Are We Too Old For Virgin Voyages? Our Scarlet Lady Review

are we too old for Virgin [Music] voyages hey everybody welcome back to another Cruise report Cruise review today I'm going to talk to you about our five nights aboard virgin voyages Scarlet lady give you a quick run through kind of a review let you know what we thought about the trip you remember a few weeks ago I said before we went on this Cruise what we're really trying to determine as with every cruise is we review things as an adult mature adult couple traveling without a family we don't travel with we don't have kids so we don't travel with kids so that's kind of the way we approach these cruise reviews and so if you're in that demographic and you're kind of in that uh space uh maybe you'll find some value here now this was our 143rd Cruise our 43rd I believe Cruise Line and our 114th cruise ship that we've reviewed so we have a pretty broad background all things from Big Ships little ships sailing ships sh Expedition ships River Cruises you name it we've done it so what was the overall first impression of scarlet lady well I guess first of all the first thing we noticed as soon as you step on board actually as soon as you check in this is a very different Cruise Line This is not your run-of- the bill this is not your parents Cruise Line This is they threw away the the manual and they started with a blank piece of paper and decided this is what they want virgin cruises to be and they and I think they've done a very good job it's very very different very unique so if you're expecting more of a traditional Cruise like you might get on Carnival or princess or Royal Caribbean or Holland America where honestly other than the decor of the ship if you took people's logos off you could spin somebody around with their eyes closed and you wouldn't be able to tell that much differ between any of them they all pretty much it's the same experience well it's not that way on Virgin voyages on Virgin everything is a little bit different a little bit out there and um let's start with embarcation real quick we did get Rockstar VIP status on this cruise and that means you get a black wristband instead of a red one and you get to Embark a little early they got a very nice embarcation Lounge there in Miami beautiful terminal uh if you're in that Rockstar Suite category or Mega Rockstar Suite you do get to Embark a little bit earlier not a huge amount maybe 30 minutes before everybody else and uh we were able to do that they have a separate Lounge as part of the terminal for the Rockstar VIP people and they have refreshments and snacks and it's very nice and they tell you when you check in that if you want to you can get on the ship's Wi-Fi make your dinner reservations which we did cuz I was unable to get dinner reservations before we left to go on the trip so we got all of our reservation sorted out and uh that was very nice uh once we embarked embarcation very very smooth very fast very efficient everything on the ship was actually handled very efficiently uh we never had to stand in any long lines we never had any crowds to deal with I got a little crowded out by the pool on SE days but that was it everything everything else was done very very effectively and efficiently um the crew very pleasant to deal with you know no real issues as far as service everybody was pleasant um and what we noticed was uh the the as far as the mustard procedure very pretty much typical for what the cruise lines are doing now you watch a video a safety video which is very well done very entertaining on might head I've got some important safety information that I must tell you before and then you go down to your mustard station where they do a little demo of the live vest and then you're done it was very quick very easy uh I will say on the day of embarcation they had a great sailaway party uh we went we don't usually go to the sailway party but we did on this cruise I did something on this cruise I told you ahead of time I was going to do something I've never done before and two things number one I bought this shirt and a pair of red pajama bottoms just for the pajama party which I didn't make it to uh but it uh I I bought actual clothing specifically for this Cruise because I knew they were going to have a night where everybody's supposed to wear red I've never done that I've never bought clothes just for a cruise but I did on this one but the sailway party we did go to the sailway party and I actually danced sort of D I don't know my dancing just looks like I'm looking for my keys you know it's not don't don't get excited it's not much to look at uh there was a very nice lady up there on the deck who took my GoPro and she shot some video of us trying to dance it was like I say it wasn't a pretty sight anyway uh everybody was having a great time that's where you know the you could tell from from the sailway party on you can tell that a lot of energy on this ship uh the crew has a super high energy very energetic and very enthusiastic and it that that carried through the entire uh 5 days so it's just a a fun atmosphere uh adult only which we like uh that's one of the things we like about Viking no kids on board this was all adult uh VI um uh virgin has this reputation kind of as a I guess people I had the impression it was going to be much more sexually oriented than it was it wasn't as risque as I thought it was going to be I mean I've heard some people say it's not their cup of tea cuz maybe they got offended at something uh I consider myself to be very conservative in a lot of ways but I didn't get offended by anything I thought in facted it was a little more traditional in that sense so if you're worried about that if that's been keeping you from checking out this Cruise Line I'd put that aside I don't think that's going to be an issue for you as far as the ship itself it's a big ship 110,000 ton ship 900 and some feet long holds I think 2700 change guests and about what 1,400 crew so there's about a 1 to2 Crew deest ratio which is pretty good for a large ship that's not uh a bad we never had any issues with service so and I'm pretty sure the ship was full it seemed like when we went out to the pool on Cay it