Liveish from the Scarlet Lady - July 2nd through July 7th

[1025cruise]

Well, we’re at the airport waiting to go home. I’ll finish up when I get home and have a real keyboard.

 

With reference to the Dock, not being adventurous eaters, the menu just didn’t appeal to us.

[cantgetin]

16 hours ago, 1025cruise said:

Yes, Carlos was our diva.

You hit the jackpot there.

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

Edited July 7, 2023 by cantgetin

[drewdawg199]

4 hours ago, 1025cruise said:

Well, we’re at the airport waiting to go home. I’ll finish up when I get home and have a real keyboard.

 

With reference to the Dock, not being adventurous eaters, the menu just didn’t appeal to us.

You can also order the skewers with no sauce, shrimp, chicken and steak are pretty plain.

[_tacocat_]

2 hours ago, drewdawg199 said:

You can also order the skewers with no sauce, shrimp, chicken and steak are pretty plain.

absolutely!! i am the QUEEN of weird sauce/topping modification requests.  steak skewers no sauce (ew anchovies), new razzle pasta no cheese, enchiladas at pink agave with no sour cream but cheese is okay, etc., etc.  occasionally, i get a confused look and double confirmation from the server.  most things are able to be slightly modified, but they'll tell you up front if there's something that won't work.

[1025cruise]

OK, time to finish up, so sorry for the long post.

 

The Diva show was excellent. As previously stated, Carlos was our Diva. Now, while a drag queen show is normally not my thing, Carlos was excellent. We had an enjoyable time.

 

That evening we attended Duel Reality. It's West Side Story meets Cirque Du Soleil. The beginning of the show had me confused, until it was explained it was the beginning of the show (not going into details to not spoil it). The team was excellent in their abilities. 

 

Following the show, we went to the outside bar at the Dock to get my wife her preferred drink (more on that later), then went to Pink Agave. Probably more for shock factor, I ordered the cricket drink, made with real crickets. We both started with the potatoes and had the ribeye. While tasty, I would disagree with the above statement about it being better than what we had in Wake. But then again, ribeye is not my preferred cut of steak.

 

Next day was Bimini. One thing I hadn't caught was that breakfast at the Galley stopped being served half an hour earlier than it had been, so we were rushing to get there. Afterwards, I grabbed my kindle and headed for a lounge chair. My wife wanted to get off the ship for a little bit. She was a bit disappointed when the tram dropped her at the "village" and nothing was open. She was hoping to get a souvenir or two. I guess the majority of Virgin cruisers just go straight for the Beach Club. She came back after an hour or so. (To me, the beach is nothing short of torture, so I chose to stay onboard and enjoy the quietness of the ship). For lunch, we enjoyed some pizza (just after the pizza place opened). Somehow, my wife managed to get a second reservation for that night in Extra Virgin (we were originally supposed to eat at Gunbae, but she's just not that adventurous). One thing I noticed was that those who tried to walk in to Extra Virgin (our reservation was at 6:00 just as they opened) were basically all seated at a community table. So while served, I doubt that's what they were expecting. After throwing away a little more money, we headed back to get packed. Beforehand, I decided to attempt the hammock and ended up sitting there for a decent amount of time. I'm glad I did it in the evening. One thing to note, while other lines provide disembarkation tags, Virgin does not. They rely on the same tags attached at embarkation, so don't be like my wife who pulled them off as soon as we got our bags. Fortunately, sailor services was able to provide new ones.

 

And finally, the last morning, one final breakfast in the Galley, then down to the Roundabout for disembarkation. We were off slightly before our 8:15 time, easily located our bags, smiled for CBP (they use facial recognition, so no need to do a meet and greet with CBP under normal circumstances), then off to wait for our scheduled car to pick us up. Fortunately, we were back at Ft. Lauderdale airport with plenty of time for our noonish flight. Which was good because they changed our gate basically requiring us to walk the entire terminal. All that is needed is for JetBlue to teach their crews how to pronounce the name of the small airport we flew in/out of.

[cantgetin]

On 7/6/2023 at 8:44 PM, 1025cruise said:

Yes, Carlos was our diva.

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.

Edited July 8, 2023 by cantgetin

[1025cruise]

Now a final sum up post.

 

While we enjoyed our cruise, and won't say no to cruising Virgin again, we probably won't be rushing to book our next Virgin cruise.

 

We missed having a "main dining room". I was stressed at the beginning of the cruise due to lack of reservations for dinner. I was also stressed due to being a non-adventurous eater, we had no choice but to eat at restaurants we might not have chosen. For example, at Pink Agave, we each ordered the same thing because in reality, that was really the only thing on the menu that appealed to us. We almost walked out of Razzle Dazzle when presented with the new menu, but fortunately found something we liked. Given a choice, I think we could have eaten in Wake nightly and not been disappointed. On the same point, the menus served daily were identical. There was absolutely no variety (outside of a special dish in the Galley each night). Yes, you ate in a different restaurant daily, but there was no variety. Normally, we would eat in the main dining room, and maybe a night in a specialty. The same for breakfast. Normally, we avoid the buffet and would eat in the MDR (which many people never find for breakfast). We aren't interested in brunch, however, just a simple breakfast. At least the Galley has wait service, but you are still fighting for a table during crowded times. Even the pizza was identical. A lot of the time we'll see 2 or 3 standard pizzas, plus 1 or two daily specials. Even the Galley was identical. At least at a buffet, there is always a little bit of variety.

