cantgetin

Sailor services had been getting better, in my experience. At least now I get to a live person in minutes rather than hours most of the time. The problem is that they only know what they can find on their on screen guides; anything else has to be researched and "hope for the best" on it. We paid 22 Euros for a taxi from our airport area hotel in BCN to the cruise terminal at WTC. It was $20something from VV terminal to MIA via Lyft. Not as classy as a private transfer, but plenty big enough for the two of us and the driver.

Dinner reservations 45 days prior to boarding on app or by calling VV. Shows/exercise classes/spa, etc. booked after boarding on app. Shore excursions book in advance or after boarding. If you book in advance, you have to pay with credit card; if you book on board you can use "Loot," but you risk excursions filling up. Trick is that you can book in advance. Then as soon as you board, cancel (at least 24 hours notice required) and go to the red desk on deck 7 and rebook it as soon as you cancel! That way, they will send a refund to your credit card when you cancel and use loot for the rebooking. There are no drink packages. They do what is called a bar tab. For every $300 you put on a tab in advance, you get a bonus based on the current special (usually $50 or $100). Tab can be shared with everyone in your cabin and you can use it to buy drinks for anyone else you wish. On the app, you will be able to choose or be assigned a terminal arrival time. If you show up more than 30 minutes before this time, you can take a bus to a shopping area near the port (Miami) or wait at a nearby coffee shop or plaza (Barcelona). Showing up early will not get you on board any earlier, and if you won't leave, you'll just get to stand around and wait. There are lots of good YouTube videos with great info. What you need to know--VV is unlike any other line. I told my cruise partner that if we compare it to other lines, some line will always come up short. Take it as new and different and enjoy the good as well as the things you may not like as a new experience. We loved VV and did 3 bookings on board during our first cruise. But, as always, there are things other lines do better.

Yes, depending on the current promotion, for each $300 bar tab you purchase, you will receive $50-$125 applied to the tab. So on our most recent cruise, you could purchase the tab for $300 and have $400 show up on your account to be used. Most recently the promotion has been a FREE $300 bar tab with cruises of less than 7 days, $600 with cruises of 7-15 days, and that was on top of any other current deals like rebooking on board. This is good on bookings made thru 1/31/2023 and applies to cruises thru 2023 as well as a few cruises in 2024! November was declared "Food and drink month" and each cabin booked included a $300 bar tab at no cost. If you do these bookings with the free bar tab, you can still purchase additional bar tabs with the current $50 bonus. The bonus amount changes regularly; I've never seen it less than $50 or more than $125 (other than when totally free)

It is definitely possible, we've done it. On the last night of our 14 night cruise, we had appetizers and pasta at Extra Virgin and desert at Razzle Dazzle. You can only make one reservation per night, but we had no problem doing a walk in at RD. As to the question about reservations--you can make them on the app (provided it is working when your window opens) or by calling VV from anywhere. So yes, you can do it whichever works for you. We ate in one of the restaurants each night; if we were eating burgers, it was because we ordered them (but not at dinner time!) The dining concept worked fine for us and the food was consistently the best we've had on any ship. There were isolated menu items on other ships that I may have liked more, and there were a couple things that were not to my liking on VV (usually because they were more spicy than I'd choose), but the overall quality was excellent. My travel partner and I often tried each other's orders, and we have significantly different tastes, so that's where the "too spicy for me" would come in. Also...Gunbae allowed me to order "sauce on the side" for their chicken so it was a lot more to my liking! And like any other ship, if you don't like it they will bring you something else. We never had that problem either. It was more like "too many great choices."

The above is correct. When I did a "cancel and rebook," I was able to apply everything I had already paid to the rebooking. It was more a technicality on their part as all I was doing was rebooking to get a better deal. But yes, every penny I'd paid was credited toward the new booking on the same cruise (and I could have saved it and used it on a different cruise if I'd wished.) No, they do not give cash refunds unless THEY have made a mistake. They did that to me once too, I made the final payment on my cruise and they somehow charged my credit for it twice. My first mate submitted my screen shot and the extra charge was refunded within 2 days. They told me it could take up to 10 days, but it was less than 48 hours.

