Starting to regret my oct booking.

[jon81uk]

55 minutes ago, TripsYouMustDo said:

As someone that actually sailed on VV 5 times, I can tell you the Galley is an awful choice for dinner. Most food options are closed/not available for dinner. They do have a "special" every night to eat there. but the ambience is absolutely not there. It is exactly like dining at a buffet for dinner on a "regular" cruise line, which I also don't recommend. We tried it once, and ended up leaving and going to Gunbae as walk-ins (had to wait but got seated). 

 

The only time dinner at the Galley was fun was when they had Asian Night Market nights on sea days during our last cruise.

Although can also depend on what you are trying to get out of the cruise, for the celebration voyage last week we prioritised shows and talks and combined with having done all the restaurants on previous trips

so we had two nights eating in the Galley, plus a meal at The Wake, Pink Agave and Another Rose. In the Galley I had Beef Wellington with roast root vegetables and truffle mash potato one night and sweet chilli Asian chicken plus lamb korma another night.

[TripsYouMustDo]

24 minutes ago, jon81uk said:

Although can also depend on what you are trying to get out of the cruise, for the celebration voyage last week we prioritised shows and talks and combined with having done all the restaurants on previous trips

so we had two nights eating in the Galley, plus a meal at The Wake, Pink Agave and Another Rose. In the Galley I had Beef Wellington with roast root vegetables and truffle mash potato one night and sweet chilli Asian chicken plus lamb korma another night.

That's fair, we certainly prioritize food over the talks (though often shows over the food). On one night we tried to eat at the Galley (last year on Resilient) they literally had only burger and fries from the Diner & Dash, everything else was closed at 7:15pm. It was also empty, dead, and depressing. We chose to leave and come back to Gunbae at 8:45pm instead. Even if they had something else to eat, it was just so empty and depressing that we probably would've left anyway. Ambience is almost as important to us as the food as a part of the dinner experience.

 

On the last cruise, we did (initially) skip our Gunbae dinner for Richard + Boy George talk at 6pm, but they seated us later without any issues

 

Would be curious to hear more about your trip @jon81uk in a separate thread (unless you posted and I missed it? 🙂 )

Edited Saturday at 07:56 PM by TripsYouMustDo

[TripsYouMustDo]

39 minutes ago, cantgetin said:

It may be an inconsistency or just a wording issue.  

It's definitely inconsistency, not a wording issue. I very much meant that Sailor Services dealt with dinner reservations on our last two Resilient cruises (July-August 2024, as in - last month), it was even in the app schedule. I can't remember about our Valiant celebration cruise.

 

They did have one of the restaurants (I think it was actually Pink Agave, not Razzle Dazzle on our sailings) where on the first day they had people to help with dining reservations only. But on the following days guest services were helping with that. I'll see if I can find my Daily/Glance. 

[TripsYouMustDo]

13 minutes ago, TripsYouMustDo said:

It's definitely inconsistency, not a wording issue. I very much meant that Sailor Services dealt with dinner reservations on our last two Resilient cruises (July-August 2024, as in - last month), it was even in the app schedule. I can't remember about our Valiant celebration cruise.

 

They did have one of the restaurants (I think it was actually Pink Agave, not Razzle Dazzle on our sailings) where on the first day they had people to help with dining reservations only. But on the following days guest services were helping with that. I'll see if I can find my Daily/Glance. 

Since I already posted my Valiant Glance - this is from Day 1, you can see Sailor Services were helping with Show Reservations (and Chart Room/alternative Sailor Services was helping with Dining Reservations)

 

Edited Saturday at 08:14 PM by TripsYouMustDo

[Travel-and-See]

2 hours ago, TripsYouMustDo said:

As someone that actually sailed on VV 5 times, I can tell you the Galley is an awful choice for dinner. Most food options are closed/not available for dinner. They do have a "special" every night to eat there. but the ambience is absolutely not there. It is exactly like dining at a buffet for dinner on a "regular" cruise line, which I also don't recommend.

