6:30 and usually takes an hour to be cleared, but what time did you get off? 

And what's the disembark process for the port? Can you walk your own bags off the ship or does everyone have to leave them outside the cabin the night before, etc? Thanks!

Thank you for this trip report! I definitely recognize your reviews from DisBoards so it was refreshing to read this one. We're doing the same itinerary in August and it's been so hard to find information about the ports.

We might copy your exact Cinque Terre itinerary, sounds amazing!  

We've dove Cocoa Cay twice now and the first time was better than the 2nd. There were so many jellyfish towards the surface on the 2nd dive I think every single diver got stung at least once. Visibility both times wasn't amazing. We got to see a reef shark or two, little rays, a flounder. A lot more sea life the 1st time around! Max depth of the dives was 39 and 31 feet but we stayed on average at about 19 feet. 

Like gmerick said, dive here if it's one of your only ports and opportunities or just to check it off the list. But if you have other amazing dive ports, I'd skip it. My husband and I both agreed we'll take a few years off from diving here again. 

On 12/5/2022 at 3:42 PM, FionaMG said:

Fascinating insight. It wouldn't be for me but I can totally see why the target demographic would love it.

Thanks for sharing even if you weren't able to do it while you were on board. 😊

I will say that if you want more peace and quiet, you can definitely find it. I've done a few Disney cruises without children as well as with friends and their kids. The adult areas are very relaxing! And I honestly don't remember running into the characters in the atrium much. The service, food, etc are worth it for us for some of our cruises! 

For the CM discount, she is able to book her room as well as another room at the discount, so no need to split the cast members into different rooms. But like others mentioned, it's all very short notice when they're posted and cancelling and rebooking might not be ideal bc of the cancellation window. 

Does anyone know what local dive shop Disney partners with for scuba dive excursions in Grand Cayman? We'll be on the Dream in January and are debating doing the ship excursion or going on our own with a dive shop that a bunch of our friends highly recommend. Thanks! 

You do take a taxi from the pier. You have to pay a $12 deposit online prior to your trip and the remainder you pay in cash on arrival. :)