“I know, I’m late to the party, but I finally found the party and I loved it! Will you? Are cruising’s cheekiest rule breakers the cruise line for you? ”
I’m a firm believer that there’s a cruise for everyone, whether you want wildlife on a tiny ship in the Aleutians (our next trip!) or you want the “wild life” with a few thousand of your new best friends. Read on to see my impressions of my virgin voyage on Virgin Voyages.
Having flown Virgin Air in a “Comfort Delight” class seat in the past, I understood how the marketing works with this brand. In the case of my airline seat, it’s mostly a wink and a nod marketing of a normal economy seat you hope will make you feel cooler, but really it’s just a checked bag and seat number you are buying. But onboard the Virgin Voyages Resilient Lady in mid March, as an experienced cruiser, I found the cheeky, no rules, reputation is well earned and delivers the experience.
Having cruised many cruise lines, with passengers numbering from 24 souls to six thousand, I’d identified the brands for small and medium ship expedition cruising I love, but I was still seeking a new dance partner for the larger mass market cruises.
Royal Caribbean delivered with entertainment and new ships that delighted me. But I found the shenanigans of booking a loss leader product annoying, and the food was not what I was looking for and I actually lost weight on a recent transpacific cruise on a RC ship. RC is known for families and activities on board, and I will admit I nearly split my sides laughing while driving bumper cars on board Quantum of The Seas with my friends. But while I don’t mind kids on board, I didn’t enjoy that the cruise line must treat everyone like a 12 years old by making rules that apply to everyone (I don’t need to check out towels like a library book to remember to return them!)
Royal Caribbean, lively and fun!
Recent forays into RCI’s adult/destination/food focused Celebrity cruises has been delightful. The RCI entertainment is there with live music and incredible guest entertainers and production shows. My experience with the dining in Aqua Class has met my needs for clean, reasonable portions and high end ingredients. But even cruising in a regular balcony and enjoying their ceviche bar on the buffet and real ice cream, the food is a major upgrade from Royal Caribbean. Although not an adults only cruise, cruising Celebrity during non school vacation or holiday seasons, I could count the number of children on board on 2 hands and an occasional toe. Mostly, with so few kids, and kids activities, I found I wasn’t cruising with middle school rules (beach towels happily provided without the credit check!)
Celebrity Cruises…mostly adult and chill!
But I still hadn’t met my match. The evenings on Celebrity were a bit sleepy with solo artists and acoustic duos in the lounges and parties geared to folks whose favorite music was made about 40 (or more!) years ago. As a Latin dance fitness instructor, with a Spotify Wrap Up age of 21, I’m looking for current music, and parties where I can stay till 1 AM, call it a night, and not be the last out the door. Occasionally, on a Celebrity cruise, my husband and I would head to the disco to find only ourselves and a bored DJ playing the hits of the 80s and 90s. On a destination focused cruise, like our amazing Athens to Athens Greek cruise on Celebrity Infinity, I get it, I was falling into bed at 9:30 PM ahead of a long touring day. But for our rest and restore winter break cruises in the Caribbean, we were looking for something more fun.
Aboard a 7 night cruise on Resilient Lady, we found what we we had been looking for!
Virgin Voyages is “adult” only, but you don’t have to act like a grown up, and people of all ages can enjoy their young at heart cruise!
Virgin Voyages re wrote the rules and the language of cruising
From boarding day to disembarkation, Virgin has a disruptive playbook and a whole new set of terminology to learn. Passengers are “Sailors”, shore excursions are “Shore Things”, suite and upgraded sailors are “Rockstars”, your travel agent is your “First Mate”.
But it’s not just marketing, some things challenge the old rules of cruising. For instance, boarding day is more like airline boarding groups than cruise boarding. While you can drop your bags pier side early (and go out explore Miami) The earliest boarding time for priority is about 2 PM and everyone is lined up by boarding times (you get this time when you check in on line in advance) The 2 PM Rockstars start it off, but you’ll be boarded as soon as they are on, so despite our 2:45 PM boarding time, we were through the process and onboard before 2:30 PM. And your cabin is ready as soon as you board. . Upon boarding, everyone is supplied with an RFID bracelet that opens your cabin door and serves as your credit card for purchases on board.
