Scarlet Lady May 13 - 18, 2022 on board review

[thrifty99]

Hoping the clouds break as I’d like to enjoy the lunar eclipse tonight from the sea. 
 

The clouds break for a moment but then roll back in. 

[thrifty99]

You can see from my profile photo that I enjoy astronomy as a hobby. 
 

Here are some photos I’ve taken with my telescopes. 

[thrifty99]

There was a nice little group of us watching the eclipse on the bow of the ship. The skies cleared up right around the total eclipse time. We even saw a shooting star. Great way to end the day. 
 

I was able to share photos my son was texting me from California where he was using a telescope. I attached one of them. 

Edited May 16, 2022 by thrifty99

[britincanada]

The affogato cart is one of the things I can't wait to try!!!

 

[thrifty99]

A big difference compared to Royal Caribbean is there are very few chair hogs. We came out at 8am to the pool and were the only ones here. Someone did come down around 8:30 and put towels on two of the big loungers next to the pool.  On Royal, over half the chairs have things on them by 8am on a sea day. 
 

An interesting thing they do is stack all the normal deck chairs at night. They are now just setting them up at 9am.  So you really can’t save a normal lounge chair until after 9am. 

[thrifty99]

1 hour ago, britincanada said:

The affogato cart is one of the things I can't wait to try!!!

 

I wanted to grab it and roll it to my cabin but wife said No. 😁😁

[thrifty99]

Just a note on the weather. We have a beautiful sea day today and weather looks perfect for tomorrow at Bimini Beach Club.  Don’t be discouraged if you see a lot of rain predicted for your cruise.  The day we left for the cruise showed almost every day with 70% or more chance of rain. We had one rainy / cloudy day and the rest have turned out great. It’s pretty typical for rainy days to disappear as you get closer to each day in the Caribbean and the captain has some ability to bypass storm cells. 
 

 

[thrifty99]

We are not big drinkers but enjoy the frozen drinks at the pool. The virgin daiquiri’s are cool and refreshing  and only $5. 
 

 

[thrifty99]

Went to The Wake for brunch / lunch today. If you go after 12 (noon) they add 2 steaks to the brunch menu:  Hanger steak and a Filet. 
 

We had the clam chowder, shrimp cocktail, pork belly eggs Benedict, Hanger steak, and Filet. For dessert we had the crepe cake and apple tart. 
 

 

[FFMilesJunkie]

Thank you for your “live from” review. The photos and commentary are great. You are getting us super excited for our first VV in just 11 days!!

[thrifty99]

Dinner last night was at Gunbae which is the Korean restaurant where they cook on a grill at your table. It was a fun experience and we had great table mates. 
 

They have you play a counting drinking game which is a fun ice breaker to get to know everyone. 
 

The food was good but the portions very small. They will cook each course and then pass it around on a plate for everyone to take a portion. With the seafood plate I was the last in line so only had 1 shrimp. There were 6 of us at the table and he cooked 8 shrimp so there was not a large amount to share. It is more of an experience meal than a filling meal. 
 

The appetizers were 5 small bowls of various things like seaweed, Korean potato salad, slaw, etc.  I had to grab a photo off the web as I forgot to take one of my own. They also gave you a big bowl of rice. 

 

The seafood was shrimp, octopus, and shrimp. The meat was pork belly (really like bacon), rib meat, and a steak I believe. You can see the portions he cooked and that was for 6 people to share. 
 

Dessert was an ice cream of 2 different flavors swirled together and a little topping tray with chocolate sauce, marshmallows, and granola. We didn’t find it to have much flavor. 
 

Overall a fun experience but they should increase portions. 

[thrifty99]

For the casino lovers, the casino is smaller than on other ships I’ve sailed. I do enjoy that it is smoke free. I really only play the slots. I played them a couple nights and watched others play them. You never really know how the payouts are set but it seems like the slots here have lower payout odds as I saw few winning and a couple others playing slots made similar comments. 

[thrifty99]

We are at Bimini Beach Club today - Virgin’s private beach spot to spend the day. I’ll post a review with photos later. 
 

We are overall enjoying this cruise and the different experience than our typical Royal Caribbean cruise. We still enjoy Royal and have 4 upcoming cruises with them in the next 9 months (Alaska, Fall Colors - New England & Canada, and 2 in the Caribbean). 
 

We did book 2 more cruises with Virgin while on board this week. One in 2023 and one in 2024. They offer $300 off the cruise price and $300 on board credit so it is a good deal to book your next voyage while on board. 
 

[thrifty99]

A little sneak peak at Bimini Beach Club. We were the first ones to arrive at about 8:30am. Beautiful pool and beach area. I’ll do a full review later. 
 

 

[scaught]

Looks great. We're back on VV in a couple weeks. Going to try and get off the boat for bimini early like you did so we get our choice of seats/shade. FYI the menu at the beach food place changes halfway through the day.

