We Cruised with Virgin Voyages — Here's How It Compares to Other Cruises - Know Before You Go Travel Show

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to the No Before You Go Travel Show show
where we share all the latest travel tips, tricks and
insights to make your next vacation the best one. Yeah.
So sit back, relaxed, grab a cocktail and enjoy the
show with Pennac Travels George Benyat and our senior travel
consultant Janet Begnyac.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
What is up everybody? Hey everyone, welcome back to another
edition of the Note Before Your Travel Show. We got
a show for you today on this beautiful hot summer day,
hump day. Summer's here, it is hump day. We are
in the studio. Feels good to be back. We have
we missed last week. We had family in town. We
had it was busy, a couple of weekends, right are

(00:43):
we look? Yeah even and a half behind?

Speaker 3 (00:44):
Yeah? Is we've just it's been really busy.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
Shame on us, I know.

Speaker 3 (00:49):
I feel like we always have an excuse, but it
really has been.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Yeah, we just had we had family in town, which
usually we do these on the weekends because it's just
a great it's a quiet time for us to kind
of collect our thoughts and our notes and like give
you guys the best podcast we can possibly give you.
So this feels good to be back in the studio though,
But we are here on a hump day. We hope
you are having a great week and whenever, wherever you
are listening to us, we appreciate you tuning in today. Yes,

(01:12):
Stanley Cup Finals are over. Congrats to the Florida Panthers.

Speaker 3 (01:16):
Yeah, I think that's what they took it home.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
The Florida team took it. I think they're back to back.

Speaker 3 (01:19):
I was gonna say I saw it back to act. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
Me and your brother in law were watching a good
bit of the first few games the series.

Speaker 3 (01:25):
Your brother in law, my brother.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
Oh yeah, my brother in law. Yes, correct, yes, correct,
very correct. And that was fun. It was fun. We
had a busy weekend. Glad you're back in the studio.
Glad things are calming down here and we've got a
great show for you guys today. As you guys know,
we went on the Virgin Voyage cruise. Yes, and really,
I mean it was enjoyable. We had a good time
on it. It was a unique experience because it was

(01:50):
our thirteen cruise. We cruise on a lot of the
major cruise lines. Yes, we had kind of a baseline
on what to expect. We did a lot of research
on Virgin, so we kind of knew what we were
going into, but I'll tell you what, it was a
lot more different than.

Speaker 3 (02:01):
I thought it really was.

Speaker 2 (02:02):
Yeah, there was a lot of things that kind of
surprised me. There was things we like, things we didn't love,
and we're going to dive into it all for you
here on this review. Yeah, Virgin Voyages. But before we do,
if you're if you're you know, if you're getting some
value out of the podcast guys, and you're enjoying the content,
it means the world to us to just take some
time to a quick five star review. We love giving
shout outs for those because it just helps it. Honestly,

(02:25):
it helps the podcast out so much. It helps us
reach more people when you, guys, share your feedback and
give your positive vibes and positive thoughts on Apple podcast reviews.
And we have two new reviews since the last one. Yes,
so without further ado, we got to give some shout
outs here.

Speaker 4 (02:40):
Yes, so these are kind of long, so I apologize
in advance, but Rivers Grandma says the best. I've been
a fan of the No Before You Go Travel show
for over two years now it's the most informative and
interesting podcast travel podcast out there. I've started many other
podcasts and they didn't hold my attention or interest. This
podcast definitely answers the questions I have and or may have.
Pin Travel takes care of everything down to the smallest detail.

(03:00):
When you work with them, it's nice to know that
you can truly relax because all the details are taking
care of. My family's booked three beach vacations so far
with Pananica Travel, and we're planning our next one as
we write this review. Tannat George make a great couple
offer listeners an informative and fresh podcast every show. Thank
you so much, Rivers Grandma, I really appreciate that.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
I love that name. Thank you so much for the
five star review, and we appreciate it. And yeah, I mean, honestly,
we do try to do that because like there's so
many podcasts out there, I think like they just talk
monotone and you gotta have a little vocal to Natalie,
you gotta gotta spice it up a little bit, so
it's a little it takes a little you know, yeah,
with pizzazz pizzazz, how do you say that pizza takes
a little pizaz. Keep it interesting.

Speaker 3 (03:37):
Oh there you go, You've got it today.

