FFMilesJunkie

The new CEO must not have studied science and learned about the frog in boiling water. Cranking the fares all the way up to 11 so quickly is going to cause some pushback. We all knew pricing had to increase, but didn't expect it all at once and at these price points. The product is more premium than what they have been charging in the past, but I thought we would gradually find how much the market will bear. But by the looks of these new prices, they are skipping right over being at par with Celebrity & Princess pricing (with perks) and going straight for Oceania/Azamara pricing. The difference being that O/Az have beverage packages included while VV just slashed their bar tabs. At least Virgin still allows repricing at no penalty (for now 😬). I hope they keep the consumer friendly policies in place. If they match all the mainline policies like non refundable deposits and rebooking penalties, then they have really lost their way. I guess we will learn in the next few months if this "wave season" sale is a success and if these prices are here to stay.

Free Promotional Bar Tabs will only be for Rock Star and Sea Terrace. No Insides, Seaview or "Lock It In" rates Purchased Bar Tabs now have more options. There's still the $300 + $50 bonus, but now there is $200 + $25 bonus & $100 + $10 bonus

Valiant Lady will be in Miami throughout 2025

Status match is ending Dec 31. Don't put it off!

Just received the new Wave 2024 package. It's going to be 70% off 2nd sailor and bar tabs are going down quite a bit. 4 nights and fewer gets $100, 5-6 nights gets $200, 7-13 nights gets $300 and 14+ gets $600.

Pay in Full Promo ends tonight. If you have an existing booking more than 180 days out you can still apply the promo but after today the offer is dead on new bookings. No warning was given to first mates. They are also lowering the FL Resident discount to 5% and eliminating other discounts for booking in advance. The bargain days are over. There are still good deals out there but gone are the good ole days. Also rumors that MNVV will be watered down in the next couple of months.

On the Onward now and there is no Cabernet available on the ultimate package. The Decoy which I believe used to be available in the package is now only by the bottle. These are the only 4 available right now (beaujolais, Aussie Merlot and Shiraz and a Chianti) Disappointed to say the least.

It might be a glitch that they change, but I've noticed for 2024 sailings, DBE Bonus Bar Tabs are showing up for both passengers if both have status (so $100 x 2 instead of $100 for the cabin)

Do not book a social insider. They are designed for groups of 4 friends who will be at the manor night club all night. These are directly under the night club so very loud. They may be a little cheaper but not worth it.

For those who don’t have high cruise status but might have high hotel status, try matching to MSC gold or black and then match to Virgin. It’s worth the extra hassle.

That’s not bad. You have a Mega Rock Star suite above you so won’t have pool deck noise.

Here's one from about a month ago (posted to IG on Aug 2). Can clearly see the aft is not curved out like the other Lady Ships. Hopefully the interior is further along. I think the key is hearing when staff will make it on board. Hopefully we start to hear some reports of managers flying over to Italy to get the ship up and running. I imagine they need at least 6-8 weeks to get the staff on board and trained. Then sea trials and it will take 7-10 days to sail her to Miami. Cutting it close!

Have your TA send you a copy of the VV invoice. TAs can’t change the price of the cruise. It should all be spelled out on the invoice. The $300 you paid to the TA would show up as a $300 deposit on the invoice. The fact that the MNVV promo was used means you have the additional $300 discount. The important thing is to see the $300 deposit applied to your voyage.

The accessible Sea Terraces have the same footprint as the seriously suite but none of the bells and whistles. However they are fully accessible which means roll in shower with curtain and ramp to balcony. You will sometimes be assigned one if you have a Lock It In rate and they were not booked by those who require them. I would not want to take one away from someone who truly needs it, but you might be able to ask at check in if any are going out empty and see if they will move you.

https://www.virginvoyages.com/sailing-club By the end of 2024 that pre-board line is going to get awfully long!

The crewmor mill is running wild these days. On the Scarlett now. The Get Lost crew are still confident the BL is launching on time. But others are skeptical since no one has been assigned to the BL yet. Some are saying they think the whole winter/spring schedule will be cancelled and she will launch in Europe like the resilient did. But it’s getting pretty late. Final payment for the mermaidens are due right now. They need to decide one way or another. The fact they are waiting is hopefully a sign they are trying their best to finish her on time and maybe at worst a short delay. I’d hate to see a whole season get cancelled like on RL. The bookings are too strong right now. That could kill momentum in the brand.