But the reason no one gets on before 2 PM is because disembarkations are at your leisure, there are no “groups”; passengers can have breakfast and leave when they like before 10:30 AM (in Miami- other ports may have different local rules) You keep your original luggage tag on your bag and you’ll collect it by deck level in the customs hall when you are ready. We chatted with folks who left at 7:30 AM and we left at 9 and in both cases none of us encountered a line or crowd to get off the ship! This was a game changer for us! And there are plenty of other things about Virgin, that don’t follow the “script” of cruising
Who is at the party?
Obviously, the weekend cruises are attractive to younger, working adults, while longer cruises (7 nights +) will be more middle aged or retired adults. Virgin’s purpose built cruise terminal port in Miami also attracts a younger, hipper crowd. Flying to Europe or San Juan to embark will likely attract an older and more well heeled crowd because of the added expenses, Everyone we met on board of any age was very young at heart, including the 86 year old lady “audience participating” in the Miss Behave passenger participation show!
Our cruise included singles, couples and friend groups, LGBTQA+ cruisers and (clutches pearls) folks in alternative relationship lifestyles. One of the “things” that fascinates social media about Virgin Cruises is the amount of upside down “pineapples” on doors. And while we met people on board who self identified as being in open relationships, we didn’t see one pineapple on a door and certainly no one was wandering around knocking on doors looking for partners! If that behavior is happening, as the kids say “There’s an app for that”
What we found is everyone cruising on our ship was very accepting of everyone else and whatever their particular lifestyle might be. What impressed me most about the people on aboard was no matter what age, race, where they were from, what orientation or station in life, everyone was friendly, open minded and young at heart.
No Dress Codes/Just Theme Nights!
One thing we haven’t loved about the other adult only cruises or primarily adult focused cruises is that the adult label brought along expectations for formal dress. Dress codes are not fun for us. We like a free style situation, should we want to dine in shorts and tee or fitness clothes on Virgin Voyages, it’s allowed and no judgement. Should we decide to dress up in theme night or revealing night club attire, we didn’t experience any side eye and instead, ladies were often complimenting each other’s ‘fits on board. Scarlet Night, Virgins signature midweek party, there were formal red dressed and red suits and fedoras for men and there were ladies in red shorts and bra tops, with some gentlemen going on theme in the red jersey of a beloved sports team. (‘Bama, or AZ Cardinals or Man U)
You are apt to need the app and WiFi
Almost all cruises now have an onboard app, but on VV, you’ll use your app for everything from booking dining reservations to planning your daily activities. Basic WiFi is available to use the app, upgrades can be purchased. We purchased one level up, Classic, and it was fine for email and posting pictures, but not for streaming videos Premium is available for extra cost for those working on baord or who like to watch movies on their cruises.
Everything is is listed in the app, some things like dining and fitness classes are reservations, where you are expected (and in the case of fitness classes, if you fail to show up you’ll be charged a small fee which is donated to charity…apparently the road to the gym is paved with good intentions!) Then there are bookings, which are just things you’d like to do or see but you don’t have guaranteed admission. We found the app helpful, but it required verification. The times for events can change and if it’s already reserved, be sure to check the time on the main schedule because changes didn’t seem to port over to your own plans, which made us 15 minutes late to Zumba class.
Another thing the app gives you is a unique QR code to share with new friends so you can chat online and find each other based on your itinerary. This made it easy to keep track of your crew or any new friends you wanted to share your info with.
Iconic red hammock
Ship Design
When I first boarded, while exploring the ship, I wandered into an area and for a moment thought I had unexpectedly entered a crew only area. The interior of Resilient Lady often gives me college dorm vibes, a lot of red and a lot of grey metal. The ships are much more enclosed and linear than other modern ships, which have open centrums, or promenades, with long views into other parts of the ship. The Virgin ships, which are all designed similarly, are designed as pass through spaces with surprises along the way.