Speaker 2 (03:39):
I'm fresh off my I'm fresh off my coffee. Here,
I'm feeling great.

Speaker 3 (03:42):
Yes, all right.

Speaker 4 (03:43):
The next one is from Ksey. I'm going to mispronounce
this pros dn tist.

Speaker 2 (03:50):
It must be some sort of doc.

Speaker 3 (03:52):
Yes, I think, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (03:54):
Maybe in prosthetics, you know, like like yeah, if you're
missing an arm or something, right, yes, or so you know.

Speaker 4 (04:00):
I don't know, yeah, but wrote a great review. Love
the podcast, five stars. Thank you guys for the time
and effort you put into this. Janet, I'll be reaching
out to book our anniversary trip to Impression ISLAMI Harry's
picked from listening to your podcast and vlogs.

Speaker 3 (04:13):
That is an amazing.

Speaker 4 (04:14):
Resort, one of our all time favorites, if not George's favorite.

Speaker 2 (04:20):
There's that rooftop, that rooftop lounge area with the infinity
pool and Impressions. Isla is the closest to heaven I've
ever been. Yeah, I mean it is just, oh my god.
I could sit up there and just melt. That last
day at that resort, we just stayed up there the
whole time. Yes, freaking awesome. Yeah, check out that vlog.
Check out the YouTube, because a lot of times we don't.

(04:40):
We won't have a vlog on the Virgin trip. I
tried it. I just couldn't get enough content that I
felt was going to be valuable enough to make a
vlog out of it. So unfortunately we won't have that.
We will have another vlog coming soon though. Yes, do
you want to go ahead and announce what we're doing, No,
we'll announce it at the end.

Speaker 3 (04:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (04:57):
So we're headed out actually two weeks from today on
another trip, and I'm super excited to tell you guys
where were going and this we are going to do
a YouTube blog. We are headed back to the Caribbean
to one of our most favorite islands that hold a
very special place in our heart. There's a few clues
for you, but we'll come back at the end of Oh.

Speaker 2 (05:18):
Yeah, and we are doing a I believe this resort
we're going to only has one. It's not a big
part of big company, right, No it is, Oh it is? Yes,
Oh yeah, I didn't know that.

Speaker 4 (05:28):
Well, there's only one, but then it's managed by a
larger company.

Speaker 2 (05:31):
Oh okay, you learned something new. Every day here in
the podcast studio. Okay, without further ado, THO, we really
appreciate you guys, Thank you so much for those photographies.
Love you guys. We're the best fans in the world.
And let's jump into the episode. So we're gonna talk
Virgin Voyages.

Speaker 3 (05:45):
Now we were on the Scarlet Lady.

Speaker 2 (05:46):
Sorry I'm the Scarlet Lady, and I just want to
say before we get into it, you know, Virgin does
a good job branding themselves as being different. It's a
different cruise line, so we knew we were going in
something different. You can see everything from the color of
the ship to their onboarding experience to how the ship flows,
like how the architecture was just done and the design's done,
it flows a lot different. Yeah, so we knew going

(06:08):
in that it was going to be different. And I
think there are things that I personally liked that they
did differently, and there's things that I didn't love that
they did differently. So overall, like I you know, I
think some of the things that just make a little
too cute on try to be a little too different
that maybe the industry, the rest of the industry kind
of nailed. But I don't even know where to start here.

Speaker 4 (06:27):
Well, we're going to start with like getting on board,
let's do start with it. This is something that we
did not like, so we're going to tell you about it.

Speaker 2 (06:34):
I hate to start out with a negative, and I
do want to say disclaimer before we this is a
point of improvement. And it could have been a port thing.
This could have been a Barcelona port thing.

Speaker 4 (06:44):
I don't know, it could have been a port thing.
So we did round trip out of Barcelona. The stop
it was seven night crews. The stops were Cans France, Corsica, France, Majorca, Spain,
and then an overnight in a Beza, Spain, and then
back to Barcelona. And we had a day at sea,
but pretty much two days at sea because of the

(07:06):
overnight and the Beza. We didn't get there until late.

Speaker 2 (07:08):
So yeah, and I did take a pill and a Beeza.
It was advil. Oh yeah, there's take two advils that day.

Speaker 3 (07:13):
You were so cheesy?

Speaker 2 (07:16):
Was hurt?