looked pretty full so but it never felt crowded the the ship is laid out quite a bit differently uh than a lot of cruise ships they have their own unique design and it uh has I would say smaller venues than a lot of the newer ships but there's more of them so there's a lot of smaller venues a lot of little more intimate spaces lots and lots of bars lots of little places to get different types of food uh very creative and very Innovative and they've kind of followed that same strategy that Viking has uh where like on Viking all their ocean ships are identical well the same thing's true on Virgin you know a lot of cruise lines Princess Royal Caribbean Holland Amer all of them they come out with a new ship and there's always a little differences you know that this room is called something different or they've changed this bar over here or you know they come out with a different class of ship and You' never know where everything is well it's not that way with Virgin all of their four ships are virtually identical so when you get on board no matter what your itinerary is going to be you're if you've been on virgin before you're going to feel comfortable and know your way around and you don't have that I guess you call stress of having to relearn how to find your way around the ship now we thought we were a little intimidated at first we thought you know the ship's a little confusing going to be hard to find our way around but honestly after the first full day it was very very logical the ship was laid out very well we didn't have any issues finding our way around the ship at all uh and we felt like the ship is very nice now as far as you know the ship has everything you need it has lots of shops great logo shop by the way uh has a nice Casino we did okay in the casino it's got a beautiful Spa with a thermal Suite I had access to the thermal Suite I think for about 3 hours and it was uh very nice they have their own changing rooms and they have the steam room the sauna The Salt Room and then they have a thing called a mud room I've never been in a mud room before and it was a very very nice thermal Suite so if you enjoy that experience there is a charge for it but I think it's well worth it and I think uh you know if you want to spend a couple hours 3 hours in the thermal Suite definitely want to check that out very beautiful uh the ship is very nice it's very modern but it's very nice they have a lot of unique spaces I've never seen on a cruise ship they have a tattoo parlor for one thing uh they have a barber shop I've never seen a separate Barber Shop usually have to go to the salon for that um an arcade with all kinds of the old school you know video games and things and there's no charge for using anything and unlike most ships they have no main dining room so there they have a bunch of separate restaurants and small venues where you can get food they have I would say five main what I would call Specialty restaurants and there's no charge to eat in any of the restaurants uh some of the restaurants will have like an upcharge item if you want it like a Tomahawk Steak at the steakhouse but uh for most part everything's included uh and they also include all the gratuities so you don't have to worry about that the only thing that's really not included are your drinks and they don't do drink packages like other Cruise Lines do where you can pay so much money uh per day per person and have unlimited drinks what they do instead is they have what they call a barab you can prepay upfront and if you put up a bar tab of say $300 they'll match it with like $50 so you get $350 worth of drinks for $300 but what's nice about it different than a uh typical Cruise Line drink package is if you're sitting at a table with three or four people and you want to buy a round of drinks it just comes out of your bab so if let's say you drink but your wife or your partner doesn't uh you don't both have to buy the drink package like you do on every other Cruise Line you just if you're going to spend $300 on drinks go ahead and get the bartab for yourself or if you want to buy a friend to drink you can it's very very very logical I wish a lot of cruise lines would go to this type of system or at least offer it as an optional system I think it makes a a lot of sense again the ship's very easy to get around they had a lot of elevators I believe there was eight midship elevators two aft and four forward elevators and we never had a problem waiting for an elevator the elevators worked efficiently and fast and we just never had any issues really getting around the ship at all one of the things they do again different Cruise Line very different that we really liked right off the bat is how they have given each side of the ship when you get to your stateroom decks they have a big Z on one side and a big a on the other side I believe a is port and Z is starboard and you all once you go to your state room you know if you're on the Z side or the aide it is the most logical intelligent way because when you get off elevator are stairs forward AF midship sometimes they're facing different directions and I always ended up going down the wrong hallway you literally can't screw this up it is so easy to find your way around this ship especially finding your way back to your state room very logical uh just great job now as far as the state room itself um we it was small it wasn't huge I mean it wasn't it wasn't tiny it was pretty pretty much in line with what you would have on a standard Ocean View State Room on any Cruise Line we had the sea Terrace State room so we did have a balcony the balcony is actually decent size has a hammock a couple of chairs and a little table and the only thing we found interesting is that the chairs were metal and I think those could get hot out in the sun and they don't give you any cushions or anything for the chairs now I did a complete Walk Through The State Room room where I kind of reviewed the state room if you want to see that I'll put a link to it up above and in the description of this video so I don't want to dwell on The State Room very much other than we were very comfortable it was super quiet very comfortable good bed good pillows everything there