Booked our first VV cruise but why isn't there any info?

[DSGDSG]

We recently booked our first cruise on Virgin.  We've created our account.  We've gotten our confirmation email. We've connected our voyage to our account.  What we haven't gotten though is any idea where we're supposed to learn how things work.  After reading here, it looks like we need to make reservations well in advance for dinners and such, but....where??  We can't find anything on their site.  We can't even find the itinerary unless we make pretend we are booking the cruise again. We know the ports, but it doesn't tell us what days or what times we will be in those ports anywhere in our booking.  We can see the offerings for shore excursions, but that's the extent of the info offered.  It's pretty disappointing so far.

 

Where do we start?  Where are we supposed to go to learn what's going on during our cruise? We spoke to support and the rep there said we won't know anything about scheduled events on the ship until we board.  We haven't even been told what time we need to be at the port or a single thing about the embarkation process! Where are we supposed to learn about what we need to do to have dinner in the restaurants, etc?

 

Frustrating.

[Fogcityca13]

You’ll need to download the Virgin Voyages app. The app is where you’ll book your dining, shore things (excursions), and enter your travel info. You’ll be able to select your embarkation arrival time in step 6 of the travel info, you don’t need to do all 6 steps to select your time slot. You can also edit the info later. If you’re in a rockstar suite your embarkation arrival time is 1:30pm. Folks here will help you out. 

[cantgetin]

Have you downloaded the app?  First, any extras like loot of other goodies will be wrong on the app till after you board, but ours have always "magically" become correct after boarding.  THey are right on the "my account" section of the web site.

Dinner reservations are available 45 days before embarkation on the app.  Shore excursions can be booked on the app.  A limited activity schedule will appear on the app but cannot be booked until you are on board.  You can do some or all of your online check in on the app (if something doesn't work, don't worry; you can add it at check in.  For example, my passport entered fine, but it won't let my daughter's enter on our upcoming trip.....but it worked on our last trip.  You can select an embarkation time; the available times will show up on the app.

Rockstars (suite guests) can make all reservations earlier than above.   I think their dinner res are 60 days out.   DO NOT WORRY if you can't get the dinner reservations that you want.  Make a reservation for each night if you can, then you can change them after you board, either on the app or by going to the restaurant.  About 35% of reservations are saved until after boarding, so don't panic.  Hint--your lunch on embarkation day will be late, so don't book an early dinner!

If you used a travel agent, they can use their portal to make all your dinner reservations,  Brunch reservations can only be made on board.

 

Edited April 7, 2023 by cantgetin

[nimbex1970]

As others suggested, download the app, it took 15 minutes. Similar to other cruise lines booking dinner times are about 30 to 45 days out.  Excursions seem to come slowly in no particular order.  Many onboard activities can't be booked ahead of time.. although I am still researching this if it isn't until boarding, then the app gets more interactive.  I have found Youtube to be a great source of information as well as the board here. 

[DSGDSG]

Thanks everyone for the help.  We'll download the app soon. Looking over all the correspondence from Virgin about our booking, there's not one single instruction saying to download the app.

[cantgetin]

4 hours ago, nimbex1970 said:

As others suggested, download the app, it took 15 minutes. Similar to other cruise lines booking dinner times are about 30 to 45 days out.  Excursions seem to come slowly in no particular order.  Many onboard activities can't be booked ahead of time.. although I am still researching this if it isn't until boarding, then the app gets more interactive.  I have found Youtube to be a great source of information as well as the board here. 

Booking dinner is 45 days before embarkation.  If you wait till 30 days, you'll find few choices.

[Fogcityca13]

2 hours ago, DSGDSG said:

Thanks everyone for the help.  We'll download the app soon. Looking over all the correspondence from Virgin about our booking, there's not one single instruction saying to download the app.

Yeah, the website is misleading saying you can book dinners and shore things on your dashboard. It might be something they are working on, they’ve made some recent changes. Once you download your app, scroll down and you’ll see the dates things will open up. Bookings open up 12am EST.