Speaker 3 (07:17):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (07:17):
Okay?

Speaker 4 (07:17):
Or we actually have kind of a funny story. That's
something we should put on. She's talking about George visited
the doctor on board.

Speaker 2 (07:23):
The infirmary or whatever it's called.

Speaker 4 (07:24):
Yeah, we're we are gonna because it's kind of funny,
so we're going to tell you that later on.

Speaker 3 (07:28):
Okay, let's jump but this so this could be a
port of Barcelona thing.

Speaker 4 (07:33):
I'm not really sure, but it seemed very, uh, kind
of chaotic at the port. And then you know, when
you do check in, which I would recommend you know,
checking in for the cruise as soon as that opens,
which I believe is forty five days prior, and then
you can select your boarding time. The boarding starts a
little bit later than most other cruise lines. Now, our

(07:56):
ship didn't leave port until I think six pm, and
I had selected a three o'clock boarding time just to
give us. I was like, just plenty of time, you know,
to get from the airport.

Speaker 2 (08:08):
In case of a flight delay or traffic. I mean, yeah,
you never we didn't know like what if we missed
our early time, like you know, knowing these things now,
but uh, but yeah, we had to select our onboarding time,
which we had never done before.

Speaker 4 (08:21):
Usually oh no, you do it on other cruise lines.
Usually it's a window, but usually on other cruise lines
no matter when you show up. At least all of
our other cruises have been this way you can get
on board.

Speaker 2 (08:32):
You just get on board. Yeah, then like there's usually
a number of people there to take your luggage. They
want you on the ship. Yeah, they want you to
start spending money, spending money buying things, buying drinks, so
that it was kind of almost like a rush to
get you on the ship. And that was always an
exciting part because you know that first that first day
is so for me at least, like these first cruise
days are so memorable because it's like, oh man, it's

(08:54):
like it's a fresh new ship. I want to go
explore and you and I always grab like a little beach,
like you know, they came shinny drink and we'll go
explore the ship. And this one's like no, no, no, you
got to wait in line. So we had they had
multiple lines. The first line is you got to go
drop your bag off. So we waited in line just
to drop our bag off. That line took I don't know,
thirty minutes or something, which.

Speaker 4 (09:14):
That's extremely annoying in my opinion, because all other cruise lines,
like there's so many people on every other cruise you've
been on, like down, you know, to take your bags
and like there's no line. You just walk up, they
tag it, you hand it to them. There's not like
a single fout line that you have to wait in.

Speaker 2 (09:29):
Yeah, and like it was it was almost it's almost
like I think they were trying to make convenient, but
in the end it actually was less convenient than other
cruise ship cruise lines. They had a lot of people
down there too, but most of the people were just
organizing lines. Yeah, and you know, like we heard feedback
from other people we also waiting in line. They were
frustrated with the lines. So you drop your you drop
your bag off. Then you think, oh, I get on

(09:50):
the ship. I dropped my back off. No, you go back.
You go back to the back of another line. You
have to go back the lines for each time to
get on the ship. And kind of felt like I
was an elementar school again. Yes, and just like I
was like, this is just chaotic, and you know, I
feel like just some feedback for Virgin on that part
is like, man, get people on the ship.

Speaker 3 (10:07):
Yeah, they do not let you on early.

Speaker 2 (10:09):
And it might be a Barcelona thing. It could like
if you did if you've done a Caribbean one out
of Miami with Virgin it wasn't like that dm us
let us know, but maybe it's a Barcelona thing. Maybe
the port's really thin, like just the walkways or something.
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (10:22):
Well, and there was nowhere to like really hang out
outside of the port either, so you're literally just standing
out there and the sun just waiting for them too,
and you're like, you know, you're three o'clock line and
waiting on that time slot, and like, to.

Speaker 3 (10:37):
Me, that's just not the best way to start out.

Speaker 2 (10:40):
The vibe ye kind of killed that excitement a little bit, and.

Speaker 4 (10:43):
I'm like, can I get on board and want to
get a cocktail go explore the ship?

Speaker 2 (10:47):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (10:47):
And yeah, I just I didn't really I didn't really
like that. So so that was one. It was one
thing starting out that we didn't like.

Speaker 2 (10:55):
Yeah, exactly exactly. So now getting on board, obviously, like
this ship was super clean. I mean it's a brand
new it's a brand new cruise.

