My Blog

This August I took my first Virgin Voyages Cruise, a line I was looking forward to trying. Resilient Lady Adriatic Sea and Greek Gems August 2023. I love flying Virgin Atlantic and am enthusiastic about anything the Virgin brand does, had heard/read many positive reviews of VV but also that it’s non-traditional and a “break the mold” format. I was very intrigued and liked the sound of that because when Sir Richard Branson breaks the mold he more often than not gets it right, but also wondered, is it the 21st century party ship and too over the top for me? For reference, I recently (4 years ago) discovered cruising and absolutely love it. I have cruised 7 times on other premium lines (Celebrity, Holland America, Princess) and am never happier than when I am boarding a ship going – well – just about anywhere, though I am working off my bucket list of destinations.

Mediterranean was on my bucket list and the literary did not disappoint. What a gorgeous part of the world, Split, Dubrovnik, Kotor, Corfu. My favorite: Kotor.  The fjords getting there, the hike I did up to St John’s Fortress and the view looking back down on the town and beautiful Resilient Lady anchored serenely just off shore (a super easy tender port). August in the Med however is a bit hot and crowded so beware, but never mind, it was a great opportunity for me to try the line as I am a travel hacker and purchased this cruise on a points promotion which represented a tremendous redemption value.

Now to my review of Virgin Voyages. In a word and overall: Outstanding casual luxury fun and playful cruise experience. I had read that Virgin planned out the cruise experience they wanted to offer travelers, designed it to a high level of detail, then told the ship builder to build a ship accordingly. The result is a beautifully curated experience, on a gorgeous, fresh ship with thoughtful spaces (dining, entertainment, hang out, top deck, staterooms) and very intentional design. It’s a smoothly run operation, app driven, high tech, service is excellent, entertainment is highly professional. The environment is inclusive both on the crew and passenger side, a rainbow of happy crew and passengers. Age defiantly skews younger than most cruise lines when considering age as a number, but mostly it’s a great environment for the young at heart that like trendy and upbeat and are happy to use an app. It’s a great app, it works very well. I am in my early 60’s, app friendly and I had no trouble navigating it and the ship. I find some other premium lines don’t give enough attention to their apps and they are glitchy and don’t work that well. On VV the app works and runs the ship! If you are not app friendly they do have daily paper “A Glance at a Day” sheets that you can pick up at Sailor Services (their front desk) but you might feel a bit hampered.

There are few if any announcements – everything is on the app. You get a notification when the ship docks and you can head to deck 4 to debark – there is no announcement. Additionally, on each residential deck you can view the days happenings on a big interactive screen. The elevators have a live screen that tells you what day, where you are, docking time, all aboard time. There is no cruise director (not that I was aware of anyway), just the crew down at Sailor Services.  The Caption and senior officers stay in the background, I did not hear the Captain speak to us at all, though was told he welcomed everyone on as we departed.  You never saw Captain or senior crew as you often do on traditional cruise lines. I am guessing they deliberately stay in the background and want you to be free to experience the ship and all it offers.

The ship is contemporary and gorgeous, I loved the different space. The dining is outstanding, every space has a different design and furnishings, the restaurants all wonderful both in food and décor and very different. There is no main dining room, that is a big point on VV. You dine in a different restaurant every night and that was one of the things I loved best. I still love main dining on traditional lines too – but the food and ambience was just outstanding on VV. Personal favorites were Test Kitchen, Razzle Dazzle and Extra Virgin. That charcuterie board – wow! And the Test Kitchen 6 course prix fix menu – wow again. Razzle Dazzle’s mashup of California Asian Fusion vegetarian traditional was delicious and I had great breakfasts there and an outstanding lamb dish one dinner.  The Wake baked potato with caramelized onion and Meyer lemon cheesecake – yum. The afternoon tea was the best I’ve had at sea so far with a tender flaky scone and real clotted cream (as opposed to whip cream). I love eating like this. VV’s version of the buffet is called the Galley and the food here is fantastic too. They have different food stations, if you will, and you sit and scan the PR code with your phone for the menu (they have paper menus too), put up a little flag on the table and a server quickly comes over to take your order. A few stations you can walk up and take things like Bento Box and dessert items and salad bar you can design your own, but all is served to you. This is a great plan in my view as Covid – or any garden variety flu or cold – risk is drastically reduced this way. I had the best street tacos, salads, french fries, ramen, and sushi rolls here.

