Virgin Voyages Master Thread (do NOT post referral codes – use other thread)

[Philondon]

Oliver14 wrote:

Breakfast. Eating in the food court every/most breakfasts and lunchtimes felt like being in a shopping mall

We had breakfast in The Wake most mornings. Delicious poached eggs. But the ship was half full on our cruise so we could just walk in and not book.

[modestpointscollector]

Oliver14 wrote:

Just returned from the Incredible Med cruise on Valiant Lady. Overall my review is very mixed, and personally I wouldn’t rush back to book another VV cruise.
…
Paying cash for our cruises and cabin type would have been $5-6k for two people, which honestly I wouldn’t dream of paying, on reflection. Getting it on Virgin Points made it a worthwhile experience, but for this sort of money, far better holiday/hotel options are available, in more exciting destinations.

I have to agree with you on most of your points. While we enjoyed our 2 weeks on Resilient, the thought of spending upwards of £8k plus flights and spending money on an equivalent 2 weeks in the future is a complete non-starter.

Very similar feelings about the XL – given we got bid upgraded for £250 to one of the bum rooms with a 3/4 non-glass terrace I wouldn’t necessarily spend any more money on the XL. The bigger bathroom was OK but ultimately still didn’t offer that much extra functionality, outside of 2 people wanting to have a bit more privacy while using the shower and toilet at the same time.

You’ve just reminded me about the DIABOLICALLY BAD comms at various points on the cruise, highlights included:

– Had DBE, no useful info about early boarding, had to find out about it on forums
– At the end of our first week with a change of cabin, we were told our cabin steward would be in touch around all the arrangements for moving rooms. Didn’t hear a single thing and just left our bags in the room and hoped for the best
– Process at Sip for registering for the 2nd week wasn’t outlined at all. We spent a few mins looking like plums trying to work out what it was, including being asked to step away from a cordon where people were being let in to register their wristbands, and then trying to go in the exit, because we had no idea what the process was. Eventually we spoke to someone who said someone would be with us in a minute and to find a seat somewhere. Eventually someone holding a clipboard who we’d already walked past about 5 times ticked our names off on a sheet of paper and walked off, which apparently was the correct start to the process.
– At the end of the cruise we didn’t get the information about disembark and bags until we got back to the room after 11pm having headed out quite late (maybe 3 or 4?) and gone straight to dinner, which stated bags should be left outside rooms before 10pm! We just walked off the ship with them which was no real hardship but was just another example of the sort of thing that was going on
– When we got off the ship the process for the transfer bus wasn’t very well handled either. We said we were on the 9am and the lady said to sit down in a section which we did. No one actually called us where we were sat and it was up to us to work out/guess which people had just wandered out to the buses that could have been on the 9am. Once we were on the bus, they had to manually take names after we’d all got on, to work out who was on there and who was missing. Some people weren’t on the list and others on the list were missing, but we just took off. I can only assume the coaches were lightly loaded so it didn’t matter, but it was a lasting memory of how chaotic and disorganised some parts of the cruise were, which could be tightened up really easily with some process in place.

I hate to focus on the negatives, but there’s enough fluff around from various travel pros, bloggers, influencers, etc.. to go on about the positives!

On the upside the staff were almost universally a real treat and super friendly, although it felt like the happenings cast in the first week who offboarded in the 2nd week were a more seasoned bunch than their replacements.

[Bervios]

VV have launched some new itineraries for next year. Some sailings available from Portsmouth to Amsterdam, Zeebrugge and even down to Spain and Morocco.

Lets see if they have any points deals available for next year.

[stevenhp1987]

From what I hear the UK itineraries are selling well.

Indeed, we’re sailing on the first UK sailing (over the bank holiday weekend).

Very reasonably priced for cash.

[modestpointscollector]

Haha having said a cash cruise was a non-starter (well they still are at the headline retail prices) here I am having booked another for the mini-repositioning between Barcelona and Athens. Nice looking itinerary with a good mix of port and sea days and dirt cheap. Looking forward to it!

