A Comprehensive Review of Virgin Voyages Cruises
For those of you who know me, you probably know that my friend and I used to run a blog called As Told Over Brunch where I’d write weekly food reviews. It’s been a while since trying my hand at doing a written review, but I just went on my first cruise ever, and now I want to write about it!
About the cruise: We did a Virgin Voyages cruise on the Resilient Lady, which left out of Athens, Greece and ended in Barcelona, Spain. Along the way, we visited:
Mykonos, Greece
Sicily, Italy
Palma de Mallorca, Spain
Valencia, Spain
About my pre-cruse cruise knowledge: I had never been on a cruise before this one, and to be quite honest, I didn’t particularly want to go on a cruise. I’ve heard about sewages overflowing, cruise ship murders, seasickness and being a Covid super-spreader. I was worried about getting sick, getting trapped and not enjoying it.
Why I went on this cruise: With the above knowledge for my mindset, you might be asking so why DID you go on a cruise? And that, my friends, is because of love. Riley wanted to go on a cruise, and I decided that I can’t be anti-cruise without ever going on a cruise. So, with the scene set, let’s get into it!
The Pros of Virgin Voyages
Cruises are the tapas of travel
We got to go to six different locations in just over a week. We hit three different countries! I really liked being able to see so many different cultures and places in such a short amount of time. However (spoiler alert) this is also a huge con that we’ll talk about more below.
The Shows and Food
I have told a lot of people this — if Virgin Voyages restaurants were in Richmond, I’d legit seek out eating at them. Their concepts were strong, flavors rich and each experience was memorable. I especially loved the Korean barbeque place, since it was great food and a bit of a show too. Even Razzle Dazzle, which I mocked the name of (sorry, Virgin if you see this), ended up being incredible. They had a hunk of lamb that was truly delicious. I also got to live out a foodie dream of mine and said “We’ll take everything on the menu,” at their Mexican restaurant.
Their shows were also incredible. I get into a bit of trouble trying to explain the shows to people, but I’ll give it a shot. Virgin cruises are 21+, and these shows are not family friendly. There’s Hades in leather spanking a human who’s walking like his pet. There’s lap dancing. It’s a bit sexy, but also themed and there’s plots to all of them. And there’s acrobats! It’s all very entertaining. We wanted to go back and see some of the shows over again.
And then there’s the music — everywhere you go on the boat is a nook that will be filled with live music at some point. The talent was very real on that boat.
Housekeeping
You might be saying, Surely you didn’t put housekeeping in the top three, Sara. But I did, and I mean it because they were incredible and laser focused on customer service. I know because…
The Cons of Virgin Voyages
Our Room
We got a room under the club. As in directly under the DJ booth. I popped in some earplugs and was determined to sleep. But it was no use. The walls were literally shaking. I could feel the music while I tried to sleep. When the music finally went off at 2 a.m., I was so shaken and upset, I couldn’t fall asleep for hours. I was absolutely exhausted in Mykonos after having a full on sob-fest at breakfast. I couldn’t fathom surviving the next six days with the three hours of sleep I managed to cobble together.
I went to Sailor Services and with a little pouty lip, they told me, “Awe that’s a bummer.”
I was upset with that answer, so I reached out again via the app, and they handed me over to housekeeping, who within one day was able to relocate us to a room where I could actually go to sleep before 2 a.m. They were absolutely incredible and so lovely. But that also begs the question, what is the point of Sailor Services if not to help us?
Potential Solve: I think loud rooms should either be given to the literal DJ who is making the late night noises, sold at a discount or at the very least, marked as rooms that would be very loud. I just am so grateful they could move us, because this review would have been awful if I couldn’t sleep for a full week. It absolutely would have ruined the trip.
Sailor Services
I don’t want to beat up on Sailor Services too much, but they did not do the custom service of the room problem, and they didn’t help even on the smaller stuff either. For example, our fitness instructor didn’t show up on time, so I reached out to them via the app and the response I got was along the lines of, “They should be there,” which didn’t help solve the problem.
They kind of felt like human Chat bots, who could dispense information, but not actually solve a problem.
Cruises are the tapas of travel
So this sentiment is also a huge con. Even on days where the port was listed as 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., you’re not getting 12 hours in port. They never once let us out exactly at 8, and then at some ports, you need to tender or shuttle to get anywhere. Then you don’t really want to stay all the way until 8 and risk missing the boat.
So inherently with only a handful of hours, you’re missing a lot of the cities you’re visiting. So it’s fun, but it can never replace actually getting to sleep somewhere and really settle into a few days of exploration.
The Excursion Lengths
I want to be specific here, we did a couple excursions with the boat and it truly is so easy and special, but the lengths drove me crazy. For example, the Valencia day we did a paella and boat tour. It took up about 4.5 hours of the 7 hours we had to explore. However, the port and city center were about 45 minutes apart, so they brought us to a collection of museums for about 20 minutes, and then we had to hurry back to the boat. And I just am wondering why? Why wouldn’t that just be a full day excursion and give us a real amount of time to actually see the museums? There was no reason to get back to the boat early, but you also couldn’t reasonably make it downtown and back with the few hours they left on the table. And if it was a shorter excursion, we could have reasonably gone to the city center and back after we wrapped the excursion.
Possible solution: Make the excursions only a couple hours OR make it the full day. The 3/4 day excursions are the worst of both worlds.
The App
The Virgin Voyages app is really infuriating. You couldn’t access it when you were off the boat, which made planning difficult. Then they put the shore stops in one page and dates and what you booked in another, making it impossible to remember where you were, what the port calls were and when you scheduled dinner.
I went the entire trip without ever finding the boat map, and then heard people in the elevator talking about how there was a second app for that. I didn’t bother trying to download another app (because like what other app??), but let me tell you, the user experience was rocky at best on the one app I did use. I think it’s a known thing though, because even the paid comedian was taking shots at it.
How Virgin Voyages Compares to Royal Caribbean or Carnival
This section is based on what Riley said, since I’ve never been on another cruise line before, but I don’t think I will be going on another cruise line anytime soon. Riley said the Virgin cruise ships are newer so they are less rocky. He said the shows and food were wildly better. He said the rooms were nicer. And the customer service I experienced made me pretty brand loyal already!
Plus, as someone without children, 21+ is a huge plus of Virgin Voyages too.
Overall Cruise Sentiment
I loved it. The shows were fun, it was really easy to plan, the food was incredible and I only felt a little seasick one day when it was especially windy. The drinks were mostly reasonably priced, they had all kinds of activities, and there were plenty of quiet nooks for reading when I wanted to chill out.
This blog post is getting long, so I’ll be back to review our specific cruise (Mykonos Moons to Spanish Sunrises) shortly!
This blog post isn’t sponsored by Virgin Voyages (but if you want to sponsor us, please reach out, I love you). Also, I hear magnets are a thing on cruise ship doors, so go shop our magnet collection!
