cantgetin

There are many TAs on various social media sites advertising these deals, especially the MNVV, as if it was something special thru them. Some have an additional $100 in Loot thru a recent streaming program with a VV person. They often stop just short of making it sound like the "special" is limited to them, saying things like "We have a limited supply of these offers." It isn't a lie, but it also is available from almost every TA and the "deal" is coming from VV. There is actually no reason to book VV without the MNVV offer--if your TA doesn't have it, find one that does! I may be the only person on my next cruise who doesn't have the bar tab on my next cruise....we booked before that offer came out. Oh well....

This is getting ugly. I'm 68, relatively conservative , and loved VV. There were shows on VV that I loved and shows that I chose not to attend because I thought they'd be "too much." I didn't see any behavior on VV that I haven't seen on DCL unless you count no kids pushing all the elevator buttons, trashing the drink stations, or stealing from host carts while screaming up and down the halls. The PDA, the "OMG" outfits were no worse than what is on Disney. If someone wants to wear a skirt slit up to their private parts, that's their business; I don't have to look at it. I did go to a couple of Diva events--bingo was great and funny, around the world was a different diva and not nearly as good. I went to VHS exercise as well as other classes. The food was great, most of the events were good, the music was good, loved the hammock so much that we bought one when we got home, etc. Yes, one night in Test Kitchen, we sat next to a lovely pair of men who I would guess were gay. So what? I had gay friends in college, and that was almost a million years ago. Not my business....we had lovely dinner conversation. There were guys by the elevator on Scarlet night wearing the same shirts we had on, but theirs were better accessorized. It isn't my place to approve or disapprove of someone's life choices. It is my responsibility to behave decently toward everyone on board. If I find something to be uninteresting (this happened) or inappropriate, I can leave. Bottom line, VV was good enough that we got off our first cruise with 3 more booked. I hope OP finds the cruise to be more pleasant than some of the comments in this thread.

Yeah.....overall, I'm impressed with the product on board, but far less with upper management and their tech/shoreside efforts. And the entire JLo thing strikes me as someone in management wanting to have dinner with her.....I see no benefit to the brand and her most recent filming on Valiant was a pain to everyone she inconvenienced. She adds nothing and I'm sure they are paying her a small fortune.

As to how to use the "loot," there are many options. This can be shopping, any onboard activity that incurs a fee (these activities all have alcohol served), booking excursions after boarding the ship, spa, casino. A haircut, manicure, massage, etc. might be a nice treat. As to how to use that huge bar tab, it is not limited to just alcohol. It can be used for specialty coffee/tea, smoothies, cold pressed juices, and non-alcoholic "mocktails" as well. In addition, you can use it to purchase drinks for your "new best friends," and you can choose to purchase a bottle of wine or liquor AT A BAR to take home (subject to Customs limits). Note that anything purchased at the duty free shop is applied to your "loot," while things purchased at a bar are applied to the "bar tab." Also, if your agent didn't mention this, you likely have loyalty status on another cruise line. Thru 12/31/2023, Virgin is offering a "status match" where, if you qualify, you will get an assortment of perks including priority boarding, an invitation to a cocktail party, premium wifi, a bag of laundry done, a couple items pressed or dry cleaned, and another $100 on your bar tab in addition to whatever I'm forgetting. Go to the VV web site, scroll down to "loyalty," and complete the form to sign up. Is VV for you? Trying out a cruise is the only way to know for sure, but I'm 68 and enjoy it. We do prefer long cruises which tend to skew a little older, but there is plenty on the ship for everyone. Compared to other lines....better food (most is comparable to specialty dining on other lines), best service of any line, and NO KIDS.

She was excellent....and very sweet.

I was able to do Zoom on the April TA with no problem. Didn't try Teams. I never had any problem with the internet on that cruise. It all worked beautifully. In October 2022, the internet was awful during the crossing....as in almost impossible. Others on the trip have reported no problems. I was on a relatively new macbook, which has never been a problem before. We had decent internet while near land in the Med, but once we headed out, it was bad. Speed tests showed we were on Starlink, but it didn't work well at all on that crossing.