[Tracy]

Haha, me too. Was slightly underwhelmed with my Greek isles cruise in August but still paid the $300 my next virgin cruise before I left the ship as I heard about the uk sailings. After looking online it was hard to resist the Barcelona-Athens cruise as it seemed so cheap so here I go again back to Santorini and Mykonos 😂

modestpointscollector wrote:

Haha having said a cash cruise was a non-starter (well they still are at the headline retail prices) here I am having booked another for the mini-repositioning between Barcelona and Athens. Nice looking itinerary with a good mix of port and sea days and dirt cheap. Looking forward to it!

[modestpointscollector]

Tracy wrote:

nderwhelmed with my Greek isles cruise in August but still paid the $300 my next virgin cruise before I left the ship as I heard about the uk sailings. After looking online it was hard to resist the Barcelona-Athens cruise

Yeh I stupidly missed the boat on that one as I didn’t think I’d be going on another anytime soon for cash at the normal prices. My mind was thinking it was a waste of $300. You’ve got a right deal there, you’ll be giving away champagne with all that bar credit!

[markdhayes]

I didn’t have one either but I just messaged a TA onboard and he bought one for me and then I booked Singapore to Perth using it!

[Tracy]

Probably, on the last cruise we ended up with 3 bottles of Moët on the last day just to use the bar credit. We are not big drinkers, we prefer a cappuccino 😂

Yeh I stupidly missed the boat on that one as I didn’t think I’d be going on another anytime soon for cash at the normal prices. My mind was thinking it was a waste of $300. You’ve got a right deal there, you’ll be giving away champagne with all that bar credit![/quote]

[Tracy]

So travel agents can apply one they have purchased? Interesting….. I did consider booking through a travel agent as they claim to be able to apply extra bar credit/sailor loot. What did your travel agent give you?

markdhayes wrote:

I didn’t have one either but I just messaged a TA onboard and he bought one for me and then I booked Singapore to Perth using it!

[markdhayes]

No extra loot on this sailing as they weren’t offering it for a repositioning cruise. He did get us nearly $1000 off the direct virgin price and by getting us a MMVV we’ve ended up with $600 loot plus $600 bar tab from the current offer, plus our DBE extras of $100 bar tab.

[Bervios]

modestpointscollector wrote:

Haha having said a cash cruise was a non-starter (well they still are at the headline retail prices) here I am having booked another for the mini-repositioning between Barcelona and Athens. Nice looking itinerary with a good mix of port and sea days and dirt cheap. Looking forward to it!

That will make 3 of us, when they launched the Barcelona > Athens – it was ridiculously cheap, more so with 1200 bar credit.

[mat5664]

Just applied for DPE via Amex/Hilton/MSC.

Does anyone know if I can use the 10% discount to get a cabin for my mother (I am already booked on the same sailing but this would be a new booking).

[mrtibbs1999]

If anyone has any history of casino gambling either in Vegas, or the other US casinos, or with any of the cruise lines, VV are being seriously aggressive with their free cruise offers. I’ve had a cruise in my name and a cruise in my girlfriends name based off pretty mediocre play in Vegas and it’s clear that they are taking players with a really low ADT in Europe just to fill the ships. If you’re a casino player, with even vaguely decent stats, just contact one of the US based junket companies and you may get lucky! I have offers for 4 nights free in Vegas from MGM based on one night of play on my birthday in 2022 (coin in of around £1000, win loss of £140 win) and that seemed to be enough!

[modestpointscollector]

Despite my advertising to friends and colleagues last week that the Barcelona – Athens itinerary was a red hot deal and to move quickly, a number of them tried to book over the weekend and it appears this sailing is now full/no longer available.

I would also like to take this opportunity to mention that I would be happy to help out any fellow HFPers who may struggle to spend their bar tabs and need help on this voyage 🙂

[Travel Strong]

mrtibbs1999 wrote:

If anyone has any history of casino gambling either in Vegas, or the other US casinos, or with any of the cruise lines, VV are being seriously aggressive with their free cruise offers. I’ve had a cruise in my name and a cruise in my girlfriends name based off pretty mediocre play in Vegas and it’s clear that they are taking players with a really low ADT in Europe just to fill the ships. If you’re a casino player, with even vaguely decent stats, just contact one of the US based junket companies and you may get lucky! I have offers for 4 nights free in Vegas from MGM based on one night of play on my birthday in 2022 (coin in of around £1000, win loss of £140 win) and that seemed to be enough!

@mrtibbs1999 can you elaborate on how you went about getting a virgin cruise offer, I’m not sure what these junket companies are! Who did you contact?