The 2023 Greek cruises come with a $600 Bar Tab and if you find a travel agent with extra Placeholder My Next Virgin Voyages, you can also get at least another $600 Sailor Loot (more if your agent is running an extra promo). $1,200 - $1,400 should alleviate a lot of the keeping tab stress!

A travel agent can do that. You can apply the pay in full promo at any point before 180 days. It doesn't have to be done at the exact time of booking.

If the sailing is more than 120 days out you can pay the deposit and then they can apply the promo to adjust the final price. If it’s inside of 120 days a travel agent might be able to help. They can put the booking on a longer than 24 hour hold while the match is done then apply the discount.

$30 per day?? It's always been $10 per day and if you have status, it's free. Maybe they increased the price to $15 recently. I'm not really sure why you are comparing land based and satellite based data. There's just no comparison. The speeds on Virgin have improved significantly with the introduction of Starlink, and I'm sure Elon Musk is charging Sir Richard more than $1 per passenger for the service! I don't think anyone here is defending the app. I think it's one of the biggest complaints from regular sailors. I didn't have too many issues with it on my 2 Resilient sailings this year, but it still gets low grades from me when I fill out the survey.

I don't think anyone here is taking sides. They are just expressing an opinion that what happened to you is not fraud but rather an error by VV. You gave VV your credentials including your credit card info. For some reason, a shore thing was booked on your booking and charged to the card on file. Your TA saw it and asked you about it and realized it was booked in error. That was a great catch by the TA, but it would have been caught eventually by you when you checked your app or when you got on board and saw a shore thing was on your schedule. At that time it would have been cancelled and refunded. Fraud would be if someone nefariously used your credentials and credit card info from VV to change things for a 3rd party (or themselves), but that's not what happened. If VV refused to refund you then that would be a different story, but everyone was made whole and life goes on.

The Celebrity Ascent's maiden voyage is 1 month before the Brilliant Lady's maiden and has been on sale for a longer time to a much larger loyal customer base and it's not sold out. In fact, there's not a single sailing of the Celebrity Ascent in it's maiden season that is sold out. Even the holiday sailings are WIDE OPEN with every category available even suites. By your logic Celebrity should redeploy the Ascent or maybe it's a sign the ship should be delayed. On the other hand, suites are sold out on the Brilliant Lady for almost all her sailings out of SJ and on a few of her sailings all that are left are a handful of insides and Central Sea Terraces. XL & Standard Sea Terraces are almost sold out on some sailings. Most of what is being discussed here is pure speculation. None of us know for certain but we should know in the next few weeks. With the BL now showing on port schedules (although spotty right now) at least we know things are moving in the right direction. Can't wait to see what's in store for BL2024!

The Celebrity Ascent Maiden Voyage and 2 preview voyages are not sold out. In fact they have already had a price cut and additional promos on the preview cruises because they are not close to selling out. You can even book some Suites on the maiden Ascent cruise right now. The cruises right after the maiden cruise are WIDE open with hundreds of cabins unsold. I guess it's time to prepare the Celebrity obituary! We are starting to see discounting by all the major cruise lines as post covid "revenge travel" is winding down and we are starting to get back to normal. However, Virgin bookings continue to grow stronger and prices are going UP after every sale ends. Expect another price increase August 1st when the current sale ends. Bookings are getting better in Europe as the season progresses due to increasing sales to Europeans who don't have to pay the crazy transatlantic air fares. The Brilliant Lady SJ sailings are starting to fill up. There's still some good deals on the BL, so I'd book now at these low prices before they start to go up in the next couple of months. Some sailings are down to only Central Sea Terraces left which is bad news for bargain shoppers.

We are being told new itineraries are to be released this month, so hopefully we will see something in the next couple of weeks.

Not sure if this news is buried in any other thread, but thought it would be good to get its own thread in case people are inside or approaching their 45/60 day dining reservation window and wanted to book The Wake or Razzle Dazzle for brunch on their cruise.