I enjoyed the heart of the ship, the Roundabout, and On the Rocks Bar, at the center of deck 6, where the live entertainment was often playing, but it had a closed off layout that made it hard to feel like I was part of the party, or to find new friends if they were there sitting around a corner.
Another fun area is the Social Club further back on deck 7, with all kinds of games and live trivia, a café that also serves gummy bears and chocolate covered peanut brittle I couldn’t resist.
We also enjoyed the extra wide promenade around deck 7 with deck chairs and large upholstered loungers by the ocean. This was the perfect place to enjoy a cone from “Lick Me Til Ice Cream” or pizza.
The pool area is split in 2, one larger pool with room for people to sit around the edges, and another area with a smaller plunge pool and 2 tepid tubs which during our cruise, did not have working jets.
Entrance to the private cabanas
One way to improve the pool experience during sea days was to reserve a private cabana, there are only 10 private cabanas on Resilient Lady, but they come with a drink cooler, food and bar service, and a nice day bed. A dedicated server brings drinks and food, although the food was sourced from several different venues and arrived at different times. But the cabana did allow us to guarantee a shady spot on the deck above the pool on a sea day, and it provided a bit more shade.
XL Sea Terrace
We had an XL Sea Terrace and loved the iconic red hammock that’s on most Sea Terraces and the larger bath with 3 separate component areas, with a large vanity sink area and shower and toilet behind their own doors, we found this to be the easiest cruise ship bath to share that we’ve ever had on any ship!
Art on board, is limited, mostly in large public spaces. We noticed installations and large graphic areas designed for social media posting.
Instagramable art and graphics
A snorkel excurion shore thing in Grand Cayman
Ports of Call and Shore Things
Most VV have a unique itinerary, even if ports are repeated, there’s a marketing focus of each itinerary. It makes the possibility of back to back cruises fun, since you wont go to the same places every week. The Shore Things, I’m not so “sure” about. After booking 2 excursions, I never received any tickets or notice on my app, the excursion was “loaded” onto our wrist bracelets. But that didn’t tell us where to meet, and the meetings times changed depending where you looked on the app, or who you asked. Finally, we asked at the Shore Things desk and were given the information we required, but with an app, it should be there (including what to bring on the excursion) Sailors need the information that’s on those paper tickets, so if you want to be environmental and not have paper tickets, Sailors still need the info somewhere!
Many Sailors don’t take ships excursions; most feel comfortable booking independent excursions or wandering on their own. One excursion we took with Virgin Voyages in Grand Cayman, a boat based, snorkeling and beach adventure, was really well run and fun, and the crowd was not too large fr the facilities, which is nice. A second excursion we booked, the Miami Hop On Hop Off bus trip to kill time for people with later flights, was mostly killing time waiting for the organizers to show up, killing time in the sun waiting for them to figure out how to check everyone in, and more time waiting to accommodate luggage. Eventually, we bailed on the excursion and took an uber to the airport when it became clear that we’d only have about an hour to enjoy the Hop On Hop Off portion of the excursion in Miami after the amount of time it took to get organized at port!
Food
Virgin is known for its excellent food, and our cruise delivered. We loved the concept of included individual restaurants rather than a traditional main dining room. Suite guest and others with paid access can reserve their dining times further in advance. We paid for access to reserve at 45 days prior to cruising, some fare categories only allow booking 15 days before sailing. But if you can be flexible with your timing, walk up reservations are often available for restaurants other than the most popular venues.
Each restaurant truly feels like a restaurant, you make reservations and are seated, and order from a menu. The service is quick and friendly, and we especially enjoyed the Italian restaurant, Extra Virgin and the Mexican concept, Pink Agave. Most of the menus were focused on high protein meals, and vegan options. The Wake offered a take on American traditions with half the menu designed for vegetarian or vegan dining. The Korean barbeque included fun drinking games with communal seating.