I read a similar announcement earlier--lots of conjecture, very little specific info. They basically just listed every ship built at the two shipyards since 2020 or currently under construction as "possibly" being involved. and said that further testing may prove the panels are fine.

You got the right guy! And just watch what happens if you comment on some of the things he reported that were different on your cruise!

There is one particular individual on YouTube and sometimes here who seems to have a "doom and gloom" philosophy about VV. The funny thing is that if his last YouTube is to be believed (which is often stretching things), he has done several VV cruises, all either "free" as a travel professional or severely discounted casino rates. He was predicting that VV couldn't make it financially this far. Bottom line, if someone has nothing good to say, take their posts with a grain of salt. Even those who find that VV isn't the line for them can usually find something that was good!

Wow, I actually will disagree with Walter this one time. We had great coverage all the way across the Atlantic. I agree that it can't be guaranteed, but it was quite perfect during the April crossing.

Each new ship launch seems to have scheduling changes. However, the ships on established routes are sailing at near capacity now. Each time we cruise, the ship is more full in terms of numbers than on our previous cruise, but we really don't notice it. I think they have learned how to spread out the peope on board better and have more events occurring at the same time.

I had no problem getting additional reservations in the restaurants I wanted after boarding (Sea Terrace cabin, no nothing special). This is probably because after 29 nights on VV, I know how to make it happen. Also, there is a huge difference between the shorter and longer cruises. Shorter cruises skew younger and more risque. Longer cruises skew older and have a lot more food and entertainment options--we had specials in several of the restaurants each night as well as specials in The Galley at both lunch and dinner. There is no difference in the dining rooms between breakfast and brunch other than The Wake adds a few items at 12:00. I will be interested to see the new RD menu as the old menu was one of our favorites. 7 and 8 night cruises have fewer "special" dining choices, but you can make up to 3 reservations in advance in each dining room. In fairness, we did hit a dining room that we didn't care for, Ship Show with the original menu, and a different dining room that was having an "off" night. In each case, we had no trouble getting a later seating in a space that we liked. The entertainment issue could sometimes be a pain. It took me a while to learn that people make multiple reservations for the same shows and then don't show up. I do wish VV would limit each sailor to one slot per cruise for each show. I don't particularly care for stand by lines, but these could have worked for us on several occasions. There were additional entertainers on our sailings, but that was likely an "extra" due to the long cruises with many sea days. We did find that we liked our first VV cruise better than the second--not worth the list of reasons here; I gave them to VV in a long review after the cruise. It wasn't bad enough to make us cancel our upcoming bookings, just not as good as the first. It will be interesting to see how the next one goes.

I've done both TA. In October, 2022, Premium wifi was not available either as a perk or to purchase. Once we left the coast of Europe, the internet became crap. I could check email and see FB, but couldn't get some of the FB photos and no videos. No streaming. According to speednet, we were on Starlink, but it didn't seem to be working. In April, 2023, it was a different world. We had Deep Blue Extras which includes free premium internet. I had no problem doing anything I wanted to. Everything worked....a bit slower than if I was sitting in my home or office, but not bad at all. Streaming was fine, chat functions were fine.. We had great internet from beginning to end of the cruise.

You hit the jackpot there. Good reminder about the luggage tags. However, if you place your bags out without tags, your stateroom host will put them on for you--no need to make the trip to Sailor Services. Good review, thanks.

Virgin has not done this itinerary before, so can't help from a VV standpoint. You might want to check the shore excursions section of Cruise Critic.

This is actually plenty to do without the R rated stuff. I'm pretty naive, conservative, or whatever other word you want. I had no problem finding stuff that wasn't offensive. Crew---may have dyed hair, some tats, some piercings but they wont' talk to you about anything you don't initiate. I never saw any behavior from a Sailor that I haven't seen on Disney. In fairness, my cruises have all be longer ones; I've read some questionable stuff abut guest behavior on short cruises, but have never seen or experienced any of it.

I think CC has it pretty well locked up. There is no private communication thru the site, and I don't think I can put my email on a post....or my agent's email. I've seen some people who list an email in their sig line along with a list of their past cruises or whatever. We are not even allowed to list other social media sites by name, but most people can figure out those. I get a lot more info in a group of 200 on another site than a roll call of 5 on CC. But I get the best general info about a cruise line on CC.