Speaker 3 (11:03):
It's a beautiful ship.

Speaker 2 (11:04):
Beautiful ship, clean, the service was great and.

Speaker 3 (11:08):
Well brand new as in like five years old, but five.

Speaker 2 (11:10):
Years old, but that's pretty new and cruise ship standards yeah,
fairly maybe not fairly, but fairly new, and instantly it
was like, okay, we're on the ship. You could tell
like different layout, clean nice. One thing I wish I
had too, they didn't have someone there with like a
welcome drink, right, which most cruise lines they either have
like a thing of champagne or some sort of welcome drinks.
They want you to buy something, right, Yeah, and they

(11:31):
just didn't have that, which maybe maybe I don't know whatever,
that might be a good thing. But I was like, okay,
we'll find a little drink and then we'll go explore.
What I loved is the room was ready, so like,
you get on the ship and our room was ready,
which like for those that haven't cruised first time you
get on a ship, if you're on early, oftentimes you
cannot get to your state room because it's not ready.
But no, it was ready and our luggage got on
there really quickly. So I thought that was a really

(11:52):
big win.

Speaker 3 (11:53):
Yes, it did.

Speaker 2 (11:54):
Yes, And our room was a corner room. Yeah, how
do you want to describe the room?

Speaker 4 (12:01):
Yeah, so I think that this should be a separate
room category. So we were in a sea terrace and
had I like done more research, but we were originally
doing a different itinerary, but then I changed it, moved
it up early, so I just was like really nilly
changing it. Didn't really pay attention to which room we got.

(12:23):
So we were a sea terrace and we were the
very far forward sea terrace.

Speaker 3 (12:32):
And I didn't like the room.

Speaker 2 (12:33):
So, yeah, the room like we actually saw, so as
we were leaving the ship, we actually poked our head
into the neighboring room.

Speaker 3 (12:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (12:40):
So we were the very forward aft aft right, yeah,
very forward.

Speaker 3 (12:45):
And aft is at the back. We were at the very front.

Speaker 2 (12:47):
We're at the bow, that's right. Yeah. And the room
next to us was actually an interior and we thought
it was a balcony room because it has this big,
beautiful balcony that's actually just there's no access to it,
just a window, so it was a window room. I
think if they made that one room just bind our
room with the neighboring room, it would have been sick. Yeah,
it would have been really like spacious. And I think
obviously they're trying to get as many rooms as they

(13:07):
can because then they can charge more. But I thought
it was a great opportunity even put a door in
between the two. If you have the option to rent
the whole thing, you could yeah, I don't know, I
don't know, but really it was a little small, it
was clean.

Speaker 4 (13:19):
We saw though, the other the sea terrace like a
couple doors down, and those were totally normal size, very spacious.
So I would just recommend, you know, making sure that
you're not like at the very far forward and like
the first.

Speaker 2 (13:34):
Few now it'll be the first balcony.

Speaker 4 (13:36):
Yes, now you'll see online if you are, you know,
contemplating booking a virgin cruise, that they have what's called
like a locket in rate, and then they have right
above that is like the just a little it's more expensive,
but it's like essentially the same category. So the locket

(13:57):
in means they are going to assign your room to you,
so you will not know which room you're getting until
you know, very close to sailing.

Speaker 3 (14:06):
Usually a couple of weeks up to a couple of
days before.

Speaker 4 (14:08):
So I did know which one we were getting, but
I would always recommend paying that little bit of extra
so you can choose, especially in this case, to make
sure that you don't end up with the very far
forward room because it was just it was tiny, like
we had to crawl over the bed just to get
to the balcony.

Speaker 2 (14:25):
So yeah, Yeah, and the balcony was huge.

Speaker 3 (14:28):
Balcony was huge.

Speaker 2 (14:29):
I thought the balcony was great that it had a
little swinging chair from it. Yeah, and we had a
we had a b stro height table with two bar
hight chairs and I thought that was really nice. So
we did spend a lot of time on the balcony.
It was almost too much balcony.

Speaker 3 (14:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (14:41):
I almost think they could enclose a little bit of
it to make the room a little bigger. I mean
that's I mean, that's they can't change that. I mean,
the ship's the ship.

Speaker 3 (14:48):
We did actually have adequate storage so too.