Agreed. The people saying "Virgin doesn't have a buffet" - that's a real stretch.  Virgin has a large "buffet / cafeteria / food court" in the same location that all of the other ships have a buffet. Several cruise lines have "chef" stations where they plate the food for you, just like Virgin does.

 

I sometimes choose to eat dinner at the buffet on cruise lines like Celebrity - but it's always my choice and not because the MDR wasn't an option. Having the Galley available as an option is great, but telling people they will be fine eating there if they don't have dinner reservations is silly in my opinion.

[cantgetin]

48 minutes ago, TripsYouMustDo said:

It's definitely inconsistency, not a wording issue. I very much meant that Sailor Services dealt with dinner reservations on our last two Resilient cruises (July-August 2024, as in - last month), it was even in the app schedule. I can't remember about our Valiant celebration cruise.

 

They did have one of the restaurants (I think it was actually Pink Agave, not Razzle Dazzle on our sailings) where on the first day they had people to help with dining reservations only. But on the following days guest services were helping with that. I'll see if I can find my Daily/Glance. 

Our last sailing was May 2024 on Scarlet.  They had the embarkation day dining help in Pink Agave and the help there each morning for a couple hours.

I meant NO disrespect toward you.....that's why I said inconsistency.  But on my very first VV cruise in 2022, I waited in the SS line only to find out that it was the wrong place.  Prefer to prevent that for others if possible.
It seems that a whole lot changes!

[boxman52]

On 9/12/2024 at 4:32 PM, kaysha2004 said:

I'm on the Resilient right now, departed from Portsmouth, U.K, on September 8th.  You should be concerned.  I had priority boarding and was aboard by 2 p.m.  I went straight to Razzle Dazzle.  I was fourth in line and it was a 10-minute wait, only to be led to sit at some tables to wait for a staff member to be free up.  That took another 8 minutes.  There were only 4 staff doing the bookings for 2500 guests.  The whole process took about 40 minutes.  I got what I wanted, but I feel bad for those boarding later and not getting what they want.  This is an epic failure by Virgin.

 

It didn't used to be like this. When I last cruised in February 2024, all my dining reservations were available and booked on the app pre-cruise.  My personal theory is that Virgin is now sailing at capacity and hasn't adjusted their procedures for the increased volume of guests.  They really need to refine their systems.

That's odd as we have just come off that cruise, had priority boarding, went directly to RD to sort out our dining for our group of 8. 4 of our group hadn't boarded 

We were table 3 or 4 in the  "queue" so we must have been very near you 

Our booking restaurants & rearranging some booking for 8 was seamless. All done in about 10/15 minutes

We were then able to go up to the Red Room to book Another Rose

It was an excellent process undertaken by a friendly & efficient crew member 

Sorry you appear to have been unlucky 

[TripsYouMustDo]

47 minutes ago, cantgetin said:

Our last sailing was May 2024 on Scarlet.  They had the embarkation day dining help in Pink Agave and the help there each morning for a couple hours.

I meant NO disrespect toward you.....that's why I said inconsistency.  But on my very first VV cruise in 2022, I waited in the SS line only to find out that it was the wrong place.  Prefer to prevent that for others if possible.
It seems that a whole lot changes!

No worries 🙂 I agree, it's good to give folks as accurate info as possible, which is why we share 🙂 I got lot of very good info from these forums and since I just came back from three (almost back-to-back) cruises on Resilient and Valiant, I try to share. 🙂 

 

I think VV *is* listening to people's feedback and sees that restaurant reservations are *still* a pain point, and are trying to be more accommodating. 

[DCGuy64]

On 9/13/2024 at 5:24 PM, Travel-and-See said:

You seem to be implying that anyone who mentions flaws gets on with a bad attitude and is just looking for things to complain about.

That's correct.