You hit the jackpot there. I'm not adventurous with food either, but the steak at THe Dock was good.

I would say that the only one totally PG is Dual Reality. But MOST of what happens on VV is innuendo. If you look at a lot of the Disney videos from the 1990s, there is a lot of innuendo too--stuff that the kids never got (and weren't intended to), but if you watch it as a 30 year old, you catch it. For instance, in the opening song of Aladdin, there is a line about the nights being "Hotter than hot in a lot of good ways." Much of the stuff on VV is at that level or a little worse. For instance, the ice cream place is called "Lick me Till I Scream" We found most of the entertainers that rotate on/off to be fairly typical of a lot of other cruise ships--their costumes were either normal clothing or stuff like funny glasses. Their jokes were likely what they used on other cruise lines as well. I don't know if you've ever cruised DCL, but their stuff was on the level of the after 9pm, adult only shows on DCL--a little suggestive, but not outright inappropriate.

Or maybe they are moving toward different shows on different ships to encourage passengers to choose to try different ships. The "they're all the same" doesn't generate as much repeat business.....

My cruises have been long ones, so I'm never sure if we had "extra" entertainment or not...but we found a wide variety of voices, types of music, etc. We had a solo guitarist doing mainly oldies and country, a female with a variety of electronic add ons to her guitar doing a variety of different sets, the house band doing light rock, etc. Places to find music--the roundabout, the Dock, Sip, the loyalty cocktail party (ours was on the outdoor deck), etc. We also encountered some crew members doing excellent karaoke at The Social Club.

You are totally correct--we were not charged for Ship Show. I'm told that the food has improved a lot since we did that one. Sorry for the error!

You had a good diva then. We've seen 2 different ones. One was great, the other not so much.

For my next 2 cruises on VV, I compared them to Royal, Celebrity, and Norwegian. As you know, it is impossible to compare "apples to apples" as the packages offered by each cruise line are different. VV does not offer cheap base fares where you have to add a lot of upcharges. ALL VV bookings include gratuities, unlimited basic internet (premium is $10 per day and will allow streaming), ALL restaurants with only a handful of upcharge items anywhere, ALL fitness classes, and all entertainment except that which includes alcohol. There is a dinner show (Ship Show, Last Rose) that has a fee, but the fee includes the alcohol. There are 6 restaurants on board that would be specialty on any other line. SO, what I did was to try to find a package on the other lines that included tips, wifi, and at least some specialty dining. VV was running a $600 free bar tab with booking special, so I considered that a "wash." What I found was that the cruise I was paying $2400 for would have been at $3700-$4000 n the other lines. That made VV a good deal. I also had $600 in "loot" (onboard credit), so considered that equal to any other line. I do shop carefully on my own and my TA tracks specials so I can grab them if something comes up. In fact, on that $2400 cruise, I was able to cancel and rebook, which took almost $400 off my original booking and added the $600 bar tab...so dropped from $2800. When I say that VV includes gratuities, that means ALL onboard gratuities....in the spa, in the bars, etc. If I buy a cocktail on any other line, they will add a 15-20% automatic gratuity. On VV, if I buy a $13 cocktail (range is generally $11-15), I pay $13. Same for the spa. I offered a tip and was told that it was included in my service and they were not permitted to accept tips...there is no "additional tip" line either and no key in the register to add a tip. So.....if you are looking for a cheap base price, VV may not be for you. If what you care about is what you end up paying by the time you get off the ship, I've found that with careful shopping, it can easily be cheaper than other lines. And, the best part is NO KIDS!

Given that all gratuities are included in the VV cruise fares, you can skip that point. We have found that generally, the longer the cruise, the less costly the nightly rate. I don't know of any place that has ranked all cruise though. I've seen Sea Terrace for 2 people in 2022-2024 going for as little as $84 per person per night including all costs to $350 pp per night. When we got the $84 per night, that included the MNVV and 10% off for paying in full more than 180 days in advance. The nice thing about VV is that many of the offers can layer on each other.