Speaker 4 (14:50):
I just want to say, I at first, when we
first got in, I'm like, oh my gosh, where were
we going to put all of our stuff?

Speaker 3 (14:55):
But it actually did Yeah, it had adequate storage.

Speaker 2 (14:58):
Well, it did, like it did service bigger than it
actually was because there was good storage. I did like
the rain shower head. They had a rain shower head
with a body washer as well.

Speaker 4 (15:07):
Yeah, but the bathroom was you know your typical cruise
bathroom where it's tiny, like I don't know, if you are,
you know, a larger person, that it would be.

Speaker 3 (15:18):
Yeah, it would be very tight.

Speaker 2 (15:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (15:20):
So yeah, just but that's on any standard cruise.

Speaker 2 (15:23):
Yeah. But the room was super clean. Our room attendant
was super nice, super sweet. Another another point of improvement
I think would be I hate that they only turn
the room once a day. Yes, so only do one
room a day service usually most cruise cruise lines we've
experienced you two. Yeah, so when you go back to
bed at night, your room's done.

Speaker 4 (15:41):
Yeah, and like you know the interesting Yeah, they have
your bed turned down, your sheets are nice and crisp.
But even though she was on like in the late afternoon,
early evening, they only serve service your room one time.
And that's just different from things other things that we've experienced.
And so I feel like, you know, if you like,
if you come back and you've taken a shower, like

(16:02):
after you've been out all day and you use you know,
your towels, and then you go out for the evening
and say, if you want to take another shower before bed,
we like to, but you haven't. Your room hasn't been
serviced again, then you're kind of low on towels.

Speaker 2 (16:15):
So and you know what, maybe they do do too. No,
they don't turns, but maybe maybe our person just made
an error. We don't know if it's policy or not.
I don't know if it's no.

Speaker 4 (16:24):
No.

Speaker 1 (16:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (16:26):
One of the other couples that we talked to, yea
interesting so.

Speaker 2 (16:30):
And so, and we did we did actually spend time
on a Rockstar Suite. And the Rockstar Suites were awesome,
Like those were huge, they had tubs. I mean, you know,
you have to spend a lot more to get.

Speaker 4 (16:38):
To that level, and you don't have to you go
through a very short quick line to get on board
for the Rockstar Suite. So if you can swing it,
I mean, you're gonna probably pay double then what Like
we paid for a sea terrace, it would have been
double for that.

Speaker 2 (16:51):
But wow, but you get a better experience.

Speaker 4 (16:53):
Yeah, and then all of your alcohols included, and you
have a butler. Who want This couple that we met
that we were talking to, they said they thought that there,
uh that the app had like a GPS tracking on
them and that their butler could see because he would
just pop up out of nowhere.

Speaker 3 (17:08):
I don't know if that's true or not, but yeah.

Speaker 2 (17:10):
May maybe maybe not, but uh, you know, yeah, the
butler's having great feedback on the Rockstar Suites.

Speaker 4 (17:16):
Well, in all of the liquor in the room in
the Rockstar Suite was awesome.

Speaker 2 (17:19):
Yeah, it comes with a drink package. I kind of
wish you could. That's another like point point of improvement.

Speaker 3 (17:25):
Just things that like are different.

Speaker 2 (17:26):
Yeah, they're different. They don't do drink packages unless you
have a Rockstar Suite. You just get unlimited drinks. Yeah,
but if if most cruise ships they have these drink
packages you can upgrade to and then you don't have
to worry about paying for drinks on the ship. This
did not have that option. This had this thing called
Sailor's Loot where you can like pre pay. Yeah yeah, yeah,
but it's not kind of not the same experience. But yeah,

(17:49):
I'm kind of nippicking here.

Speaker 4 (17:51):
Yeah, we're just telling you, as experienced cruisers and avid travelers,
things that we liked and didn't like that are different
from you know, everything else that we've done.

Speaker 2 (17:59):
So so I would say to just summarize before we
move into other areas. The room, summarize the room. Well,
that one room was small. Yeah, the rain shower had
I liked. They don't do wash cloths, Oh yeah, I
like that. No wash cloths different. I wish they did
turn the room twice a day. I think that would
be that would be helpful. Huge balcony. Love the balcony.

