Virgin Celebration Voyages

[Lustate]

Hey, so whos on them? whats happening and what has made the events even better than a standard voyage?

best wishes!

[kaysha2004]

It's just marketing hype that doesn't warrant the extremely high price tags.  

[TripsYouMustDo]

I was on one last year out of Athens on Resilient and will be on one out of Miami tomorrow on Valliant. 

 

1. Richard will show up for 5 minutes and will wave his hand from the 16th deck balcony. You can't approach him or talk to him AFAIK (I couldn't anyway).

 

2. There will be lots of free booze. Last year they had a happy hour I think 5:30pm-6:30pm daily, with a "drink of the day" cocktail type thing. They weren't stingy with alcohol in those drinks or quantity of the drinks. They make it flow. I was too buzzed for several dinners before I realized how potent those drinks were. My wife didn't enjoy the taste but I thought they were great. If you want to be trashed for free every night of the cruise, you can be.

 

3. There will be some special events. E.g. we had a "how we designed it" behind-the-scenes ship walk with one of the original VV ship designers. It wasn't the same as extra-pay ship tour they do, but it was interesting. We went to several locations (e.g. Red Room theater, the Manor, etc.) and he told us a few things about each location, furtniture, lights, etc. A lot of things were custom-designed for VV only. 

 

4. There will be lots of various talks about VV and about Virgin space exploration program. There will be lots of "astronauts" onboard, i.e. people that went to space on Virgin spaceships. It's mildly interesting.

 

5. Looks like this year they are pushing shore excursions as being done with "astronaut such-and-such", if that's your thing. I don't care. 

 

6. There will be VV CEO onboard (and there was one last year), and other upper management. If you want to talk to them, you can. They will be hanging out at the cocktail/happy hour most nights (every night?)

 

I booked the cruise on points and for me the price was the same as any other 5-day cruise out of Miami, so it was a no-brainer. Would I have spent extra money on it? No. 

 

I'll try doing Live Trip Report from mine starting tomorrow. Not sure if I'll stick with it through the cruise... 🙂 Life happens. Though this time I don't really care about the destinations that much (Cozumel, DR, Bimini - been there, done that, many-many times).

Edited August 30 by TripsYouMustDo

[Lustate]

I have to admit, the UK Celebration was a bit of a mixed bag in the end, but I enjoyed it. People who had booked expecting the same boy, George and Sir Richard's presence as per the other celebrations would have been deeply disappointed. On the ship at 6pm, off it by 2am, on an over night port day. Also, if you are a Deep Blue Extras, but NOT in a suite, you can pretty much expect nothing "extra" as a thank you for being a frequent sailor. First-time sailors in suites, travel agents, and 485C (who may have only been on two voyages in 2021 in an insider cabin) all have more events than people on the 30th+ voyage. The amount of "private function" signs around the ship made even the most loyal feel like an outsider. 

 

The positives through... Nirmal was awesome. For the days he was on board, he brought a smile, a sense of humour, and authenticity to the voyage. Many familiar sailors from other voyages you have been on made it feel like a reunion rather than a holiday. Frank (staff member number six for VV), was amazing at just telling it like it is. None of the usual corp "voice", just a straight up, "We messed that up and would do it differently if we did it again, that's for sure". 

 

Would we do a celebration voyage again? With lower expectations, and a dose of "expect to be the cash cow for the people of status on this single voyage", yep. but it would be down to the people you travel with or the itinerary over the promise that VV offered.