Another marvelous venue was the social club with board games galore in a happy boisterous space. This is where they did their version of trivia and Karaoke, sometimes with the Diva (yes, there is a resident Diva on board) and they have a Candy Bar with the best mocha fudge, red vines, cake pops and more as well as popcorn & hot dogs and keep in mind the ship is 18 or older only so the game and candy are all for you and your inner kid! I love this playfulness. The Dock is a beautiful hang out location inside and out on the aft deck it’s gorgeous with sofa style loungers for sunbathing. The ship is unique with the residential tower of decks designed and set inside the dimensions of the public decks allowing for lots of open space on this promenade deck. The pool deck is also lovely, there are two pools, the space is not huge but loungers are plentiful with excellent service here too. The gym is excellent, fitness, health and well-being as a lifestyle is big on the ship and there is daily yoga that I enjoyed on deck and any number of classes and machines to work out on.

The entertainment is racy, irreverent, sweet, saucy, sexy, tongue in cheek, profane, clever inventive – where Cirque du Soleil talent meets pole dancing meets cleverness meets outside of the box. It was a lot of fun, and the best entertainment I have every experienced on a ship. If you are sensitive to the F-word getting thrown around, you might be uncomfortable. Though I do like the music on Holland America very much. Scarlet night, a signature party event on every cruise was very well-done including bathing the ship in red light, including residential hallways and public spaces. It seemed to start off with a certain elegance but the crew would do fun skits here and there on the ship which were again clever, racy, irreverent, and then the late-night crowd after 10:30 ended up on the pool deck in the pool with the Diva partying hard to thumping DJ music – those that were there were having a blast, though it was not my scene.

My balcony cabin was lovely, the style fresh and non traditional, the bathroom small but the rainfall shower + handheld was very lux and the sitting hammock on the balcony was a highlight. I was in it every day, had many naps there and bought one from the ship store. The Hammocks are made by women in Thailand that the brand supports in their business.

What have I missed? Suffice it to say that I could go on and tell you more about the food or the entertainment (Miss Behave was hilarious fresh, irreverent; Persephone was clever stunning acrobatics… Lola’s Library also…) .

As a wrap up, a fantastic cruise. I will cruise with Virgin again, however I have cruised the Caribbean several times and hope they will open up new destinations as a large part of my focus is traveling to different destinations and I switch lines to get the itineraries I want. But that’s just my approach to cruising. I missed lectures or cultural talks. There’s none of that on VV it’s all about the fun factor. But having said that, any cruise on any line you can make of it what you will.  You can do the shows or not, explore all the dining options or just a few, sit quietly and read 3 books… if you want to engage with what the ship has to offer on VV it’s high energy, fun, trendy. I kind of missed the jumbotron on the top deck and movies under the stars, but there was so much else to do… so not really missed in the end. The fact that there’s no cruise director I am not bothered by.

In Summary:

Loved: curated offerings of the Virgin cruise experience, the dining, the freshness of the ship, the clever shows, the irreverence, the sense of being surprised and impressed, of not realizing I wanted this in my life, like the Apple slight of hand of knowing what we want before we know we want it and giving it to us. Great service on board, the app.

Missed: movies on deck, lectures & talks, hearing from the Captain, seeing senior crew here or there, or a talk from one or more of them. But none of these are deal breakers by any means. Only opportunity (may have been) the ship tour at $200? I am a bit of an Avgeek and now discovered I am a ship geek too I love watching docking procedures or attending navigation talks.

Did not like:

Hard bed and pillows. But this was quickly resolved when I told my cabin steward who plushed it up with nice mattress padding and a softer set of pillows. So just be sure to ask if you are a person that likes softer bedding.

Parts of Scarlet night were a bit over the top for my taste (and I don’t drink alcohol which is a big part of the scene, champagne is the signature drink on board!) but others parts of it were great and the concept was fun. But this is okay because you are not going to like/want to participate in everything that’s offered on any ship!

Twice on board I had disappointing interactions with crew that were curt with me and the customer service seemed a bit off. However, it could have been me, that I misinterpreted a straightforward and brisk manner as abrupt or lacking in customer service.

Lack of anything intellectual on board such as talks or lectures. But that is okay, bring books if you need this stimulation or choose another cruise line. Virgin’s cruise experience offers fun and playfulness in a trendy casual luxury atmosphere with outstanding food and entertainment and they sure do get this right.