(18:19):
The size of the balcony just room was a little small.
I mean, other than that, everything else felt pretty pretty similar.
The one thing too, they don't do bottled water, so
they're very environmentally sensitive.

Speaker 4 (18:29):
Y you say, they are very yeah, environmentally friendly conscious.

Speaker 3 (18:35):
You know, that's like they're one of their biggest missions.

Speaker 2 (18:38):
Yeah. And so what they did is in lieu of
giving you plastic disposable bottle of water, so we drink
the bottle of water, chunk the plastic out or recycle it,
they would give you a large kind of container of
plastic but reusable plastic water and they give you a
glass you can kind of pour it and they do
restock that. But it's just an open thing of water. Yeah,
and so a little different.

Speaker 4 (18:59):
Yeah, and all of our other cruises I usually order
a water package to have, like, you know, a lot
of bottle water through room, so like when we're getting
off the ship and port, we can just grab one
and you can't do that here.

Speaker 3 (19:10):
And yeah, I'm not the biggest fan of that.

Speaker 2 (19:13):
It's just different. Another thing that's different. So, like, you know,
if you're if you're an avid cruiser on another line,
these are things that might stand out to you, not
to say they're good or bad, like just this is
our experience here, right, So but you know, overall, I'd
give the room a I'd give the room a solid B.
The balcony was big, Yeah, you know, it was new,
it was clean. Yeah. The TV channel, I mean not

(19:35):
that you're sitting in your room watching TV. They only
had like two or three channels, which I thought was interesting,
like live They had like the news and then one
sports channel. But that's that's what I don't care about
watching TV.

Speaker 3 (19:43):
Yeah, you're not on the ship to watch You're not
going to.

Speaker 2 (19:45):
Be sitting room and watch TV. So uh, let's where
do we go next year? Yeah, so the layout, the
rest of the ship, what do you wanna do?

Speaker 4 (19:52):
Let's talk about some of the entertainment areas and things
on board. So entertainment was really good. We went to
a couple of shows.

Speaker 2 (20:01):
I love that one when we the Magic Show.

Speaker 3 (20:05):
We went to Yeah, The Magic Show is awesome.

Speaker 2 (20:07):
Awesome venue. I thought that was one of the best
venues I've seen on a cruise ship. Because you walk
it's almost like a hidden door off the off the
casino and you walk through like this very well lit areas,
all these light bulbs everywhere and mirrors, so you can
really tell where you're going, and you kind of just
you think you're going into the small room and then
all of a sudden it's huge. Yeah, and there's a bar,

(20:29):
and there's two levels to the seating area, and the
drink service was going. It was great.

Speaker 4 (20:34):
Yeah, it kind of reminded me of like, you know,
a cool comedy club somewhere.

Speaker 2 (20:40):
Yeah, it's such a good vibe to it. And the
service was great, like you'd sit down at a table,
they'd bring a drinks or food, whatever you want. And yeah,
you walk in, you're like, where are we going? It's
got to be really small, and then it has two
levels to it, yeah, which I thought was really cool.
And it just kept going back there. So it was
kind of on the inside of the ship, so it
didn't have any windows or anything. But it's perfect for
a comedy Oh yeah, I mean the comedy show was good.

(21:02):
It was like a they called it like a millennial.

Speaker 4 (21:04):
It was like a magic slash comedy show. And yeah,
that was good they have. It's kind of like it's
not like a circus Sila show, but it's kind of
like acrobatic show they have. They did bingo multiple times.
Other activities that you could do, like they did different
wine tastings to kila tastings. Those are all additional sushi

(21:26):
making classes.

Speaker 2 (21:28):
Yeah, we didn't do any of that. Yeah, yeah, I
mean the play, I mean, I would say the entertainment
was just just like any other cruse ship. I would
say they didn't like none of it like blew me Away,
none of it was like But but I thought the
venues were really great. Yeah, I thought the venues were good.

Speaker 3 (21:44):
So I love the sports bar area.

Speaker 2 (21:46):
Let's talk about that. I love that freaking sports bar.

Speaker 3 (21:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (21:50):
So they had two shuffle board tables, plus I think
they had a football table in there. And then they
had snacks, which I love, like you could go and
get like cake pops or popcorn, different things like that.
Oh another thing, that's just because this popped into my head,

(22:10):
so I want to mention it. You can get SODA's
there too, and that is a nice perk to this
cruise line is sodas are included.

