After 4 years away from cruising, my wife Linda and I recently joined our friends, Eat Sleep Cruise’s Don and Heidi, on Virgin Voyages’ Valiant Lady for a week-long trek through the Mediterranean. In this post, we share our thoughts about our first time cruising with Virgin Voyages.
Our First Time Cruising Virgin Voyages
On paper, we seem to be precisely the demographic that Virgin is trying to target. We are people of color, and the cruise line is clearly aiming for a broader, more diverse audience than most cruises. We have no children, and all voyages are 18+.
Further, we love to eat great food across the price spectrum, from neighborhood sandwich shops to Michelin-starred tasting menus. And, Virgin’s nascent cruise line already has a reputation for some of the best food at sea.
And although we’re hardly music critics, we’ve attended numerous concerts and festivals across a broad set of genres. So, a cruise curated by a company with its roots in music had us expecting an excellent soundtrack for our Mediterranean adventure.
With all that in mind, we boarded the Valiant Lady in Barcelona, excited to experience Virgin’s unique take on cruising. We left the ship a week later fully bought into the promise of what Virgin is attempting, even if some of the potential still remains unrealized.
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The Ship
Valiant Lady is a beautiful vessel. While the Dock became our favorite spot to hang out and enjoy a beverage, we found all the bars, restaurants, and common spaces to have stylish yet comfortable vibes.
The inclusion of a vinyl shop and tattoo parlor add a bit of hipster flair without going overboard. We felt everything was more understated than expected given what we’d seen in most of Virgin’s “rock-star-cool-in-your-face” marketing materials.
Our mid-ship balcony stateroom was very nice. Broadly speaking, it was similar to balcony staterooms on Norwegian Cruise Line, our typical cruise line of choice. The bed was comfortable and the hammock on the balcony was a nice (and comfortable) differentiating touch.
In general, the look and feel of the ship are more modern and youthful than the NCL ships we’ve sailed. The design is pleasing without screaming “built for Instagram” (besides a couple of very intentional, Instagram-worthy spots).
Our one complaint is the somewhat confusing layout of the ship. Ordinarily, we’re able to get a clear sense of where everything is on NCL’s ships by the end of our first day onboard. On Valiant Lady, we were still getting lost days into the cruise.
On certain decks, one side of the ship doesn’t directly connect to the other. This can require going up or down a flight of stairs, walking the length of the ship, and then using the stairs again just to reach the other side of the floor you were originally on. This isn’t a big deal for us, but we couldn’t help but fret for those with accessibility issues.
Some venues, like the Loose Cannon bar, are tucked away so securely that they seem almost intentionally difficult to find. (Unsurprisingly, the bar was almost always empty.) And while the hall of mirrors in the Manor night club is a cool idea in theory, navigating it can be a challenge.
Alas, while trying to be different from other cruise lines, Virgin has architected a layout that is often less user-friendly than it should be.
Another small but notable point relates to the music throughout the ship. Given their rich history in the music industry, this is an area where Virgin should be more adventurous in our opinion.
The DJs play your typical dance/EDM tracks. The house band plays popular favorites from the 60s through the 90s. And, the ambient music is typically a collection of aughts top 40s tracks. This is exactly like other cruises.
It would have been nice to hear a combination of more recent hits, more international music, or maybe even some indie bands. We would have appreciated a dedicated music-themed space or bar where cruisers could hear something different.
This, alongside the aforementioned vinyl shop, would’ve added to the uniqueness of the Virgin experience and better capitalized on its roots as a record store and music label.
Service and Crew
In terms of service, Virgin does well to emulate its competition. Our sailings with NCL have always left us impressed with the staff and their diligence. Virgin’s crew are thankfully no different.
We found all service staff throughout our journey to be incredibly friendly and helpful. All the servers at the restaurants and bars were attentive and kind. Our room attendant took wonderful care of us. Further, the Shore Things desk handled our concerns (more on that later) professionally and empathetically.
Lastly, Virgin’s app is a great idea that isn’t quite ready for primetime. We commend the attempt to push cruisers to the app over printed daily schedules and obtrusive ship-wide announcements. However, the app is still an unreliable substitute. Notifications often don’t come through, and the ship’s WiFi is still too spotty for the app to function at times.
Virgin advertises a higher, paid tier for WiFi service. Yet, it shouldn’t be necessary for the app to function. Furthermore, it wasn’t even available on this sailing.
As a result, we often missed the simplicity of our NCL daily newsletter. We liked that all the important information for the day was aggregated in a single, consistently available format.
Dining
Even though this was our first time cruising Virgin Voyages, we quickly realized the food on Valiant Lady is a bright spot, as advertised. Our favorite eateries were the Mexican restaurant Pink Agave and the experimental tasting menu-centric Test Kitchen.
Pink Agave offers extremely flavorful dishes ranging from delicious soups to Cochinita Pibil. The Test Kitchen experience – with its lab-like décor and fun drink pairing options – would be enjoyable even if the food wasn’t good. Thankfully, the individual courses are very tasty. They are on par with some of the better tasting menus we’ve eaten at sea or on land.