The light dining, lunch and breakfast options once again break the rules of cruising. Rather than serve yourself buffet, the Galley is a food court of unique food options (choose your own salad bar, coffee bar, popsicle stand, noodle stand, tacos, dessert and burger of the day “shops”) Plenty of seating around the “shops” and outside on the wake.
Room service has a number of included options, but most require a delivery fee, and arrive in a stackable containers, often in a sack they can hang on your door!
No matter where we ate, all of the food was well prepared, flavorful, and made to order.
A skinny marg with dinner
Bar Tabs
SO it’s a party, yes? So why did it seem like there were fewer drunken people?! There aren’t drink packages, instead, you can purchase a “bar tab” at a discount in advance, or purchase as you go. We didn’t notice anyone drunk or behaving poorly. The drinks were also inventive, with different libations at each restaurant related to the theme of the restaurant.
The Diva
Crew and Service
Service in your cabin is once a day…you flip a switch with a light to signal, its time to clean up, or DND, or neutral if you aren’t in the room and don’t need any service. The crew on our VV was young, casual and friendly. The service is not formal, but there’s a passion to make your vacation yours! Without a CD, the Happenings Cast keeps everyone on track and organizes activities and gets the party started! They even run a nightly “craft” or glam and glitter application station most evenings. Then they participate in running trivia and other on-board shenanigans with the resident Diva and the Drag Queen.
Happenings Cast
Entertainment and Activities and Parties
Hey, There’s no CD Here!
There’s no Cruise Director, no announcements on board other than important announcements. They don’t even announce when the ship is cleared in port!
In addition to several live musical entertainers, including a Latin band, Funk/Blues band, solo acoustic guitarist and lively duo who could be counted on the rap when requested!
We found the shows to be very entertaining, but they may not be for everyone! Held in the Red Room, and adaptive space with moveable seating, it’s adult entertainment. I found it sexy, inclusive, and cheeky, plenty of dancing and acrobatics, it’s generally more interactive and also very loud!
One of the shows was night club style, where you stand for the whole show (with some balcony seating for those who cannot stand) and this may not be enjoyable for some folks, I found the music and shows to be too loud (multiple warnings on my Apple watch!) but I solved that by carrying a set of Loop earplugs in my purse, (a suggestion from my concert and festival loving kids) so I could enjoy the shows without damaging my hearing!
The parties are fun, interactive with the entertainment crew (called the Happenings Cast) and loud with a love DJ. Almost everyone goes and participates, which is the definition of what makes a party fun! The best ones; the PJ party on deck the first night (don’t worry if you aren’t unpacked yet, just wear your PJs!) the pool party at the Bimini Beach Club, and 80’s party in the Manor Nightclub, which was celebrated as a renaissance of 80’s culture rather than a stale revisit of 1985!
But the most lit party of the week, the climax of the cruise, is the Scarlet Party. Based on a legend, which is explained and reenacted throughout the ship in different ways, in various lounges on Scalet Night, it’s good to attend at least one of these short pre party pop ups before the party so you are “in the know”! Despite no dress code, it was hard to find a single person who is not wearing red the night of Scarlet Party. The pool party is some of wildest “acceptable” behavior I’ve witnessed at a party at sea! People letting loose, connecting, jumping into the pool fully clothed, and dancing in every corner of the pool deck.
Resilient Lady decked out for Scarlet Night
Let’s do this again!
With all the liveliness of young spirited people, but the maturity of adults, we loved our Virgin Voyage and have already booked another! Some of the marketing gets cutesy and we did find a lot of the furnishings to be style over function, (one fellow passenger opined that there wasn’t a single chair on board that was actually comfortable to sit in!) But we did love some of the disruption of typical cruise rues (like dress codes, disembarkation tags and loud inaudible announcements) We came for a freer, adult experience and fun parties and dancing and we found it on board our Virgin Voyages Cruise!