Speaker 2 (22:19):
Where it is different.

Speaker 4 (22:20):
Yeah, yes, yes, on every other cruise line that's not
included unless you get like a soda package or drink package,
with the exception of I think Disney Cruise Line.

Speaker 2 (22:30):
But that's a great caveat to my comment on the
drink not having drink packages that they do include sodas. Yeah,
and you can just walk up to the I don't
want to call it's not the buffet area because they
don't like you saying it's a buffey area. It's not
a buffa air of a minute. Anyways, they have a
soda area up there. We can just get a digital
like it's like almost like a coke Millennium machine. Pick

(22:51):
whatever you want.

Speaker 3 (22:51):
So yeah, but the sports bar was awesome.

Speaker 4 (22:54):
They did different daily activities in there too, like trivia's
and things like that.

Speaker 3 (23:00):
That was a lot of fun though.

Speaker 4 (23:01):
I loved having the shuffle board and like the arcade
area war games.

Speaker 2 (23:05):
Yeah, and for those that don't know, like this is
an all, this is adults only cruise. There are no
kids at all, so that made a unique experience as well,
and it was kind of cool they had an arcade,
but it's adults only, Like, I don't we had to.

Speaker 3 (23:18):
Pay anything for that.

Speaker 4 (23:19):
Yeah, so that was included too, so that that was nice,
like having different kind of more like interactive things that
you could do that are included and you don't have
to pay for like you know, I know when we
were on the Norwegian Getaway that's been a while ago now,
but like we did the bowling, but that wasn't included.

Speaker 3 (23:38):
You had to pay for it. So it's nice to have.

Speaker 4 (23:40):
You know, different like activities that are included that you
don't have to pay extra for.

Speaker 2 (23:46):
Yeah, it was interesting. So they have things that like
weren't included that you kind of like raise ryebrow, and
then you have things that were included and you're like, oh,
that's a surprise that is included, Like I didn't know that.
So yeah, there's a lot of activities like the sports
bar of the shuffle board thing and the arcade. Lot
to do there. While we're talking about things to do
on the ship and entertainment, I spent a lot of
time at the basketball court. They had a little mini

(24:07):
basketball court. I just have fun. Yeah, ball there was
up at the very top.

Speaker 4 (24:10):
Deck and they turned it into pickleball, which it's not
your standard like pickleball court, but they you know, put
racks out or rackets out and balls for you, and
then they set up the net like twice a day. Yeah,
and so I mean you could at least still play again,
not your standard size pickleball court, but we saw a

(24:31):
lot of people playing. We played it a couple of times. Yeah,
George played basketball.

Speaker 2 (24:35):
We met we met the like world champion pickleballer from
like nineteen seventy nine or something. Yeah, this guy just
came up. He saw one of our Gamecock t shirts,
started talking to.

Speaker 3 (24:45):
Us, and well, at first he started out with an
insult about the game cocks hunt. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (24:49):
Well it was a friendly joke about the game cock.

Speaker 3 (24:52):
Yeah, but I like, we're not starting out on a
good foot here, sir.

Speaker 2 (24:55):
Yeah. I was just trying to eat my breakfast and
he comes up and slanders the game Cocks. I'm like, whoa, bye,
easy stray bullets over here. I'm taking a straight bullet
from my kind. I mean no, anyways, and then he
was really nice. So he went into like, you know, hey,
I live in South Carolina. I'm from I think it
was from Seattle, and yeah, but he's like yeah, he
was like, I'm the world pickleball champion from nineteen seventy

(25:15):
nine or something.

Speaker 4 (25:16):
Yeah, he's been playing pickleball before the world really knew
what pickleball.

Speaker 2 (25:19):
Yeah, yeah, he might be the founder. He might be
the founding father of pickleball for all I know. But
he was out there playing. He was out there playing,
even at his age. I think it's a sport that
you can keep playing as long as you want to, yeah,
which I think is really cool. But yeah, they had
that going on every day, I'll say, from an activity
level and fitness level. So they brand themselves as a
big ship for a big cruise line for health and wellness,

(25:41):
and I think they do do a lot that I
didn't see. The only comment I can say about that
is the gym was a little small, right. The gym
was big in the in the instance of they had
a whole separate cardio area, which I thought was cool.