One of our frequent qualms with taster menus is the sheer quantity of food. It often leaves us feeling overly stuffed by the end of the many courses. The experience almost becomes more about endurance than enjoyment. Fortunately, the Test Kitchen avoids this issue with well-sized portions that left us perfectly sated.
The seafood-focused Wake had great clam chowder and salt-crusted dorade. Similarly, Extra Virgin offered the best Italian we’ve had on a cruise.
More casual fare also hit the mark. The Pizza Place offers delicious pies (particularly appreciated late at night after a few drinks). Likewise, the Dock serves some excellent Mediterranean bites like chicken skewers and hummus.
The Galley, Virgin’s more conventional cafeteria-style dining hall, was serviceable. Though, we didn’t eat here much given the other great options that were available. The spicy tonkatsu ramen and the grab-and-go sushi that we did try were both excellent.
The only slight disappointment was the first (and I believe the only) Korean barbecue at sea, Gunbae. We love Korean food and were very excited to try this place. The fact that Gunbae even exists feels like a small miracle.
We’ve been cruising since 2009 and Asian restaurants have been few and far between on cruise ships. You may find sushi or some Indian food in the buffet. Or, you might have a noodle bar or a showy Teppanyaki experience. Those are all fine but rarely exemplify the delicious range of dishes and flavors from their respective countries.
Virgin deserves a lot of credit for going all-in and featuring a specific Asian country’s cuisine instead of some vaguely confused pan-Asian offering.
Unfortunately though, the experience doesn’t reach its full potential. The food lacks the depth of authentic Korean cuisine, leaning more on simple saltiness or middling spice in place of richer flavors. The meat, though high quality, could benefit from additional seasoning.
Further, the banchan, intended to accompany and supplement the main meal, was positioned as an appetizer and spirited away before the grilling even began.
A handful of changes could transform Gunbae into a more memorable experience. An expanded menu that includes more a la carte options and additional drinks would be nice to see. Soju is a nice touch, but how about some Korean beer for that fried chicken? Or, the current trendy Korean drink of choice, makgeolli?
Other smaller adjustments, like playing Korean music in the restaurant, would also help enhance the experience. K-pop is one of the most popular genres of music in the world. Yet, we were left listening to US top 40 hits from the early 2010s. This seems like low hanging fruit.
That said, we were thoroughly impressed with our excellent server who carefully explained the various food options and orchestrated the entertaining drinking game that kicked off the evening.
Overall, Gunbae is a fun riff on Korean barbecue but not a suitable representation of the real thing.
Drinks
I’d be remiss if I didn’t state the obvious. The very best part of all the dining is that it’s completely free. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for the drinks, which remain a la carte and not particularly cheap.
Virgin’s oddly specific claim of “42% of wines” being under $10 is mathematically accurate. However, this equates to only 5 options across white, red, and rose. The actual number is even lower thanks to how frequently the various beers and wines were out of stock. This literally started with the first glass of wine we ordered on embarkation day.
Something must have happened with the ship’s re-supply in Barcelona because these issues persisted throughout the voyage. On night 2 of the cruise, I ordered a port wine for dessert at the Wake that was out of stock as well. The same was true for every post-dinner drink on that entire menu page.
So, unless you plan to stick with the very limited sub-$10 set of drinks for the entire week, you will be spending $12-14 per alcoholic beverage. This isn’t necessarily worse than other cruise lines’ prices. However, Virgin’s competition at least offers drink packages to mitigate the cost of that extra cocktail. This should be an easy fix if Virgin simply adopts that idea and catches up with its contemporaries.
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Shore Excursions
This is, by far, the area that Virgin needs to improve the most. The issue we had was less with the stops on our itinerary, which spanned some wonderful places in Spain (Barcelona and Ibiza), Italy (Sardinia), and France (Corsica), but rather the apparent instability of the entire excursions program.
For starters, we found all the excursions to be very expensive with even walking tours routinely exceeding $100 per person. As a result, we only booked 3 excursions.
Two weeks prior to sailing, we were notified that our Ibiza excursion to make regional liqueur had been canceled. We were disappointed, as we were looking forward to this tour. Given the cost of the other options, we decided not to substitute anything else in its place.
On the day of sailing (Sunday), we were notified that our Tuesday excursion to see Lucca and Pisa had been canceled as well. So we wouldn’t have just one excursion for the entire trip, we decided to instead join our friends on the Santa Margherita and Portofino excursion.
This was, thankfully, a great experience. The coastal cities are beyond picturesque and the views, particularly from Castello Brown in Portofino, were excellent. Our tour guide was knowledgeable and friendly, and everything perfectly fit the bill for a fun and informative experience.
However, upon returning to the ship, we were informed that our last remaining excursion, originally planned for 1:30 pm the next day (and already rescheduled twice) was now rescheduled again to 9 am. Unfortunately, this didn’t fit with our plans for the day. To the credit of the wonderful folks at the Shore Things desk, we were able to easily cancel the excursion and get a refund.