stateroom attendant was wonderful Alona did a great job keeping everything clean uh that's just a a quick overview of the state room like I say if you want more details check out that video now when it comes to food and drink um lots of hype on the internet about how good the food is on Virgin uh We've watched a lot of videos from other YouTubers that talk about this Gary benbridge and several of the other uh popular YouTube channels uh who I have a lot of respect for and sure enough the food was very very good I would say overall uh over five days I would say everything we ate was either as good as or in most cases better than other cruise lines that we've sailed on and we've sailed on a lot of different Cruise Lines um Pizza very good uh I'm again I'm doing a separate video on food and once that video is done I'll probably have it out in a few days I'll put a link to it in the description of this video if you want to check that out so make sure if you haven't done so already subscribe to our Channel and turn on that little notification Bell because that way YouTube will let you know when that video comes out and you don't want to miss it because I'm going to go into more of a deep dive on all the food and dining all the service was good the like I say I'm going to there's a couple of Misses in the food area I'll talk about in that video but for the most part everything was as other YouTubers have described it uh and very very good I I would I would say that's one of the highlights of the cruise the other is entertainment we were extremely pleased with the lounge entertainment all the lounge acts around the ship uh and they have quite a few of them we didn't see one that wasn't good they were all good every all the singers were good all of the musicians were good and uh you know I would say probably the best Lounge entertainment we've seen on any ship as far as the big shows what you might call Production shows we only saw one production show and that was the Dual reality um I've never seen a show like that it was it was unique to say the least I mean it was and incredible I mean it was it was an amazing show great acrobats almost like a I'd say a little bit of a cir toay feel to it and in fact the whole ship kind of has a little bit of a Vagas feel uh for adults only you know I I think yeah I don't want I don't I don't want that to come out the wrong way I think it's a good thing but it kind of has the same sensation the same energy that you feel like when you're in Las Vegas it really kind of has that and I I thought it was a lot of fun dress code's very relaxed uh you can pretty much wear as long as you don't wear a swimsuit we even saw people at dinner in shorts as long as you're wearing a shirt like this maybe a pair of jeans I didn't even take a jacket I just took shirts like this casual shirts button- down shirts I took a couple of polo shirts I might have taken a couple of t-shirts for the daytime and I just took a pair of jeans and that was it and I was I was fine everywhere we went it was you know very very very relaxed and very nice now the one area I think they could improve on is in the area of communication there's a lot of things that were going on around the ship that we had no idea were going on and part of that is because their app on the phone that you use on your cell phone their app needs a little work I it it's very nice it's very very professional looking but it's very hard to find information or we struggled finding information uh the daily program on the app is a little confusing their printed daily program which you have to go pick they don't put it in your state room automatically I wish they did very nice printed daily program I just wish they would give it to you in your state room the night before the next day's activity so you could kind of plan better that's one thing I wish they did the um so Communications being part of this Rockstar VIP crowd with our black wristband there were special perks available to Rockstar VIPs that we didn't even know were available um because we never got anything in the state room or pre- cruise to really explain everything we knew about Richard's Retreat on biny beach we knew about Richard's rooftop on the ship we knew we could go there but we didn't really know other things like special disembarkation we didn't know about special transfer to the beach club when we got off the ship that just but the crew does a very good job of kind of looking for you they see if you've got that black wristband on and they'll pick you out of the crowd we get to we get to go in the theater ahead of everybody else they you get priority seating in the theater we didn't know that so um if you are part of that Rockstar VIP group um be aware you can go to the head of the line at the theater and get in early at the shows so anyway um entertainment great food good State Room very comfortable Ricky was very apprehensive about this Cruise she was really questioning whether she even really wanted to go just because of the things she'd heard about it uh I was a little more enthusiastic about it because I consider myself to be kind of a foodie and I was curious to know if the food was going to be that good on Virgin uh Ricky though complete turnaround after the second or third day she was a big fan I think she really had a good time she enjoyed it it was much less controversial I guess than what we were expecting the other area I wish they would be different for us is in the way of activities like trivia we love playing trivia but all of the trivia was in the evening like at 7 or 8:00 at 9 we're having dinner usually at that time so we didn't get to play any trivia on this cruise I think they did another one maybe at 12:00 noon one day and we would have really like to see what their trivia was like I wish they would do more of those things in the morning or maybe at a certain time maybe 4:00 in the afternoon or something before you start getting ready for dinner but you know that's not a big thing it's certainly not a deal killer but it's just one of the things I think they could improve on as far as internet Wi-Fi everybody gets free or included Wi-Fi on the ship uh you can upgrade to a premium WI Wi-Fi which I