[CruisingWalter]

Thanks so much for taking us along. We have a cheeky corner suite in July. This will be our 16th cruise and 8th different cruise line and we primarily booked this ship for the food. So far your photos are validating that choice. I'm surprised by the small portions at Gunbae, but that just means more room for after dinner ice cream. 🙂  Really appreciate all the information as we plan our cruise. 

[CruisingWalter]

On 5/13/2022 at 2:45 PM, johnnylikely said:

Gosh, my one was 500 ish people. You have to wonder how much they are losing...

In the past it's been noted that a ship breaks even at 30-35% of passenger capacity. That was pre-covid and pre-supply chain issues, inflationary pricing.

 

A friend of mine used to work in financials at Disney Cruise Line and he told me that $100+ dinner I had at Remy on the Disney Fantasy cost the cruise line about $17. Again, that was pre-covid. I would think the original projections for Virgin would have been based on 30-40% occupancy for break-even sailing. 

[Roel94]

I been to that beach club while on Crystal. I hated the loud music. I had to go find my drink and food.

 

I walked down the beach to get away from the music, I love to dance but during the day it was to much,

 

I debated about the Korean place.I thought you ordered what you eat..which would be seafood. So guess I will skip it.

[scaught]

When we were at gunbae in December, we wanted more food so we just asked our food DJ to bring us some more. Agree the portions are kinda small. 

[thrifty99]

We enjoyed about 6-7 hours today at the Bimini Beach Club. It is a nice facility with 2 great pools and a beautiful beach. our weather was pretty good with just a couple of short showers lasting about 15 minutes each.  It is only a 5-6 minute shuttle ride from the pier. It officially opens at 9am but you can go in and grab a lounge chair earlier. The bars don’t open until 9 though. 
 

Virgin keeps the music at a “normal” loudness and more mellow until about 1:00. Then they boost up the volume, bring out the dancers, and throw a bunch of inflatables into the pool for a massive pool party. 
 

TIP - if you don’t like loud and bass heavy music sit at the far end of the pool away from the DJ booth. It is also the end closer to the food area. The music is not quite as loud at this end. 
 

Food:  there is nothing to eat until lunch is served from noon to 3pm. They do offer a limited “snack” menu after 3:00.  I attached photos of the lunch menu and snack menu. I would have preferred the ribs on the lunch menu instead of the “lighter fare” snack menu after 3:00. I wish they offered something in the morning and some type of fun pool / beach type snacks (chips, nachos, churros) the rest of the day. My wife had grabbed a “quick bites” container of fruit from the ship and was glad to have that snack for the morning. 

The lunch was pretty good. I had the snapper, rice & beans, corn on the cob, and rum cake. 
 

The pool and beach water were both a nice temperature for swimming. We enjoyed the white ledge loungers sitting on the pool shelf. 

[thrifty99]

Dinner tonight was at Pink Agave, the Mexican style restaurant. Of course I forgot to take photos of some of the food but I found similar photos from other reviews to fill in those I missed. 
 

Here is what we had:

 

Small Plates: guacamole & chips and grilled corn. 
 

Medium Plates: seared shrimp and chicken enchiladas. 
 

Large Plates: ribeye steak

 

Dessert: chocolate “tacos” (note the ice cream was not normally included).

 

All of the food was delicious.  

[thrifty99]

I forgot to mention we did stop for a snack after returning from the beach and before dinner. The Dock House at the rear of the ship has nice little skewers. We had a couple of shrimp and hanger steak skewers and a chocolate moose with chips and strawberry. 

 

[Roel94]

I can honestly say in August I sat on a beach chair. But I swam in the pool and I could tell the difference from one end of pool to the other.  The best part of the day was the swimming, there were no pool toys or those sun beds. As a swimmer the morning would be best.

 

the food menu totally different than what I saw. So maybe Virgin runs it in the days they are there. I never even went to the hotel. 
 

I say you had more fun there than I did.

 

The food in the Mexican place And Korean look good.I booked the wake,test kitchen and two others. I figure my roadie can adjust it.

have you tried the pizza yet,

[jon81uk]

13 hours ago, Roel94 said:

 

I debated about the Korean place.I thought you ordered what you eat..which would be seafood. So guess I will skip it.

When we were on Scarlet Lady last year we had more than enough food in Gunbae, we did order what we wanted to eat and received a full portion of it. Got one full plate of raw meat/shrimp ready to cook per person and we cooked what we ordered, it wasn’t shared. Also I had two appetisers and shared a bibimbap with my husband, could order more rice with the mains too but chose not too.

 

Not sure if it’s because there was just two of us sharing a table with two strangers so the server just served as 2x groups of two but it does sound like the OP here got the whole menu brought out family style instead of just being allowed to order what they wanted, maybe it is because they were a bigger group.

 

But my experience would be that if you do just want seafood order that and the server will bring you just seafood for you to cook.

[thrifty99]

5 hours ago, Roel94 said:

As a swimmer the morning would be best.

 

have you tried the pizza yet,

Yes, the morning was great for swimming laps as no one was in the pool for the first 1-2 hours. 
 

We had the pizza once - it was very good. Nice thin crust.