AdoraBelle

I've been using VV's booking site for quite a while now, so I don't think it's user error.

I start a search with 1 sailor. When I click on a specific cruise, it will show different cabin categories, with wording like this (pasted directly from website):

Sea View
Porthole window for ocean views
Roomy rainshower
Mood lighting
Transformative seabed
from $2,610 per cabin

But if I now click "show options" under Sea View, the absolute cheapest cabin is: $2,847. There is no $2610 base price option. 

Both of these numbers are before taxes and fees, so it's not that. 

It's like that with almost all my search results right now, except for a few rare instances where the price is actually cheaper than the lowest "from $$$ per cabin" number. 

What gives? It's also not a big enough gap to be a solo supplement--which should already be accounted for when I start my search by selecting 1 sailor only. 

57 minutes ago, LloydJr said:

IIRC, they had chronic staffing issues prior to Covid and they've only gotten worse

There was a long thread on another social media site about a week ago, allegedly posted by someone who had been hired & trained for POA, but then told at the very last minute that they were no longer needed, and essentially let go right before they were supposed to fly out to meet the ship. This (again, allegedly) happened very recently, and to a whole group of trainees at once. 

It was specific to POA. I don't know what staffing roles were affected. 

Punta Langosta x 2 cruises for me, most recently in Feb. This is the one closest to downtown.

On 2/7/2023 at 2:30 PM, _tacocat_ said:

when it affects the ability to enjoy my vacation, there's the harm.  the idiots with their gimbals and selfie sticks getting in the way everywhere are obnoxious and can be a safety hazard.

It's great when they stop at a high-traffic/bottleneck area and have zero situational awareness. 

/s

I'm one cruise away from platinum on NCL, and it's hard to imagine going back at this point, unless VV fails or keeps changing the product until it's like any other mass market cruise line.

(I even have an NCL cruisenext cert still sitting on my account from the pandemic era ...) 

The only thing I miss from NCL is the fact that you can almost always get a snack from the buffet (at least on the away ships ... or that was true before the pandemic ...), as I tend to get snacky at hours that are slightly mis-aligned to the galley area on VV. 

59 minutes ago, New2cruise2022 said:

There is an all-inclusive stateside? TIL

They were pretty careful not to use the phrase “all inclusive” in their post while still sort of implying that they weren’t making an apples and oranges comparison.

34 minutes ago, Mark_T said:

I certainly don't mind giving them 10's, I just intensely dislike the management policies that force them to have to ask...

 

Yep. Makes both the crew and the passengers uncomfortable. Lose/lose. 

14 hours ago, cantgetin said:

Our October cruise disembarked in Miami, and I was seriously unhappy with the aggressiveness of the porters who I had not even asked for help.  

Where were porters being aggressive with you during disembark in Miami? Do you mean the V terminal/luggage collection area? I'm sure there might be a few porters hanging around there to offer help to people but I've literally never seen one. That said, I wasn't looking. But I also have never been approached. x 3 disembarks in the second half of 2022. 

(What pings 'aggressive' on your metric? I can't imagine them saying anything at disembark other than asking if you need assistance. The drop-off porters at terminal V haven't been anything but polite and trying to make sure I'm in the right line.) 

I saw one video clip of a drag brunch in razzle dazzle a while back (meaning definitely 2021 or earlier), maybe when they were doing test runs, and I can't remember if it was on youtube or instagram or what. I have a feeling they decided it worked better as a stand-alone experience than a dining experience. 

I do like the current drag show (around the world in 80 minutes), but I have admittedly seen it done better by one 'Diva' than another. 🙂

Frequent solo cruiser here, and haven't sailed with my spouse since the pandemic. He's never been on Virgin.

I'm thinking of booking a trip for us next year. I think he exists in the Virgin system because of a booking we had for 2020 that got canceled. I think he has some FVC. (Sorry, there's a reason this is all sort of vague but it's a long story and ... outside the scope. I have some info from one source, but I know it's almost certainly not going to be what the phone reps tell me when I try to book.)

If two people who both have FVC are booked into one room, does the FVC from each person's account get applied to the new fare? (I think the only reason he has FVC is because they split some of our original 2020 deposit back to each of us. Ugh.) 

Also, must all sailors have their own login to virginvoyages.com? 

Bumping this thread to ask ...

Has anyone been able to use the future cruise deposits on rooms below Sea Terrace level? Pretty sure the onboard sales desk told us we could use them on anything, but also pretty sure there is a lot of miscommunication between onboard sales and real life/shoreside.

I know the website definitely lays it out as Sea Terrace and above only. 

23 hours ago, sid_9169 said:

They don't really pay attention to anyone's debarkation times. It's so spread out between around 8:00 until 10:45 that you could pretty much leave any time you want.

This has been my experience in Miami ...

Basically walked off once at 7:25am ...

Walked off another time at around 9:15am.

Maybe 6-7 people ahead of me each time.

Of course this is at current lowish capacity. 

Original poster here. I was grouchy when I made that post (I think I hadn't had lunch so I really wanted a snack at that time). 

Later in the cruise, the grab n go was filled more regularly, so that solved the problem for me. 