While there, we learned that Virgin is still testing out local tour operators. As a result, some tours are being removed from the menu of excursions based on cruiser feedback while others are inconsistent and might be removed in the future.
Our hope is that much of this is resolved over time as Virgin builds a reliable stable of local tour operators. However, if you book a trip in the near future on a new itinerary, you should be aware of these potential issues.
We were also surprised that most excursions were only available during the early to mid-morning. This is usually understandable as the typical clientele for cruising (older couples and families) tend to start their day earlier. Though, this is a bit at odds with Virgin’s more youth- and nightlife-friendly vibe.
In the future, it would be nice to see more afternoon and evening excursions for cruisers who like to stay up and enjoy the dance clubs but don’t want to miss out on what the ports of call have to offer. This is especially true in Ibiza, where the ship stayed overnight. Yet, there was still just one evening excursion.
Spa and Gym
Since we did so few excursions, we decided to spring for a half-day package at the spa. This was quite well-priced at $39 per person (a bit more expensive at $59 on sea days). The spa checks all the requisite boxes in terms of inclusions: dry sauna, wet sauna, salt room, plunge pools, and hot tub.
The space is quite a bit smaller than the spa on NCL’s Breakaway Class ships. It also lacks the floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over the water. Nevertheless, it served its purpose as a relaxing retreat that wasn’t very crowded while we were there.
The gym is also very well-equipped with just about every combination of exercise equipment and free weights you could ask for. We went there twice, and it was fairly empty both times. The gym is located on the sides of the ship which means you have a great view of the sea as you break a sweat. It’s a more than serviceable option if you want to keep fit during the cruise.
Entertainment
A huge bright spot for Virgin is the suite of entertainment options. Duel Reality, the Ship Show, and the Scarlet Night pool party were incredible showcases of musical, dance, and acrobatic talent.
Duel Reality, Virgin’s loose reinterpretation of Romeo and Juliet, is a breath of fresh air compared to the staid Broadway offerings on other cruise ships. (No offense to those talented performers, but I can’t bear to sit through yet another rendition of Jersey Boys or some other musical that’s been on Broadway for 4 decades.) The inventive show had breathtaking acrobatics and immensely talented circus-style performances, being more akin to a high-quality Cirque du Soleil show than a standard musical.
Similarly, the Ship Show had an incredible lead singer to go along with a whole host of unique performers, like an acrobatic contortionist archer and a thrilling roller-skating duo.
Meanwhile, the Scarlet Night pool party fully captured the essence of the term “party,” with dancers performing energetic choreography both in and alongside the pool. It was a memorable and exhilarating experience. Even if we opted to observe more than participate once cruisers joined in the festivities.
Finally, both the illusionist/comedian Ben Price and the stand-up comic Emmanuel Sonubi were exceptional. Though Ben Price appeared briefly in the Ship Show, his dedicated program is absolutely worth seeking out for its hilarious audience interactions and truly impressive illusions.
Emmanuel Sonubi’s stand-up routine was also a refreshing departure from typical cruise ship comedy. It focused not on cruise-centric humor or lazy stereotypes, but observational and experiential comedy that really highlight Sonubi’s sharp eye and clever wit.
It was awesome to see Virgin amplify a comedian in the same vein as some of our favorites like John Mulaney, Mike Birbiglia, and Hassan Minhaj, comics who routinely find humor in all the serious and frivolous aspects of life. I’d have happily paid for tickets to Sonubi’s show had it been on land.
Additional, smaller experiences were also lots of fun, like the secret magic show with the Charmer and the unexpected hallway serenade from the Unicorn.
These more intimate, random events are charming to experience, but we can understand the disadvantages of leaving them to chance. A lot of people simply won’t have an opportunity to see them and will miss out on some very talented performances.
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Our First Time Cruising Virgin Voyages – Conclusion
Our first time cruising on Virgin Voyages’ Valiant Lady was a wonderful experience overall. That said, it was often evident to us that Virgin is still figuring out how to forge a unique identity while nailing the core fundamentals at which other cruise lines excel.
The food and entertainment are easily among the best we’ve experienced at sea. Likewise, the service is exceptional.
The shore excursion program, in its current state, is a big disappointment. Further, smaller concerns like expensive drinks, out-of-stock issues, and the unreliable app and WiFi detract from the fun.
Still, these issues seem less like foundational problems than symptoms of a new enterprise still finding its sea legs.
Despite the problems, the core differentiators of Virgin’s sailing experience – 18+, more diverse clientele, and a more youthful and contemporary take on cruising – shine throughout and remain incredibly appealing.
By the end of our first time cruising Virgin Voyages, it was difficult for me to imagine boarding another NCL ship with its more family-friendly focus and traditional cruise entertainment. So much so, in fact, that Linda and I booked another cruise with Virgin for late 2023.
What’s working now is excellent. What isn’t working is (we hope) going to be in better shape by then.
If you opt to sail on Virgin Voyages now, you will still have a great time. Yet, we expect a more stable, confident, and still unique experience when the cruise line fully realizes its potential in the years to come.
Comments
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