Live Trip Report - Celebration Cruise 8/30-9/5 out of Miami on Valiant Lady

[SailorMoons]

Personally they have over done the loyalty. They really need to stagger priority boarding it's a too hectic with DBE, SoR & DB all turning up at once plus the first boarding groups. Unfortunately people are faking disabilities to queue jump.... I feel so sorry for people with real needs that have to suffer due to this, virgin could handle this we pre-embarkation form with doctors note and then allow these people to board before the first groups.

 

Personally it's good they don't also award access keys from points and travel industry rates. As someone who has benefited from 3 virgin red points redemptions by doing bonus signs ups and 70% transfer / top up bonus - I'm paying about 1/3 the current cabin rate and should not be rewarded again, the points are the reward IMO.

 

With ships full I would like loyalty to change to the previous planned "total spend" model based on tokens, but I don't think there IT is up to the job.

[jon81uk]

15 minutes ago, SailorMoons said:

Personally they have over done the loyalty. They really need to stagger priority boarding it's a too hectic with DBE, SoR & DB all turning up at once plus the first boarding groups. Unfortunately people are faking disabilities to queue jump.... I feel so sorry for people with real needs that have to suffer due to this, virgin could handle this we pre-embarkation form with doctors note and then allow these people to board before the first groups.

 

Personally it's good they don't also award access keys from points and travel industry rates. As someone who has benefited from 3 virgin red points redemptions by doing bonus signs ups and 70% transfer / top up bonus - I'm paying about 1/3 the current cabin rate and should not be rewarded again, the points are the reward IMO.

 

With ships full I would like loyalty to change to the previous planned "total spend" model based on tokens, but I don't think there IT is up to the job.

It was mentioned on the celebration voyage I was on that they have recruited a new VP of loyalty or similar and he is tasked with creating a “proper” loyalty programme as Nirmal (CEO) put it. They are also further partnering with Virgin Red so point redemption will become a permanent thing.

[SailorMoons]

47 minutes ago, jon81uk said:

It was mentioned on the celebration voyage I was on that they have recruited a new VP of loyalty or similar and he is tasked with creating a “proper” loyalty programme as Nirmal (CEO) put it. They are also further partnering with Virgin Red so point redemption will become a permanent thing.

Well I feel pretty lucky I'm able use the DBE I've earned on paid cruises on the points redemption cruises. Whole virgin group needs to have a common loyalty scheme, there slowly realising that. Having the flexibility to use points earned on Virgin Voyages on hotels/flights would be nice. I can see priority boarding being removed 🤣

[TripsYouMustDo]

1 hour ago, SailorMoons said:

Personally they have over done the loyalty. They really need to stagger priority boarding it's a too hectic with DBE, SoR & DB all turning up at once plus the first boarding groups. Unfortunately people are faking disabilities to queue jump.... I feel so sorry for people with real needs that have to suffer due to this, virgin could handle this we pre-embarkation form with doctors note and then allow these people to board before the first groups.

 

Personally it's good they don't also award access keys from points and travel industry rates. As someone who has benefited from 3 virgin red points redemptions by doing bonus signs ups and 70% transfer / top up bonus - I'm paying about 1/3 the current cabin rate and should not be rewarded again, the points are the reward IMO.

 

With ships full I would like loyalty to change to the previous planned "total spend" model based on tokens, but I don't think there IT is up to the job.

 

There is abuse of ADA for sure on both airlines and cruise lines, but in the US they are not allowed to ask for proof of disability per US laws. In Europe it's almost better that they do because my wife certainly has all the papers. We show her disability papers in the museums in Europe to get free admission for her and myself (as her companion). The way VV handles it (in Miami at least) is the worst amongst any airline or cruise line I was ever on. (In Athens they were actually wonderful to my wife both this year and last).

 

I think they are trying to monetize their early embarkation a little too harshly. I am able to grab early embarkation slots on other cruise lines (e.g. Royal Caribbean, MSC) by simply checking in as soon as the check-in opens. On VV is seems that if you don't have status (or pay extra), your embarkation is around 4pm, which is ridiculous. Again, their decision but will drive many cruisers  like me away. If we are the cruisers they don't want, no worries. Many other cruise lines out there. 🙂 

 

I will agree to disagree about not rewarding loyalty to people booking on points or other promos. I mean it's their decision of course, but it simply drives me to other cruise lines and makes the chance of me ever paying full rates so much less. Every single other cruise line awards full loyalty on points/casino cruises. VV is especially inconsistent in that they will match your status from other cruise lines and will give perks to someone that hasn't even cruised with them once, but then they are not going to give any status to someone that paid (with points or otherwise, points are not exactly "free") on their cruise line? One of the many inconsistencies that show they still haven't figured out what they are doing. The way they are doing it right now ensures I will *only* cruise with them if it's dirt cheap and will never even think of paying full fare.

