DCGuy64

Thank you for your review! I'm glad your kids had a good time. We're booked on the Encore for next May (2025). What were your impressions, if any, of Food Republic? How about Los Lobos, Onda, or Cagney's? Just trying to get an idea what food is like on the Encore. We've been on a few other NCL ships but not that one. Thanks again!

Yeah, I get that. We were really looking forward to our stops in Athens and Livorno last November when we sailed with Norwegian, but they were cancelled. Big bummer, but it didn't stop us enjoying our trip. Hope your trip goes swimmingly and there are no cancellations. But if there are, just try to roll with it and maintain a positive attitude. At least you know now that VV can make changes, so it's good lesson learned, right? Worst case, you're stuck on an amazing ship with great food, drinks, entertainment, etc. 😊

Earlier you mentioned this would be your last one. Hopefully after this one you might change your mind?

👏👏👏 Bravo! Well stated. It never ceases to amaze me how people can sign a contract and then are shocked and appalled that they, wait for it, signed a contract! You can't make this stuff up! I'd like to know when these complainers are cruising so I can avoid them. Something tells me they're not really Virgin's target market, anyway.

Hmm, that has never happened to us in the past. I've missed a couple of flights over the years, and all the airline did was put me on the next flight, usually the following day, with no cost whatsoever. I've already paid for the flight, after all, it's not like I just showed up at the airport with no reservation and said "how much is it to fly home"?

We ended having our TA book us on the Encore to Alaska next year as a replacement for the Star cruise. We've never been to Alaska so it's something we're looking forward to. Maybe we'll do a land based vacation to Norway one day.

That just might be it! 🤣 Agreed. It's just part of cruising. At least in this instance, the change was (apparently) something the sailors wanted. Many times it seems like ports are dropped or substituted while the cruise is underway, with little justification. I guess it's kinda nice that this was due to passenger preference.

It sounds from the earlier post like sailors wanted another sea day, NOT a stop at a different Med port.

Quite a few people on CC mention they have cruises booked one, two, even 3 years ahead of time. What would be your suggestion in terms of the right time to change things? At the very least, there are often people who book less than 50 days ahead of sailing date, so that's enough time for them to decide whether to book or not. I take itinerary changes as just one of the many things that can happen. Earlier today I found out that my cruise was cancelled altogether (ship is changing to a charter for our sailing). I'd certainly prefer a changed/missed port to a full cancellation.

I like your posts a lot, BTW. I am just sitting here chuckling because it seems like people on Cruise Critic are always offering advice about what cruise lines should and shouldn't do, how they should skip certain ports because "everybody's been there," etc., and now here's a case of the cruise line actually listening to customers and changing the itinerary accordingly, and people are mad. 🤣

Take the risk. In the worst case, you miss that flight and leave the next day, which is what others are encouraging you to do, anyway. You might also consider seeing how often that 9:15 flight takes off on schedule. Maybe it's perpetually late leaving.

Somewhat of a curious comment, since Cruise Critic is very often littered with posts saying the cruise lines should take passenger input into account.

I saw that they are doing that for 2024. But we're going on a family trip to France June 8-21 so that won't work, unfortunately. We're just SOL

Thank you very much! I appreciate the positive and encouraging note. I'm hoping that happens, as well. Since they're offering 10% off our next cruise, it would certainly be nice to get both that AND the triple CN offer!

Thank you for that. I'm looking at Alaska on the Jade or the Encore at this point. I'll check on other ships for summer 2025.

Yeah, I have heard of that from Royal. Ironically, NCL is currently offering a Triple Up deal where you can apply up to 3 CruiseNext certificates, but the offer expires on April 2. According to the letter we received, they won't be crediting us back until April 4, and we don't have 3 CN's left to use right now. It's not a big deal, though. My wife is saying maybe we should visit Alaska, since we've never been there. We'll get over it.

Well, that was short-lived! No sooner did we get our 3rd CN applied, our sailing was cancelled. Oh, well, it was fun while it lasted! 😅

Yeah, could be. (Although the Viva is probably too new to need a dry dock already). I noticed that they offer alternative sailings, but the one for ours omits the one port that was the basis for our entire sailing (Longyearbyen in Norway). Of course, we all know that ports can and do get skipped for various reasons, but the itinerary is always an important aspect of cruising for us.

Yeah, this is a bummer for us, we were booked on the Star for June 9-25, 2025. Time to find another cruise to replace it with! The letter I got said it was due to charters, I wonder if that applies to all of those cancellations.

Yikes! Just for kicks, I did a sample booking for early October 2024. The Eurostars costs a whopping $421 a night! No, thanks. We do love Barcelona, but there are definitely cheaper options out there.

We haven't cruised with as many lines as you have, but based on what I understand about VV, their model of doing things differently is one of the things I find most attractive about them. No constant hard-selling of spa treatments, excursions, art auctions, future cruises, jewelry, photography, etc. Most everything included, even sodas and sparkling water, all the restaurants, the list goes on and on. Our cruise is not until January 2025, but I'm already looking forward to it. We still cruise with the traditional concept, too, but it'll be nice to try something different. For one thing, my wife is vegetarian, and Virgin seems to do an outstanding job of accommodating her dietary needs.

Since you quoted me in your reply, (although I wasn't responding to you in mine), I'll just say this: we have never been on a Virgin Voyages cruise. I literally only booked the very first one about 2 weeks ago. We're newbies to Virgin. I don't have a dog in this fight, so to speak. I'm keeping an open mind. I simply get tired of people accusing a company of "lying" when it comes down to someone's interpretation of things. Accusing someone of lying is a serious thing to me. If you don't have the evidence to back a charge like that up, you should be called out for it. It sounds more like a case of feeling that Virgin hasn't lived up to some of its promises, but that again is open to interpretation. Fortunately, someone who has tired of one line has many others to choose from.

It just seemed strange. It reminded me a bit of an ad I once saw for Zipcar: "Cars for people who don't want one." 🤣

Understood, but I suppose when someone tells me he had a $300 bar tab, my first thought isn't "oh, he must mean mocktails and coffee." 😉

I guess you and I have different definitions of lying, then. I would submit that nearly everything you wrote represents an opinion of the cruise line. A negative opinion isn't a lie. It sounds like you didn't have a good experience with VV, and you're certainly entitled to feel disappointed or let down. But I guess I don't see how being disappointed equals being lied to. Like I said, I guess we have different definitions. It's interesting to me because I have been watching a lot of video reviews of VV, and they're almost universally positive. Same goes for the vast majority of people who review them on here. I think your negative experience is unrepresentative of the company as a whole. We just booked our first cruise with VV following a conversation with some friends of ours. They couldn't stop talking about what an amazing and unforgettable experience they had.