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Or, if you plan on hosting an event in your cabin, or don't like reading on a bed, you can ask your room attendant to strip the sheets and arrange two daybed mattresses into an L-shaped sectional couch. Unless they're a real Broadway show (found on the likes of NCL or Royal Caribbean), I'm usually walking out or picking them apart before they end. The public spaces on the ship invite you to grab a friend, a drink and chill for a while.
Virgin Cruises' private island resort "Bimini Beach Club" (Bahamas)
The minimum age to sail Virgin is 18 years old, and the ship embraces its adults-only status. You won't find kids on board, yet you will find board games, an arcade, swings and unlimited pizza and ice cream. The vessel's launch (float-out from drydock) was on February 8, 2019. The special ceremony was attended by Tom McAlpin (Virgin Voyages President and CEO), Luigi Matarazzo (Fincantieri Merchant Ships Division's Director) and Paolo Capobianco (Sestri Ponente Shipyard's Director).
Crew members
If you don't know to get on board and immediately make reservations for all the restaurants, shows and fitness classes you want, you will find yourself locked out of meals and events you were looking forward to. The ship does not have a buffet or a cavernous banquet-style dining room. Kids are not welcome, but the adults-only ship gives grownups plenty of opportunities to play in both childlike and mature ways. Cruise fares include all meals, soda, basic Wi-Fi and crew gratuities, but it's not a luxury product filled with opulent decor, sedate travelers and a stuffy vibe. Onboard entertainment will include sexual innuendos, F-bombs and queer themes. RockStar Suite passengers benefit from complimentary food service, exclusive bar and outdoor terrace lounge, VIP beach cabanas.
Scarlet Lady cruise ship review: What to expect on board Virgin Voyages’ 1st ship - The Points Guy
Scarlet Lady cruise ship review: What to expect on board Virgin Voyages’ 1st ship.
Posted: Mon, 19 Jun 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
Virgin Voyages Sea Terrace Review – Some Improvement!
To find out the latest on Virgin Voyages' health and safety protocols, including those around COVID-19, visit the cruise line's cruise wellness page. You can also find out the latest on the world's major cruise lines by visiting Cruise Critic's guide to vaccine and testing requirements. Staff are cheery (wait for your first “Ahoy”) and empowered – sleeves rolled up, tattoos on display, piercings and stylish haircuts de rigeur. There’s a vibe onboard this ship like no other, almost like you are a specially invited guest.
Scarlet Lady’s XL Sea Terrace Cabin
Follows the complete list of Scarlet Lady restaurants and food bars. With Scarlet Lady, Virgin Voyages has ripped up the rule book with a cruise ship experience that caters for a demographic that may have never thought of cruising as a vacation option. In my original review, I said that if Virgin’s prices were similar to other cruise lines I’d view them as a quirky alternative, now that they are I definitely think that’s the case. The cabin decks are designed so that one side will be the A side and the other is the Zed/Zee side. It made it so easy to know which way to turn when you came to the top of the stairs. The other passengers were maybe a little younger than on the average cruiser, the ages onboard really did range though from 18 all the way up to people in their 80s.
Unique Restaurants
The Wartsila-made navigation and automation control systems are from the company's latest NACOS Platinum series. Virgin cruise bookings on Scarlet Lady opened on February 5, 2019 (for customers with pre-sale deposits) and on February 14 (for the general public). Following the June 5, 2019-issued US Government restrictions on the USA to Cuba travel, Virgin Voyages revised all scheduled itineraries to exclude Havana. The new/revised itineraries offer late-night call port departures (some at midnight).
Virgin Voyages Is Offering a Summer Pass to Remote Workers - Travel + Leisure
Virgin Voyages Is Offering a Summer Pass to Remote Workers.
Posted: Fri, 08 Mar 2024 08:00:00 GMT [source]
If you're catching some rays and don't want to give up your spot in the sun for lunch, The Sun Club Café is an easy pool deck grab-and-go option for anyone who likes poke bowls. If you're happy with Red Flower toiletries, you can use the provided dispensers of shampoo, conditioner and body wash, and not have to worry about cramming all your travel-sized bottles onto the tiny surface area. Food ranged from edible to excellent, but meals were always fun. I felt like I was eating out in a city, rather than at a hotel conference center, and that night-out vibe set the mood for the entire evening.