Edited September 17 by TripsYouMustDo

[TripsYouMustDo]

1 hour ago, jon81uk said:

It was mentioned on the celebration voyage I was on that they have recruited a new VP of loyalty or similar and he is tasked with creating a “proper” loyalty programme as Nirmal (CEO) put it. They are also further partnering with Virgin Red so point redemption will become a permanent thing.

 

I'm curious how it will play out. I also hope they won't start doing "fuel surcharges" like they do if booking with points on their airline. Those "fuel surcharges" make any point redemptions completely worthless. They already started charging fees & taxes when booking with points from Miami (but not in Europe at least), which is funny because they are claiming to have "all-inclusive" fares, and all other cruise lines actually started including fees & taxes in the cruise fare while VV is going in the opposite directions.

 

Blind desire to be "the disruptors" is not always a good thing. 

[SailorMoons]

I will add the only times I've had late boarding options is on point redemptions as it's normally on sailings that have not sold out closer to departure date ( I do the cheapest flash sales on virgin red normally have 3 weeks notice) and people have already picked dinning & embarkation times, on paid bookings I've been able to get 1:45pm or 2pm easily as I book more than 1y out. You can also try redoing the pick boarding time sometime more early slots open up, others have had success with that.

[NE John]

Thank you for taking the tremendous amount of time to share your ups and downs on VV. I don’t blame you if this is your last cruise on VV, it sounds like you need a vacation from your vacation! VV doesn’t seem to float my boat…

To me, while food is super important for us on any trip, the waiting for shows while standing up, signing up for restaurant waitlists and/or trying to find an eatery for dinner every night, and not a lot of activities offered during the day just doesn’t sound relaxing. I’ve seen YouTube vids of cabins that don’t seem too livable with small bathrooms and weird closed curtains along with deck furniture that looks backbreaking to sit on. Maybe I don’t get VV -  many people do get it!

With that said, How was your cabin? Did you get provided an accessible cabin with your wife’s condition? I hope the hammock provides some relief for her. 

[cantgetin]

Like you, we have found the services for people with disabilities at the Miami terminal to be horrible and have no consistency at either embarkation or disembarkation.  Barcelona has been MUCH better.  We've had priority boarding each time with loyalty or dumb luck the first cruise, and that didn't make things any easier.  I wrote a lengthy letter to the former CEO detailing the problems, and got a response 4 months later with approximately the same quality as the boarding experience. (very poor)

The one thing that puzzles me is why you were in a central sea terrace rather than an accessible room.  My travel partner needs the accessible bathroom, so anything else means we don't take that cruise....and those rooms are well located near the midship elevators.

[TripsYouMustDo]

1 hour ago, NE John said:

 

With that said, How was your cabin? Did you get provided an accessible cabin with your wife’s condition? I hope the hammock provides some relief for her. 

 

Thank you, I'm glad the TR was helpful!

 

You are right, I didn't comment at all on the cabin, my bad. It's our 5th cruise in the same exact cabin type (that are exactly the same on all their ships), so it totally slipped my mind. I actually have a pretty detailed video of our cabin that I will upload shortly (on a Princess cruise to Alaska right now, till 9/28, Majestic Princess 🙂 ). But here are my thoughts:

 

We actually find the balcony cabins on VV very nice, possibly some of the nicest of all cruise lines. I could criticize them for the lack of storage space/cabinets a little I guess. Other than that:

 

The furnishing and general decor is very modern and clean. We are not bothered too much by the stupid sea bed thing that nobody uses (I asked cabin attendants about it, and they confirmed they hardly ever get requests to convert the bed to the couch). For those that don't know - that was one of their design ideas. You can call them via an app and ask them to convert your bed onto a couch so you could have guests over that wouldn't have to sit on your bed. That causes a "box" to the side of the bed that half of the bed swing over when it's converted to the couch configuration. When it's in bed configuration, that box is completely useless and large. We use it as a bed side table of sorts. So anyway, that's not a big issue, though simply having a small couch instead of the convertible idea would've been simpler and more efficient. 

 

The desk chair is just a small round stool with no back. Not terribly comfortable to sit on but fine. 

