valandemmy

UPDATE:

I was able to speak to one of the guys at WPT@Sea. They had tried to get a hold of me and was not able to leave a message (I may have assumed it was spam and declined it).  Anyway, they needed my physical address which has now been given to them and they should be reaching back out to me next week with the info on how to claim my free cruise!!!!

Very Happy how it turned out!!!

Sooo....decided to play some poker while on the cruise, won my first $80 tournament which gave me a free buy-in to the $250 "main event" - with the Grand Prize of a Free 4 or 5 day cruise on Scarlet Lady in a Sea Terrace Room.  I filled out some paperwork and was told that I would get an Email in 7 to 10 days.  after almost 3 weeks and no Email, I called Virgin who transferred me to the Casino department...who said they (the person I was speaking to) didn't know anything about a free cruise for winning a poker tournament...but he put me on hold and called the manager,  who informed him about the WPT at sea.  However, the manager was actually gone for the day (this is when they told me the casino department was only 4 people?) and the manager would contact me the next day. 

Sure enough, I get a call the next day from the casino department manager who then gives me ANOTHER NUMBER to WPT@SEA in Kansas....I have called and emailed for 4 or 5 days with NO call, NO answer and NO reply back to my emails.   

Anyone have any idea what I can do to get my free cruise....second place was 1500 bucks, at this point, im thinking I should've went for that! 

My wife and I will be headed out in a few weeks for our 5 day on the SL.  My wife enjoys wearing more formal long dresses and having me in a suit for dinner like we have for years on other lines.   My question is, will we be out of place on VV?  I have watched a ton of video's and I do not remember seeing anyone dressed up like that..with the exception of maybe some at the Wake?..   My dining reservations are for the wake, Pink Agave, Razzle Dazzle and Extra Virgin.  

Is it a BS offer or a "just in case someone cancels last minute"....

Is there any chance of actually getting a suite?

24 minutes ago, mazz1 said:

my plan is to wait and see the room assigned and then if i'm not keen see about bidding for upgrade, calling to see what they can do if i pay more and finally if all else fails check for a upgrade at the port terminal 

I was considering that, but the more I read I started to get worried.  The website says they may not assign room until the day you board to ship. 

Got it taken care of.  I spoke to a supervisor who also tried to say there was no way they would be able to make any changes.  When I insisted that the website does not say anything about changes unless a room has been assigned..she was nice enough to say let me try and see if we can do it.  a 600 hundred bucks later....I have a room with a view. 

So this is our first VV cruise.  My wife purchased the lock it in rate, not realizing it was a limited view room.  The website says it is a non-refundable rate, which is fine...I don't want a refund, I just want to be able to upgrade - PAY MORE MONEY...however, when I call, VV is telling me because of my cabin type, that I can not do that.  I am not asking for a discounted upgrade..I am more than willing to pay the difference...but they seem like I am asking for the impossible.

Anyone have any idea if this is a thing or did I just get ahold of the wrong CSR?

Awesome!.  I appreciate the feedback greatly!!!

So my wife has  tree nut allergy and she has typically been limited as far as what she can eat on most cruise lines.  just wondering how well Virgin does for folks with tree nut allergies?'

Any desserts that she can have?

So we purchased the Romance package mainly for the on and off the boat benefits when just completed our check in (sailing Sept 15th) and our on board time was 145....not sure if that is an early boarding time or not...if its not, since we have the romance package could we go on earlier?

Also, what time can we start making reservations on the day it opens up...like at 12AM on the date?

Thanks

13 hours ago, Cloud9 Bob said:

You will find that the crew is more interactive with the sailors than on some other lines. They get free perks (ie. wifi) and can mingle with the guests more. They get to eat in the same restaurants, etc. They're happier and you will be able to sense it. That staff "military hierarchy" is downplayed on VV. I even ran into the Captain just as he was finishing lunch and we had a great conversation about the Calabria region of Italy and also the ships radar arrays. 🙂

10 hours ago, cantgetin said:

Definitely the above.  Crew can have tats, piercings, colored hair, and other personal expressions with relatively few limits.  We has a server this morning who addressed this  when we asked where she was from and how long she'd been with Virgin (first contract, but 6 years on another line).  She gushed about how much better VV was for crew than the previous line.  Their satisfaction is reflected in how they treat us.

This is awesome to hear.   Those men and women work so damn hard..glad to see this. 

Sounds silly but I have anaphylaxis to horses and although I have watched a ton of videos on youtube on this excursion...My wife saw one that showed a horse and became worried.   If they are around...how avoidable are they....like would we be driving through/walking through a concentrated area of them?

TIA,

Charles

21 minutes ago, cantgetin said:

Yes, the name he uses on some sites is "Cruising Walter."  Sorry.  If you go to You Tube and search "Where's Walter Travel Virgin Voyages," and get what I got, there are several videos dealing with VV....one on the cruises in general, one on food, etc.

Awesome.  I started watching him.  Thanks for the suggestion. 

Is it Where's Walter Travel?

Me(47) and Wife(43) will be taking our 1st cruise with Virgin in September.   We have cruised about 15 times mostly with Carnival and Norwegian.

What are the major differences we can expect with Virgin...other than the no kids allowed 😂

Thanks for all the info.  we have been watching Halifax reviews and can not wait to see it.

Thanks again. 

20 minutes ago, BasicSailor said:

Pack yourself a few warm items the first half of this cruise. 😉

The trip is Mid September..."historical" weather said 70s during the day....I can live with that lol.

Do you think it is an older crowd for that type of cruise...doesnt seem like a party cruise lol

We have cruised a lot over the years, but have never cruised to Canada or New England and never out of a New York port.

Other than the obvious differences from the tropical climate...what can we expect from the NYC port and the Canadian cruise?