All eateries on Scarlet Lady offer "exceptional made-to-order eats" - complimentary. The decor is music (rock-and-roll) themed, with a retro-futuristic design, a color palette of deep blues with iridescent dichroic elements in the cabin's bathroom. Massive Suite has a separate bedroom that doubles as a music room (fitted with electric guitars and an amplifier). Keeping with the music theme, each of the 78 suites boasts a record player. Other entertainment on board is more subtle but no less avante-garde.
Explore More Mainstream Cruise Lines
The line gets to the higher number in part by counting all of the many separate food stations at Scarlet Lady's buffet-like food court. There are about a dozen of these stations, depending on how you count them. You probably wouldn't see that on Royal Caribbean's Symphony of the Seas. I also was put off a bit by Virgin Voyages' "we know better" attitude toward cruising.
There's staff that are there in part to encourage you to let loose a little -- or a lot. RockStar Suite passengers enjoy exclusive access to "Richard's Rooftop" (VIP club lounge located forward on Deck 16). The days of cruise ships having one big main dining room where everybody on board eats in fixed seatings is long gone. These days, you'll find a wide choice of restaurants on most big cruise vessels, and even smaller vessels offer at least a few choices.
It has been a cruise company that has talked itself up at times in the lead-up to Scarlet Lady's launch by pooh-poohing the things that other cruise companies do. This seemed suspect to me given how incredibly successful these other cruise companies have been. All gratuities are included in the cost of the cruise on Scarlet Lady. Should a guest test positive prior to sailing, Virgin has a credit and refund policy. You may want to bring some cash to tip the porters who take your suitcases from the pier to the ship and any tour guides who lead your ship-sponsored or private excursion in port.
Virgin Voyages (fka Virgin Cruises) is a new cruise line company headquartered in Plantation (Florida USA). Virgin Voyages was created in December 2014 as a joint venture between Virgin Group Ltd (UK-based multinational holding company, 49% stake) and Bain Capital LP (USA-based multi-asset investment company, 51% stake). Virgin is an adults-only cruise company (passengers' minimum age is 18) and officially starts operations in April 2020.
In addition, guests can also have to pay for things like gratuities and tips. Coming in at 909 ft long and 125 ft wide, it's roughly the length of 2.5 football fields, as wide as 2.4 tractor trailers, and the same height as a 13-story building. To make the ship feel fresh and innovative, they brought in renowned designers who haven't worked on cruise ships before. Often, these big main dining rooms are included in the fare, whereas the smaller "specialty" restaurants, which typically offer a more intimate and upscale experience, come with an extra charge. In its place is a soaring, box-like entertainment space called the Red Room that can transform into all sorts of configurations to allow for different types of unusual performances. Virgin Voyages promised to shake things up when it comes to cruise ship entertainment, and -- in my opinion, at least -- it has delivered.
On July 20, 2018, was the drydock's flooding, during which 2 drydock-assembled hull sections were floated out and connected. On the same day (also at Sestri Ponente Shipyard, near Genoa) was held the steel-cutting ceremony for the second Virgin cruise liner (Valiant Lady). Scarlet Lady is owned by the company VC SHIP ONE LTD and managed/chartered by VIRGIN VOYAGES LTD. We were blown away by the entertainment -- a show called Duel Reality, which is a riff on Romeo & Juliet/West Side Story, with some of the most amazing -- in fact, the most amazing -- acrobatics we have ever seen.
We did make a terrible mess with all of the food but the Bibimbap was my favourite thing. One thing that I thought was missing from the app was clear deck plans. On most other cruise lines the app will have deck plans which I usually look at to work out where I am or where the nearest toilets are. You don’t get a piece of paper in your cabin each night with the next days events like you usually would on a cruise. There is a whirlpool a little further on and it was quite funny to sit and watch people swim in circles around the whirlpool. I don’t think it was designed for that but people clearly do want to swim and as the main pool is so tiny you can almost reach from one side to the other you really can’t swim in it.
You can also order sweets like cake pops and steal candy out of a jar (except it's not stealing if it's free and meant for you to take). But the real casual-dining winner is The Pizza Place, churning out oven-fresh pizzas day and night in a light and airy space. I was a fan of the white truffle and egg pizza; the amusingly named "pretty fly for a white pie" also had staunch supporters. Grab a premade salad and take your pie out to the adjacent open-air patio to enjoy it in the Caribbean sunshine.
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