 

The fridge is nice and works well, and we like the water bottles in the room that they refill. You can get your own water of course, but it's nice to always have it in the room. 

 

The power outlets are plentiful all over the room, in three different spots, as well as USB-A outlets. 

 

The lighting is good and easy to control. We don't use the fancy tablet control features that allow you to create "modes" or "mood lighting" like "Let's Get It On", etc. A bit gimmicky for us, but I know some people like that. 

 

The curtains that open and close by themselves when they *think* we want them to open and close is more annoying than helpful to us. Maybe if I spent more time on the tablet I could've programmed them properly, but I don't want to learn how to program things when I'm on vacation. Also the lights came on by themselves sometimes when they *thought* they should. Woke up my wife a few times. But having a button to open/close curtains is nice. 

 

Having a tablet to control TV/movies was nice and convenient. Plenty of PPV new movies available on-demand for free (so not really pay-per-view). I hardly ever watch TV on a cruise but my wife really enjoyed that. 

 

The bathroom we actually really like. I think it's one of the nicest on most major cruise lines. E.g. on our Princess ship right now we have a curtain! (aka "the nasty curtain" in Princess reviews) in the shower. Like Motel 6. It's not a suite but it is a balcony cabin. Virgin did the shower nice (I think), with the large rain shower head overhead and a wand if you need it, easy to switch between both and adjust temperature and pressure (pressure is awful in our cabin on Princess right now). The toilet is also large. The overall bathroom size is not huge but large enough for us. So I don't agree with the bathroom critics (for VV), but everyone is different of course. 

 

Electronic Do Not Disturb and Clean the Room buttons are nice and easy to use (on Princess we have to push our Do Not Disturb button several times to make it engage). 

 

The bracelet/room key is very convenient on VV. You always have it on and it's easy to use. Not as nice as Princess medallion that the door senses and unlocks, but close enough. 

 

We've done room service requests (e.g. water and ice) via the tablet and that worked well (there is some wait of course). 

 

The balcony is good size for us. I surprisingly enjoyed the hammock. I was able to both take a nap in it and get work done on my laptops, and it's surprisingly comfortable for both tasks. I think VV doesn't have "metal partition/railing" balconies, I believe they are all plexiglass (someone please correct me if I'm wrong). Those solid metal railings on other cruise lines can be a nasty surprise if you don't check for them. 

 

My wife unfortunately cannot get into a hammock 😞 so she wasn't able to enjoy it. We did not ask for a disabled cabin on VV. We've done it a couple of times on other cruise lines, and while extra space is nice, the layout is weird and sometimes some of the furniture is removed. She does not use wheelchair inside of a cabin, so it would almost be more of a hinderance. I am actually not sure if VV has ADA cabins - do they? Anyway, her folding wheelchair fit nicely in the space between the wall and the bed - it was if it was made for a folding wheelchair. We did have some other challenges not related to the room - sometimes they can't get elevators to go down to the gangway deck when my wife is in a wheelchair. Twice we had 20 minute delays when they had to try several different security cards to "unlock" the elevator and make it go to the gangway deck. One time they couldn't figure it out and gave her a choice to walk the stairs (two flights) or stay on the ship. I am not going to go much more into that, it's not related to the cabin, but there were several other ADA issues on VV. Their ships are not designed for disabled people in general and staff is not trained to help properly. Sorry, OK, one more - the gangways become stairs (not flat) when the tide raises over certain level. They did try to carry her wheelchair once, the next time she just decided to stay on the ship.

 

Back to the cabins though - honestly, we do really like them, as I said, even with minor annoyances. They were totally fine for us, and nicer than many (most) other cruise lines. We sailed with Norwegian, MSC, Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Princess, Holland America and Celebrity (for comparison). The cabins were one of the reasons we did 5 cruises with them (besides getting really great deals). We just treat VV as really nice hotel - nice rooms and good restaurants. Other stuff we just consider as not included. So when the price is right and the destinations are what we want, we went. The main reason we are thinking of not repeating is the ADA services (or lack thereof). On Princess, they had a separate ADA line for my wife and got her on the ship in 10 minutes. I dropped off the car and went through the regular line in about 40 minutes (still not bad). Same on other cruise lines. VV is really absolutely the worst cruise line as far as ADA services go (at least in Miami, and on Valiant). 

[neverendingcruising]

There are both ambulatory and accessible cabins on the Virgin ships, they have a page on their site with details. 
 

Some XL Sea Terraces have metal walls instead of glass and weird shapes as they approach the front of the ship.