Yes, depending on the current promotion, for each $300 bar tab you purchase, you will receive $50-$125 applied to the tab. So on our most recent cruise, you could purchase the tab for $300 and have $400 show up on your account to be used. The other thing that makes a bar tab better is the ability to share it. On Princess, all people of drinking age in a cabin need to buy a drink package or no one gets it. They do sometimes make exceptions for medical conditions. On Virgin, if my partner drinks alcohol but I don't, we can buy one bar tab for the cabin and I can use it for a smoothie or cold pressed juice if I wish while my partner can use the same tab for alcohol. So we buy 1 tab at $300, have $400 applied to the account that we can share. Most recently the promotion has been a FREE $300 bar tab with cruises of less than 7 days, $600 with cruises of 7-15 days, and that was on top of any other current deals like rebooking on board. This is good on bookings made thru 1/31/2023 and applies to cruises thru 2023 as well as a few cruises in 2024! November was declared "Food and drink month" and each cabin booked included a $300 bar tab at no cost. If you do these bookings with the free bar tab, you can still purchase additional bar tabs with the current $50 bonus. The bonus amount changes regularly; I've never seen it less than $50 or more than $125 (other than when totally free)

You can request anything. Often this will require that you cancel and rebook under the new deal, but this can be done. For example, people were able to rebook to get the free $600 beverage package deal, but this often cost an additional $100-150 cruise cost. Still...$600 bar tab for $150 is a great deal. I've not heard of them doing cabin upgrades.

Exactly. I didn't realize how nice "no kids" would be until I experienced it. We did 3 booking on board deals! For those criticizing the cost, shop carefully. We cruised for just under $100 pp per night in a balcony cabin...and that included the tips, wifi, and sodas. Many short cruises are more than double that, but deals are out there if you look for them.

Whether the "bar tab" or the "drink package" is a better deal depends totally on how you drink. My normal cruise companion and I are light drinkers. There is no way we would make a typical package worthwhile with our normal intake of a glass of wine at dinner and a cocktail sometime during the day. Depending on the cruise line, drink packages are typically $80-130 pp per day, and then add 18-20% gratuity on top of that. The bar tab is $300, gives you an addition promo amount of $50-125 when it isn't just added as a freebie with booking, includes the gratuity, and the drinks are typically cheaper than other lines. And we can share one bar tab. VV already includes soda, water, brewed coffee and tea (not the garbage from syrup), so that leaves specialty coffees and smoothies in addition to alcohol. We had a status match on our last cruise which included $10 credit per cabin per day at The Grounds Club. If you are drinking 8-10 alcoholic beverages per day, the beverage package on other lines might be a better deal for you.

THey waived single supplements for bookings made during a 2 month time in 2022, then it was gone for about 10 days and suddenly reappeared. Stated dates for various promotions to end have a way of being extended...

No one knows because they haven't announced it yet. The status match Deep Blue Extras program was supposed to end 12/31/2022, but sometime during December it was announced that it was being extended until 3/31/2023. The only thing they've said is that the new program they are developing will be based on both how much you've spent on cruise fares with VV and how much you've spent on board. No more details than that. I'm crossing fingers that the Deep Blue (or something better) will be available for my April cruise. They've made so many inconsistent announcements that there is no way to even guess what they'll do!

No tables for 2 at Gunbae. All are shared tables for 6. How much you socialize with others is up to you. Valiant, October 2022 cocktails $8-13, beers $5 and up, wines mostly about $10 Of course depending on what you want, the sky's the limit, but these were the typical ranges. Walk ups were often available in the restaurants, but our ship was right about 50% full (1400 while ship holds 2770). We had no trouble making same day reservations, which is what we usually did rather than the walk up line. If you have a 7:30 reservation but are hungry at 6 or 7, just look on the app and see what is available....or walk up and see if you can eat early. We never waited more than 10 minutes and were only turned away once (so we went elsewhere and were seated). The app lets you see which restaurants have what times open before you decide whether to cancel an existing reservation. My original plan was to only make reservations for the first few nights. Due to a malfunctioning app, I had to call VV to do this. The rep strongly encouraged me to make a reservation for each night as "sometimes they do fill up," knowing that I could always change things...and we made a lot of changes over 14 nights. Don't be afraid to experiment. Restaurants that I thought would be "just ok" ended up being some of our favorites.

We were told at the shop that they only stock the 2 person size hammock on board. THey showed us a pamphlet with various sizes and colors available and offered us a business card with the name and contact info for the company. I was already somewhat familiar with the company as they had appeared on the TV show "Shark Tank" in the US where they were not being taken very seriously until they mentioned that they had a contract with VV to place a solo hammock on every balcony cabin on each ship....and suddenly the sharks found this a viable investment. I just didn't realize how amazing the hammock was until my first sailing.