We are booked for this cruise.  This will be our first time cruising out of NYC and our first time heading to Canada as well.  Cant wait to try the new ship

I can't say if they have it or not.  However, I will say that you should have a fairly recent kidney function testing before using Paxlovid as it can harm the kidneys. I know our local pharmacies wont dispense it unless we include a copy of the blood work.  Molnupiravir (another antiviral for Covid) does not require the additional testing.  

3 minutes ago, 2boyzmom said:

Thank you for the review. Is Six offered more than once?

Yes,  Three times if I recall correctly.  I know the night we went it was 7PM and 10PM

Thought I would give a quick review from our recent 7 day Breakaway cruise out of Miami...we have about 12 cruises with CCL, this was our Second with NCL. 

Traveling this time was Me-46, Wife 42, Son - 14  

Worked a 10 hour day on Friday drove home then a 13 hour drive to Miami...wife and I took turns driving so it wasn't that bad (she hates to fly...so drive it is).

Made it to the Downtown Hilton early in the morning on Saturday and they were nice enough to let us check in at something like 7AM   Hotel was nice, surrounding area was okay...wanted something quick to eat at lunch and went across the street to Checker's and Burger King and both were dirty and out of almost everything...as in the counter person said "we have whoppers, grilled chicken and a few fries"  this was like 1 in the afternoon...ended up driving out to get something.

CHECK IN

Next morning off to the ship...it was a very quick drive (only a few minutes)...parked in the garage and dropped the luggage with the porters...

check-in was very easy and up the escalators to the waiting area.  We had 9 to 930 check in time and were sitting the waiting area by 920- boarding group 1.

there was a slow trickle of people coming in and within a couple of hours the area was PACKED...people were standing everywhere...and had started all gathering around the one small entrance to start the boarding process.  There were only two workers at this area, and they kept giving different information to each persn who asked a question...people started getting angry and yelling and cursing...when they finally started boarding, they tried to  board in order but it got out of hand VERY quickly and basically people started ducking under the ropes and just walking on..which made more people upset..so within about 5 minutes..the people working basically said screw it..and everyone just walked through ...it was seriously CRAZY and I hope NCL has some better protocols set in place in the future

Food

After boarding we went to O'sheehan's  for lunch and a couple of drinks - Food was fresh, service quick and friendly.  We actually ate here several times during the week and each time the service was good, food was hot -

Dining Rooms - Taste and Savor -  Tried Three times to eat at both of these places for dinner and each time was told "WE HAVE NO RESERVATIONS" you can go to the Manhattan room to eat "they have plenty of room there".  the desk people were not rude per se, but certainly were not friendly.  Who knew with FREESTYLE cruising...you needed to make reservations...kinda takes the freestyle part out of it..

Manhattan Dining Room -  Ate here 3 times, food was fairly good, nothing was hot, more like luke warm.. Service was friendly, but slow..almost an hour and half for appetizer and main course...didn't stay for dessert 

OCEAN BLUE -  Highlight of the trip, Service was amazing, food and drinks were Fantastic...these guys were tripping over themselves to take care of us. It really was a Fantastic experience.

Noodle Bar - Service was quick, food was nice and hot and pretty tasty as well.   ate here once

Garden Buffett -  Although it could get crowded here, the food was decent buffet food, workers were friendly, lots of variety as you would expect

Room -  We stayed in a "mini'Suite" on the 9th floor, Right above Syd's Pour House -  not bad except from 9 to 11 and the music was so loud itw as shaking the floor.  Beds were firm, but not horribly so.  Room Steward did a great job,  I enjoyed the 2x a day room make up vs CCL only once per day.

Entertainment - 

SIX - OMG this show was fantastic and is a MUST NOT MISS -  Again, you need to make sure to get reservations or do a "standby" line...there were seats left on our show but it was pretty packed.

Comedy - Only did one comedy show and left pretty early on..some guy named FLIP something.  He started making fun of the ship workers and mocking their names and accents...not something I wanted to listen to and didn't find it funny so we left

Burn the FLoor -   didn't make reservations...couldn't find a seat on standby...so had to miss this one.

Here is one of my biggest gripes about this ship...WHY THE HELL is everything done in the atrium..  like EVERYTHING (except for the big shows).  every game, no matter the size of the crowd is done in the atrium that can not fit nearly enough people.  Carnival does the love and marriage type shows in the theater...Breakaway did everything in the atrium, it was always packed hard to find seats for the bigger things....just seemed like bad use of the space.

Drinks -  We did the upgraded drink package and for us it was worth it for the Starbucks and the water's.   We certainly drank enough alcohol as well, but the "top shelf" stuff isn't that important.  I did get a couple of top shelf drinks..and every time the bartender's would say..it was a waste because you couldn;t tell the difference in the mixed drinks...then they saw the "gold card" (their words - lol) and was like ok..here ya go...

PORTS-

GSC -  FANTASTIC,  brought our own snorkel gear and spent several hours doing that and drinking before heading back to the ship

PR - docked from 4 to 11.  was off the ship and walking around for about 2 hours before heading back.  The Fort had closed at 4pm so couldn't see that... 

USVI -  Didn't get off the ship ....If we don't have any excursing planned we find it fun to have the ship mostly to ourselves and like to make use of that.

That's about all I can think of...Any questions, feel free to ask

Charles 

1 minute ago, A Canadian Cruiser said:

Yes as long as you log out of the first device.  

Fantastic.  Thanks so much

can you change from one device to another...like from the phone to the laptop or ipad?

looking to be able to do whatsapp video call with the inlaws.   only need one person in the cabin to be able to do it.  can I select just one person for the upgrade or does it need to be the other person in the room as well?