I've heard anywhere from 1400-1600 pax were on this sailing. Which leads to another problem ...

With the restricted (and sometimes completely unavailable) restaurant reservation thing, we tried lining up at both Extra Virgin and Pink Agave at opening time (6pm) on the last night of sailing. (There we two of us; we each waited in one line.) We were told to come back after 9pm at both places. Yikes. I assume all other venues were similar, but having said that I know those two are very popular. 

(IIRC there isn't much open for dinner at the Galley besides the burger bar and diner? We ended up getting pizza.)

To me the solution is 'more stations open for dinner at the galley at night', but I don't know if the signature restaurant problem is due to space or staffing.

Other than all this--FANTASTIC cruise even with the higher pax load than my last trip (900 in August). Food was even better than I remembered. I never thought I'd be impressed by a NY strip again (I've just eaten a lot of good steaks in my life and strip isn't my favorite), but the one at EV was fabulous.

Bought two more deposits for future voyages. Already ready to go back. Higher pax load be damned.

(I also have managed to avoid getting sick on both, even though the entire MIA delta lounge seemed to be full of people coughing and sneezing without covering their mouths. Classy!)

Update:

As of last week, 10346A DOES have a hammock. So I got free $50 OBC I guess. 

Shrug!

(Scarlet Lady is still fabulous.)

I’ve seen this mentioned before (and observed it on a previous sailing), but closing down absolutely everything in the galley except the breakfast place at 3pm is a weird choice. 
 

This is my second sailing, and the ship seems much fuller than last time. This makes the problem a little more apparent (I’m not the only person wandering around the galley looking hungry and confused.) Also, the grab and go areas are pretty ransacked. (No charcuterie boxes this time, or they are disappearing so fast I never saw them.) 

I don’t want breakfast, a hot dog, or a whole pizza this time of day, just something light to snack on (sweet or savory). I would have settled for an order of fries, but even the burger bar is closed. 
 

(Yes, I will also send this as feedback to Virgin.)

Add 10346A to the list, maybe. I just got an email about a future sailing that this cabin doesn’t have a hammock, and a $50 OBC. (It’s funny, I booked this one onboard with the sales team that had “the list” and 10346A wasn’t on it then.) 

Hammock shenanigans continue 

3 hours ago, gkbiiii said:

Oddly most are older passengers, rather or not Branson wants to realize this!

That wasn’t my impression last week on Scarlet Lady. I’m middle aged, and was surprised at how much of the ship was younger than me. 

And thus I found out that I’m a mere 2 points away from Platinum on NCL. And apparently I have two pre-pandemic CruiseNext certs I forgot about.

2 hours ago, _tacocat_ said:

Some of the stations have super weird hours, like tacos and ramen only for breakfast and lunch (but I’ve seen folks say they got dinner ramen, so who knows hahah).  As luck would have it, we were ALWAYS hungry in the “in between” (I think 3-5?) where the only thing open was the diner and dash.

YES, this was me, with that weird mid-afternoon thing. I ended eating a lot of grab and go. I suppose pizza was also an option, but I’m not much of a pizza person.

By the time I figured out the ramen hours it was too late. 🙂

I had a sort of funny experience where, if I was just sitting down with some tea or grab and go food, I would always instantly get a server asking if I wanted something, but if I actually wanted to order something I ended up waiting a while.

That said, I seemed to eat outside of normal peak times, and it took me a while to realize that most of the galley stations are closed at dinner. I’m hoping that’s not permanent and is only in place because of low ship occupancy. 

My sailing last week supposedly had 900 people, but I was told by a fairly high ranking crew person (not that this is privileged info, as far as I know) that they were expecting 1800+ people for the cruise immediately following (Labor Day weekend). Still underway, maybe someone can confirm.

I was off the ship Friday by 7:45 ish (remember to book your disembark time in the app!). I was at MIA around 8:15, mostly because my Uber driver seemed to have trouble finding terminal V. I was through security in about ten minutes, but I have CLEAR. That would have been faster if it weren’t for a woman in front of me having a temper tantrum about having to take off her shoes or something. (It seems they ‘forgot’ to give her her precheck pass or something, maybe because of her charming personality.) 

With a 10:30 flight, that still meant spending more time at MIA than I wanted to. 
 

Obviously your mileage may vary. 

The grab and go containers are reused. They’re more like lightweight home Tupperware than something you’d get at gas station snack section.

There are no plastic utensils, the grab and go coolers have regular silverware and cloth napkins right next to them.

‘Virtue signaling’ is a concept invented by people who don’t want to make the effort.

3 hours ago, Cloud9 Bob said:

I've said many times that I'm the odd man out having very little trouble with the app....well at least no trouble a reboot of my phone couldn't fix. The thing that really bothered me though was that they don't allow use of private VPN's to safeguard the transmission of data....like when I want to connect to my bank and transfer funds. I spoke to IT and was even willing to upgrade to the faster service, but they said VPN is a "no go" on either service. Still can't figure why??

I had no problems using my company’s OpenVPN server on the ship. 
 

It’s possible they block some commercial/consumer VPNs. 

I just watched a little practice run, it’s pretty cute and the hosts are funny.