The Great, the Good, and the Ugly: Our First Virgin Cruise
Last week, we were fortunate enough to go on our first Virgin Voyages cruise. I have come away from our adventures with a lot of thoughts that I plan on sharing over the next couple of weeks. This article is an overview, the highlights and low lights, of our trip.
Was it totally awesome to be cruising not only without our kids but with no kids at all? Yes. There truly was a sense of chill and nonchalance throughout the ship. Everyone, including the crew, seemed to be their raw and real selves. While we have been on cruises without our kids before, this one was just different and we are very grateful that we had the opportunity to experience it.
But, was the fact that the entire ship was childless our favorite part about the cruise? Not quite. For the experienced cruisers, there has been a lot of chatter lately about the food on cruise ships and how cost cutting measures have brought about a decrease in the quality. On Virgin, the food was so excellent that we continually found ourselves amazed with the variety and quality of what we found. While we can definitely find great food on a Royal Caribbean ship, these offerings, such as the Campfire Cookie in Playmakers, typically come with an added cost. On Virgin, every restaurant, every food item (with the exception of certain uncharged items, like the Tomahawk steak) and every non-alcoholic/non-fancy coffee drink were complimentary. There is no buffet, instead your find a variety of quick order restaurants located in The Galley. My husband loves to snack and found there to be so many different treats for him throughout the day. The pizza was incredible. It was made to order, so it came out hot and the ingredients were fresh. The food was great!
Was the food our favorite thing about the ship and our cruise? Close but there was something else that we appreciated even more. Our favorite part about the cruise is that we were not “nickel and dimed” during our cruise. The cost of our cruise was essentially, what we paid for it. The cruise fare includes gratuities, wifi, dining (food and drink), and workout classes. You could potentially add on a bar tab or an excursion but there are practically no incidentals. We were never handed a receipt or a check. There were no envelopes left for us to tip our room attendant, we didn’t feel guilt or obligation to tip our servers, and bar drinks delivered to us at the pool were given to us without a receipt to sign. We come home paying an additional $200, which paid for the Grog Walk (Pub Crawl) that we did, the bottle of bourbon that we brought home and the ornament that we purchased. That’s it! Incredible!
One thing that we weren’t impressed with was the design and layout of the ship. Sometimes if we wanted to get somewhere we had to go up a floor, walk across and then go back down a floor. The pools are famously small and sparse (which didn’t necessarily equal overcrowding). We have never spent so little time at the pool as we did on this cruise. And, one thing that was not so great for us was that there was no sports bar or even big screen in which to watch Saturday College football. We spent a good chunk of our Saturday in our room watching the games on our iPad. This was our least favorite aspect of our cruise.
All in all, while we have some great cruises planned with Royal Caribbean, some with and some without our kids, we have decided that as we plan cruises for ourselves in the future that we will choose Virgin. We already have one scheduled for March and when we finally get around to taking our European cruise, we will be doing it on Virgin.
We would love to have more of our friends join us. Or, if I can help to get you on your very first Virgin Voyages, please let me know. I can get you that awesome deal that you’ve been looking for.