totally agree

We were really surprised at the lack of "stuff" in the shops on Valiant, and even talked among friends on board about the number of merchandizing opportunities they were missing out on. Even in areas as simple as the brand shop...we were on the first transAtlantic cruise with passengers ever, but there was no TA merchandise or anything with a date on it. I do realize that that limits the sales window...but just something saying Valiant Lady TransAtlantic would have been less limiting as they have at least 2 more of those scheduled. They were selling Bimini stuff and our cruise didn't stop at Bimini. They could easily make a bigger deal out of their little plastic octopi (there is a different color for each ship, but if you don't know that, you wouldn't figure it out in the shops!) There was very little in the sundries shop. We were really surprised to find that they don't sell the hammocks on board--they give you a card with the company name and address. You can also get them on Amazon. But I might have expected them to have the same single person design that exists on the ship along with info on where you can get the various support devices. I can see a lot of people buying one on board, whether or not they ever complete their purchase with a stand after they get home. And the stand they show on the ship costs $3500 (that's more than my cruise cost!) while many other stand styles are available starting as low as $100. I don't think they should sell the stands on board but I can see a huge business for the hammocks as souveniers, gifts, etc. And to OP....no electronics that I saw beyond a couple chargers.

This is correct..and they are only available as a dedicated person a few hours per day. However, at Sailor Services, if there are more than a few people in line, they'll open another desk for people with Deep Blue...or at least they did on our cruise.

The magic to sailing solo is being comfortable with yourself alone...at least for me. Virgin is no different than other lines--there are places and ways to meet people if you wish, but I don't go on a cruise to meet people. I can be perfectly content in a hammock on my balcony or a chair on the pool deck with a book, or (specifically on VV), I can meet people during a game session, a book club session, a craft session, or whatever, and will often see those people around the ship later. I helped an older lady who was having a problem accomplishing something due to arthritis in her hands and for the rest of the cruise we had a brief chat any time we saw each other. Another time, I was sitting alone at a table in The Dock area and another cruiser came up and asked if I wanted company...sat down and chatted. How much you meet people at meals is up to you--the only one where you will definitely interact is Gunbae. At Test Kitchen, you can choose to interact with people next to you or not. Same for tables at other restaurants. With the exception of The Wake, the tables are close enough to chat if you want to or keep to yourself if you prefer. I didn't find being alone on VV to be any different than being solo on DCL or Princess, but then, I'm very comfortable living alone. I typically cruise with a family member (who doesn't live with me), but have cruised alone multiple times. One thing on VV....if you are buried in your laptop, kindle, or whatever, people will not bother you and there are plenty of places around the ship to plug in. Bembridge has a YouTube about cruising VV as a solo.

Valiant 14 night cruise definitely older group than VV cites in their stats. Have a friend who says food is better on Scarlet, but I thought it was great on Valiant.

Yes, people wear shorts to dinner, although I (female) usually wore long black pants and a top slightly better than a t-shirt, there were nights that I wore a t-shirt. I did not wear the dress up clothes that I brought on board. I took the approach that comfort was better than dressy.....although in fairness, I do think a swimsuit is a bit pushing the envelope! And if you read any nonsense about what you have to wear in certain restaurants, ignore it. True, some restaurants have a more upscale atmosphere than others, but you can wear shorts and a tshirt to any restaurant on the ship. As to your first comment....we booked a single 14 night cruise. By the time I got off the ship, I had 3 more sailings booked.

The title basically says it--for anyone looking at whether a cancel and rebooking or a new booking would be to their advantage with the $300/$600 free bar tab offer, VV is currently stating that the offer will end on 1/31. I am not a "First Mate" and do not claim any expertise. I just know that I've seen the cruise fare go up by $150, but add a $600 bar tab benefit. Whether it works for you depends on your original booking and any price increases since then.

Ah, VV...they have changed the benefit from a shake for champagne to $100 complimentary bar tab. An improvement IMHO, but obviously haven't changed the notice. Gotta love them. Still hoping for an extension of the current program for at least another month.....

Check with the DR government web site. Do not take the word of any TA. travel web site, etc.

They say it will take a week. In our case, it was a bit more than that...like 9-10 days.

This site has them in easy to read format. https://eatsleepcruise.com/virgin-voyages-restaurant-guide-with-menus/ It is missing the B menu in test kitchen and the prices on some of the "treat yourself" items have changed. Other than that, it was up to date as of November 2022. (2 months ago.)

The free bar tab is a relatively new deal. You'll have to compare prices and see whether it is worth canceling and rebooking your cruise to get the bar tab deal. Otherwise, to buy the bar tab, call your TA (if you used one) or VV Sailor Services Shoreside with your credit card number. It must be added at least 24 hours before sailing. As to loot...it comes with some promotions, almost always with rebookings on board. In addition, you can get it by referring a "friend" to your same cruise.....you'll each get $50 if you link your bookings. The think is that they don't really have to be a friend. You can join a FB group for your cruise and meet people there. You can only be referred once by someone else, but you can refer up to 16 people. Again, this has to be done prior to embarkation.