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Bookings for 2024/25

jamesv92

By jamesv92,
in Virgin Voyages

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jon81uk

jon81uk

Posted
Posted
15 minutes ago, PhilK2000 said:

No . There will be no BL transatlantic . BL Start date will be rescheduled to May 2024 with a direct start in Portsmouth as she is built in Europe anyway. 

SL remains as it is . VL will be repositioned to San Juan and take over the BL cruises 

 

but as said these are rumors . I hope that this won’t happen as I am booked on the April BL TA. 


yeah I mis-read your post, sort of merged the two sentences together!

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phoenix1975

phoenix1975

Posted
Posted
7 minutes ago, CanadianCruiser21 said:

I thought there were rumours/reports that BL is pretty much done and they are just decorating. I really regret not booking the SL TA from Miami to BCN instead. I wanted to go to Lisbon, but I could have just taken a short flight or train, especially since TAP has a free stopover program. 

You wouldn't have been able to take a train from Barcelona to Lisbon unfortunately - you'd think it was easy but you'd have to get a train to Madrid and probably stay overnight and then a 3-train combination for 8 hours to get from Madrid to Lisbon! Would have to be a flight.

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tbmrt

tbmrt

Posted
Posted
18 hours ago, PhilK2000 said:

BL won’t be ready , and will start in Portsmouth . VL will take over the San Juan itineraries as these are well booked . Original VL cruises from Miami will be cancelled and so the BL transatlantic from San Juan to Europe . 

So is the rumor that the VL will start sailing from San Juan for the end of 2023 through first quarter 2024 cruises?  If that's the case, I do feel sorry for the people who booked VL from Miami, especially over the holidays.

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PhilK2000

PhilK2000

Posted
Posted
2 minutes ago, tbmrt said:

So is the rumor that the VL will start sailing from San Juan for the end of 2023 through first quarter 2024 cruises?  If that's the case, I do feel sorry for the people who booked VL from Miami, especially over the holidays.

I hope these are only rumors and everything goes as planned with no cancellations . 

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phoenix1975

phoenix1975

Posted
Posted

So this might be something or nothing but looking at the cruise port schedules for Reykjavik, Akureyri (Iceland) and Alesund (Norway), Scarlet Lady is appearing on the schedules for July & August next year; and there seems to be a pattern to it with Reykjavik serving as a turn-around point. Brilliant Lady's overnights in Amsterdam generally fit into this pattern too so it maybe that the naming of the ships isn't fully correct on the port schedules and it could either be SL or BL (more likely BL).

 

Scarlet Lady is showing as:

  • July - 5th Akureyri, 7th-9th Reykjavik (so possibly overnight stop at end of one cruise, and overnight at start of next cruise); 11th Akureyri, 13th Alesund.
  • 23rd Alesund; 26th Akureyri, 28th Reykjavik, 30th Akureyri, 1st August Alesund
  • August - 14th Alesund; 16th Akureyri, 18th-20th Reykjavik, 22nd Akureyri, 24th Alesund

 

But as I said, this might be something or nothing - just me being inquisitive looking at ports and where cruises are going next year (trying to decide where I'd like to go).

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Jumping Cruiser

Jumping Cruiser

Posted
Posted
6 hours ago, phoenix1975 said:

So this might be something or nothing but looking at the cruise port schedules for Reykjavik, Akureyri (Iceland) and Alesund (Norway), Scarlet Lady is appearing on the schedules for July & August next year; and there seems to be a pattern to it with Reykjavik serving as a turn-around point. Brilliant Lady's overnights in Amsterdam generally fit into this pattern too so it maybe that the naming of the ships isn't fully correct on the port schedules and it could either be SL or BL (more likely BL).

 

I would bet BL as that appears in more schedules than SL, some of which have been updated recently, but they could just be placeholders. In my opinion, it looks like they were playing around with the idea of doing longer Northern Europe cruises (Iceland and Norway) in 2024, but their Portsmouth teaser suggests that it will just be ‘short’ sailings now with the exception of a repositioning to Barcelona.

 

There is more variety in 2025 port bookings for BL with calls in Scotland, Norway, Iceland, The Netherlands, Belgium and more! So to me it looks like the more destination-focused itineraries have been pushed to 2025 from 2024.

 

Are they just trying to test out demand in 2024, in preparation for a full deployment in 2025? Let’s watch this space! 👀

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CruisingWalter Great Review Rare

CruisingWalter

Posted
Posted
10 hours ago, phoenix1975 said:

Scarlet Lady is appearing on the schedules for July & August next year; and there seems to be a pattern to it with Reykjavik serving as a turn-around point.

 

With Scarlet Lady going across the pond in April to get ready for her planned dry dock that seems to make sense to have her on that schedule. Those will be nice additional ports to have in the itinerary. 