did I paid $40 for the full 5 days and I got the streaming level of Wi-Fi and I think I was able to connect two devices at a time I'm not sure if I was able to connect three I think it was just two and uh so I had my cell phone and my laptop both connected and everything worked fine it wasn't super fast I don't think they have starlink on Scarlet lady uh from what I've read or what I've heard that's in the works but hadn't been done yet so uh I could not get it to work with my VPN I had to turn VPN off for it to work and I've had that on other cruise lines as well now I have heard that starlink will work I'm sorry that VPN will work with starlink but I don't believe virgin Scarlet lady has starlink so uh I couldn't get my VPN I had nordvpn uh it kind of irritates me when I see some YouTubers take sponsorship money from VPN companies because I haven't been able to get VPN to work on Celebrity on Virgin now or on Carnival I have to turn the VPN off every time to get it to work because the first thing you do when you go down to the tech center to get support hey I can't get internet to work wi-fi the first thing they ask me every time do you have VPN turned on and turn it off everything works so that's just my story if you've had trouble VPN on a cruise ship let me know in the comments down below I know some of you have been able to make it work I couldn't get it to work with my VPN they did have a lot of other activities going on around the ship they had scavenger hunts and they had uh like I said the pajama party Scarlet nights where I bought the red shirt where everybody dresses up in red there's a whole story behind this um and it's just a lot of fun they had dance classes karaoke you know just all kinds of stuff going on around the ship at different times um we didn't have a chance to do all that but we what we did do we really enjoy enjoyed we had a lot of fun I think there's a lot of benefits to being a rockstar VIP I just next time we go on Virgin we'll be more aware of what they are you do have access to the uh Richards retreat at bimin Beach and the bimy beach event where they basically spend the whole day at the beach is the best beach experience we've ever had on a cruise ship almost like a private island I wouldn't say it's a private island but but they apparently have a private area on biny and it is uh really nicely done nice Beach cookout I wouldn't call it a barbecue it's more of a Caribbean food uh we had lunch at Richard's retreat they have two huge swimming pools that everybody has access to a gigantic beach with lots of lounge chairs you won't have any trouble finding a place to sit uh lots of umbrellas if you like to be in the shade and around the pool area is kind of the Hub of activity just like a party atmosphere everybody having fun up dancing doing all kinds of weird stuff and uh like I say it's the best beach experience we've ever had on any Cruise Line they really did it nice and you even get Wi-Fi on the beach the ship's WiFi works on the beach amazing how they did that so our final thoughts on Virgin voyages and Scarlet lady downside the biggest downside for us was we were only on five nights I would have liked to had a full seven or eight days to really go into more depth and detail we didn't get to eat in all the different venues because there just wasn't enough time uh I did as well as I could shooting video oh also one other thing I'll mention real quick the ship is very Fitness focused very Wellness oriented uh they have a wonderful walking jogging track they have all kinds of outdoor workout equipment they've got a very well equipped Fitness Center already talked about the spa and the and the thermal Suite but they have a lot of emphasis on Fitness and a lot of complimentary Fitness classes yoga and pilates and all kinds of things going on all day every day so it's a very if you're really into fitness and working out and staying in shape I don't think there's a better cruise line for that they really focus on that uh so I think they have a focus on entertainment a focus on food a focus on Fitness and Wellness and those are the things that just kind of pop out in my head uh the only things that we found that we felt like could be improved our would would be nitpicking I mean it's really uh we can find you can find fall with any cruise line but they did most everything very well that I can think of and we would definitely go back on Virgin voyages again and I think if you're an adult couple in our age uh demographic absolutely consider this this is uh another thing I like that they do differently is on their website they price their state rooms uh not based on per person but per state room I like that I think that's the way all Cruise Lines should do it when you book a hotel room you don't pay so much per person you pay for the room and that's the way virgin prices it and so I think they're doing a lot of things right and I think they're a disruptor and I think a lot of other Cruise Lines may want to start looking at how virgin is doing things and maybe adopt some of these practices but like the bab idea I think is a great idea you really have to nitpick to find a problem with Virgin voyages and Scarlet lady so for the 5 days make sure you watch our food and dining review I think you'll find it very interesting because I'll go through more of the different things we ate what we thought of eat thing lots of hits a few misses but mostly hits if you haven't done so already please subscribe now if you liked this video do me a favor please give it a thumbs up because that really does help our rankings with YouTube and until I see you on the next Cruise review smooth sailing

Channel: CruiseReport

Views: 49,547

Keywords: cruise review, cruisereport, chris dikmen, caribbean cruise, cruise, cruise travel, luxury cruise, cruise photography, travel, travel photography, cruise line, cruise ship, cruise ship review, cypress, cruise vlog, cruise blog, cruise blogger, cruise vlogger, cruise with ben and david, la lido loco, cruise with, sponsored, virgin voyages, scarlet lady, brilliant lady, valiant Lady, resilient lady

Id: C1raHmzYQvU

Length: 27min 24sec (1644 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 23 2023