I regularly coin in enough to get those sorts of offers at MGM, so sounds like I might qualify if I knew where to look!

[mrtibbs1999]

I first used URComped. They have the dot com, for their brand name. They are much more willing to give a good offer to someone with not much cruise line play. When they ask for your offers submit your genuine offers from MGM, but when they ask for how long you play, how much you spend, and what bankroll you take, those answers will determine your offers, so I’d think about the answers carefully, especially as that data isn’t cross checked…..

If you go on a cruise you get through them and have play at a level that is in line with expectations, you’ll get more offers. If you don’t gamble at all or fail to match their expectations the only consequence will be that you don’t get more offers.

[Dragonlady]

Does anyone know of any cruise companies offering bonuses for booking a VV (further discount ,extra loot etc)? I didn’t buy in to the on board promotion on our last cruise and am now regretting it. I’ve had some quotes from a couple cruise companies but they’re working out more expensive than booking directly with VV……

[markdhayes]

I just had the same dilemma, reached out to a TA onboard who bought me a MNVV then was able to get me a great deal.

[stevenhp1987]

Travel Strong wrote:

mrtibbs1999 wrote:

If anyone has any history of casino gambling either in Vegas, or the other US casinos, or with any of the cruise lines, VV are being seriously aggressive with their free cruise offers. I’ve had a cruise in my name and a cruise in my girlfriends name based off pretty mediocre play in Vegas and it’s clear that they are taking players with a really low ADT in Europe just to fill the ships. If you’re a casino player, with even vaguely decent stats, just contact one of the US based junket companies and you may get lucky! I have offers for 4 nights free in Vegas from MGM based on one night of play on my birthday in 2022 (coin in of around £1000, win loss of £140 win) and that seemed to be enough!

@mrtibbs1999 can you elaborate on how you went about getting a virgin cruise offer, I’m not sure what these junket companies are! Who did you contact?

I regularly coin in enough to get those sorts of offers at MGM, so sounds like I might qualify if I knew where to look!

URComped would be the biggest… but you cannot sail with them on VV if you’re sailed on VV yourself in the last 12 months.

[Dragonlady]

markdhayes wrote:

I just had the same dilemma, reached out to a TA onboard who bought me a MNVV then was able to get me a great deal.

Are you able to share how you reached a TA on board please ?

[markdhayes]

Dragonlady wrote:

markdhayes wrote:

I just had the same dilemma, reached out to a TA onboard who bought me a MNVV then was able to get me a great deal.

Are you able to share how you reached a TA on board please ?

I follow a few of them on Facebook so knew who was onboard, I’ve used the gateway guys and Travel less ordinary.

[Dragonlady]

markdhayes wrote:

Dragonlady wrote:

markdhayes wrote:

I just had the same dilemma, reached out to a TA onboard who bought me a MNVV then was able to get me a great deal.

Are you able to share how you reached a TA on board please ?

I follow a few of them on Facebook so knew who was onboard, I’ve used the gateway guys and Travel less ordinary.

Thanks 🙂

[markdhayes]

Dragonlady wrote:

markdhayes wrote:

Dragonlady wrote:

markdhayes wrote:

I just had the same dilemma, reached out to a TA onboard who bought me a MNVV then was able to get me a great deal.

Are you able to share how you reached a TA on board please ?

I follow a few of them on Facebook so knew who was onboard, I’ve used the gateway guys and Travel less ordinary.

Thanks 🙂

Was there a particular cruise you were looking at? Magical traveler seems to have a few cabins on offer for the BCN-ATH cruise

[Dragonlady]

markdhayes wrote:

Dragonlady wrote:

markdhayes wrote:

Dragonlady wrote:

markdhayes wrote:

I just had the same dilemma, reached out to a TA onboard who bought me a MNVV then was able to get me a great deal.

Are you able to share how you reached a TA on board please ?

I follow a few of them on Facebook so knew who was onboard, I’ve used the gateway guys and Travel less ordinary.

Thanks 🙂

Was there a particular cruise you were looking at? Magical traveler seems to have a few cabins on offer for the BCN-ATH cruise

We’re already booked on the BCN – ATH ( total bargain) 🤣🤣🤣 so was looking at the Portsmouth sailing to take us to Barcelona …I don’t know if I can cope with 3 weeks though……