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jon81uk

jon81uk

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, CruisingWalter said:

 

With Scarlet Lady going across the pond in April to get ready for her planned dry dock that seems to make sense to have her on that schedule. Those will be nice additional ports to have in the itinerary. 

Assuming the next year meant 2024, Scarlet Lady is homeport in Barcelona May to October 2024 and those cruises are on sale.

So it is currently expected dry dock in November 2024 and reposition back to Miami December 2024.

There is almost no chance Scarlet Lady will be in Northern Europe in 2024, any references are probably meant to be Brilliant Lady or were placeholders while they were deciding what to do with BL.

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Cathy in Boston

Cathy in Boston

Posted
Posted

Although I’m sure other people will be excited by this, I’m kinda disappointed, as it appears nothing about the Mediterranean in May 2025.  Meanwhile, Princess, HAL,  and MSC have theirs up and running.

 

https://www.virgin.com/about-virgin/latest/virgin-voyages-adds-19-new-destinations-and-27-new-itineraries

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phoenix1975

phoenix1975

Posted
Posted

When I was on board VL this summer I put a deposit down for another cruise thinking that I'd have a fair amount of choice in Summer 2024 but looking at the form they have sent out (on the Brilliant Lady thread), there's now limited choice. I have a 6-week holiday window in the summer and can't take holidays outside of this.

 

Resilient Lady finishes the Athens itineraries just before my holiday window starts so they are a no-go, then it seems that Virgin have allowed full charters of RL from 4th - 23rd August - although it might be financially better for VV, it's not for people who want to take a holiday in the summer.

 

Even with living in the UK, it looks like the UK to Amsterdam or Zeebrugge cruises are going to be really short so not worth going on - not convinced that many from the UK will want to do them unless they just want a taster. There was the potential here to do 7 night cruises.

 

I'm not flying to the US/Caribbean to do a few nights' cruise so that leaves Scarlet Lady for the 2 cruises from Barcelona, one which I did this year. Just disappointed really so unless Brilliant Lady appears and does something in the Med/Europe, it will likely have to be the one out of Barcelona that I haven't done.

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CruisingWalter Great Review Rare

CruisingWalter

Posted
Posted
On 9/7/2023 at 5:55 PM, phoenix1975 said:

Just disappointed really so unless Brilliant Lady appears and does something in the Med/Europe, it will likely have to be the one out of Barcelona that I haven't done.

 

My guess is we will not see Brilliant Lady itineraries announced until the first quarter of 2024. They want that ship to be essentially finished before they make another announcement. 🙂

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jon81uk

jon81uk

Posted
Posted
6 minutes ago, jamesv92 said:

Itineraries now live and bookable online. Was interested in the long trip from UK to Spain but is £163,000 a cabin at the moment so will pass for now 🤣🤣

 

Spain to Greece on October 11 is a bargain I think.

Yep we are looking at that Barcelona to Athens, it’s a great price and has

a nice itinerary. Weather might be a little cooler in October but still pleasant.

 

The Portsmouth to Barcelona itinerary is adding on £161k of taxes so I think they’ve inputting something wrong. The voyage fare before taxes isn’t so bad.

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jamesv92

jamesv92

Posted
  • Author
Posted
25 minutes ago, jon81uk said:

Yep we are looking at that Barcelona to Athens, it’s a great price and has

a nice itinerary. Weather might be a little cooler in October but still pleasant.

 

The Portsmouth to Barcelona itinerary is adding on £161k of taxes so I think they’ve inputting something wrong. The voyage fare before taxes isn’t so bad.

Corrected now lol

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CanadianCruiser21

CanadianCruiser21

Posted
Posted

Wow, the price of the Rome to Miami TA is pretty high for Day 1

$4270 USD for a sea terrace for 2, after pay in full.
Nearly $2000 more than the past TA’s when first listed, but everything, including cruise fares, have been going up consistently. 
I think this one will be popular among those moving their voyages (including me 😊).

 

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RNPJN

RNPJN

Posted
Posted (edited)
On 7/12/2023 at 3:47 AM, jamesv92 said:

Hi

Does anyone else find it strange there's nothing to book beyond October 2024?

 

I'm not sure what other timescales companies run on but I would expect to be able to book something for end of next year..

Their out now till April 2025 out of Miami

 

Edited by RNPJN
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cantgetin

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, CanadianCruiser21 said:

Wow, the price of the Rome to Miami TA is pretty high for Day 1

$4270 USD for a sea terrace for 2, after pay in full.
Nearly $2000 more than the past TA’s when first listed, but everything, including cruise fares, have been going up consistently. 
I think this one will be popular among those moving their voyages (including me 😊).

 

Also, currently no fully accessible cabins available....so they are either holding them back from on line bookings or they are sold out/on 24 hour hold currently.  Yeah, this price is double what we are paying for April....not quite double after applying an MNVV and PIF discount, but nope, as currently listed, not for us.

The Barcelona to Athens has an amazing price.

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