 

For a ship this size, with just under 3000 passengers, the entertainment spaces are too small. The two main venues, the Manor and the Red Room don't hold too many people, causing you to need a reservation for entertainment. Yes, the shows are performed a few times, but the need to snag reservations is annoying. We missed the magician that was onboard because we couldn't get a reservation. Though, for the Diva show, I don't recall anyone checking bands for tickets. We also missed the dinner show for the same reason. They even added a performance but before we could even think about it, it was sold out. To be honest, given the adult only nature of the cruise, I expected to enjoy a comedy show or two, with the comedian being a bit "risque". 

 

Another thing was the bars. On most cruise ships, for the most part, a bar is a bar, with location being the only difference. Yes, there are martini bars, or champagne bars, but you can go up to pretty much any bar, order any drink, and get it. My wife has a preference for frozen "foo-foo" drinks. The first night at dinner, she tried ordering one and was told they couldn't make it. It took us two days to finally find a bar that could make them (after running into the food manager in the Galley who called the bar manager). I even went to an outdoor pool bar to get her one the next day and was told they couldn't do it.  On a cruise ship, I shouldn't have to go through a wild goose chase to get a drink.

 

One thing I did like was the carafes of water in the room. I drink a lot of water. So after requesting ice, between that and the carafes, I had no issue keeping up my water intake. Plus there are water filling stations all over decks 15 and 16. My wife enjoyed the availability of soda without a cost. I wish there were more water filling stations on deck 7. Yes, you could get it at the Social or in the Pizza place, but I was under the impression that there was water filling stations all over the ship, which was clearly not the case. While a lot of the time I want to find a way to fit my cabin attendant in my suitcase and bring them home, I didn't feel the same with my attendant this trip. Yes, the room was cleaned. The first day, she forgot to leave towels. We had to request to get some brought to the cabin. We left a note the second day. I just didn't feel the same as I did after other cruises. All the wait staff/etc were great. I wonder if the fact that Virgin doesn't base the crew's salaries on guest gratuities had something to do with this. I'm used to always leaving my cabin attendant a bit extra (in addition to anything prepaid) because they have earned it. This time, I didn't feel so inclined.

 

Some other comments:

1. I noticed a lot of same sex couples on this cruise. Probably more than I've seen on other cruises. I'll also say that while it didn't bother me, I know some people might be bothered by this.

2. One thing I didn't notice was many scooters/wheel chairs. Maybe just the demographic?

3. The demographic on this cruise tended to skew to the younger side. Yes, there were older people, and people around our age, but it definitely appeared that most people were on the younger side.

 

[jon81uk]

I’ve never been on any other cruise line except Virgin Voyages. So I think of their restaurant and bar set up as similar to being in a city neighbourhood or a beachfront resort. There are a bunch of restaurants to choose from and you dine at each of them, none of them change their menu really at the beach resort either, many often keep the same menu for years. I find the experience on VV like that, you have a selection of restaurants in the “resort” to choose from. Similar with bars, there are a few to choose from and they all have their own specialties. 

But that style might not be for everyone. Same as going to a large hotel or cruise ship where you eat in the large dining room each night with a slightly different menu isn’t for everyone. I went to many of those sort of hotels with my parents as a child and it got boring after a few nights just eating from a small selection where just one dish changed each night and the decor was always the same.

[cantgetin]

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.

[1025cruise]

On 7/8/2023 at 2:37 PM, jon81uk said:

I’ve never been on any other cruise line except Virgin Voyages. So I think of their restaurant and bar set up as similar to being in a city neighbourhood or a beachfront resort. There are a bunch of restaurants to choose from and you dine at each of them, none of them change their menu really at the beach resort either, many often keep the same menu for years. I find the experience on VV like that, you have a selection of restaurants in the “resort” to choose from. Similar with bars, there are a few to choose from and they all have their own specialties. 

But that style might not be for everyone. Same as going to a large hotel or cruise ship where you eat in the large dining room each night with a slightly different menu isn’t for everyone. I went to many of those sort of hotels with my parents as a child and it got boring after a few nights just eating from a small selection where just one dish changed each night and the decor was always the same.

I understand that VV does dining differently. I knew that going in. I also did go in open minded. However, having cruised on many other lines, we just found that we missed what we are used to. Probably the same with the bars. We're not used to being told that a drink isn't available at a bar (again, outside a specialized martini/wine/etc bar, however there is normally another bar nearby). Just something that took us by surprise.