Speaker 4 (25:53):
Yeah, so that was nice, But the weight area was tiny.

Speaker 2 (25:56):
The weight area is way too small, like for weightlifting
people that love to lift waight. It just got pretty
crowded in there. The cardio room was massive, so I
would like to see a little bit better balanced there.
And I'm being nitpicky. They had a boxing ring with
a bag in it that looked fun. I didn't do it,
but that looked cool. And they also had this other
like hit training room that we went into that kind

(26:17):
of was hard to find.

Speaker 4 (26:18):
Yeah, so that we at least, like, you know, they
had kettlebells and stuff like that in there, so we
could at least, you know, keep some stuff in there.

Speaker 2 (26:24):
And I know they do yoga and stuff like that
stuff we don't do, so I think, like.

Speaker 4 (26:27):
Yeah, they have like off the back a big open
area where they supposedly do like Sunrise yoga, I think,
but I almost would have made that smaller and then
you know, or like turn that into the gym or something.
I don't know, because I just think the weight area
for the gym was for a ship of this size,
which it holds two thy seven hundred and seventy passengers.

Speaker 2 (26:51):
It's just kind of small, kind of small, and I
just like expected, like you Version really brands themselves as
like big in health and fitness, and I'm thinking, Okay,
this gin was going to be massive and be tons
of equipment. Like the weightlifting side is way too small
for the ship, for the size of the ship, but
it was fine. We still lifted weights and got good
workouts in and made it work. Uh, casino, the talk

(27:16):
about that's also.

Speaker 3 (27:17):
Activities entertainment, you entertain yourself.

Speaker 4 (27:19):
So casino was also kind of small in my opinion. Yeah,
for the.

Speaker 2 (27:25):
Size of the cruise shop, for the size of it,
we're doing everything in relativity to the the amount of
people on board.

Speaker 4 (27:31):
Yeah, uh so they I mean they did have you know,
like a lot of like blackjack tables in your standard
crabs table umberlette, A lot of slots, Yeah, a lot
of slots.

Speaker 2 (27:42):
We had a bar on the casino, which is pretty cool.

Speaker 3 (27:44):
Yes, that was nice.

Speaker 4 (27:45):
The poker which we always liked to play poker when we.

Speaker 2 (27:49):
Travel poker, and we said, we sound like we're big gamblers.
We're really we're not. Yeah, hundred bucks a couple something
to do and have fun.

Speaker 4 (27:56):
That's we used to say one hundred, but now we're
like a couple hundred. But yeah, that that totally it.
But I didn't really care for their poker. So, you know,
a lot of other cuisines which we've been on Princess
a lot over the last ten years, and they had
video texas hold them. But it was like, you know,
a table you play, you play against you play against
other people. So even though it's not a dealer, you know,

(28:18):
still it was fun and you're playing against multiple other people,
whereas they only have like where you're playing against the
dealer Ultimate Texas hold Ultimate text hold them different and
they have. You had to pay minimum ten dollars anti
ten dollars blind, and then if you wanted to continue
on it's then yeah, then it's.

Speaker 3 (28:38):
Another ten dollars.

Speaker 4 (28:39):
So it's like thirty dollars minimum bet, which we don't
want to start out minimum bets at that high. So
I didn't really care for that, but you know, that's
just personal preference if you like to play poker.

Speaker 2 (28:51):
You know, it was modern, it was clean.

Speaker 4 (28:52):
Another that thought was they didn't have smoking in there,
which I actually did, like sorry for.

Speaker 2 (28:57):
Those yeah like thatkers, but we smoke there.

Speaker 3 (29:00):
We like that. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (29:01):
Another another point of improvement, I would say, and this
is probably a company wide decision, drinks are not included
when you gamble. Oh my gosh, I'm that and I
thought that was so strange. I'm like, how are drinks
not included while while you're gambling? Most like most all
the other casinos I think we've been in, it is included.

Speaker 4 (29:18):
Yes, every other casino because they want you to sit
there and keep gambling and keep drinking.

Speaker 2 (29:23):
It's way more They'll make way more money off the
gambling more, you know, the players losses and they will drink.
But they just didn't do that. Again, It's just different,
very different things that things that were just a little
different than Oh interesting, I thought that would be included.
That's okay though, I mean we still had a great time.
You know that, the lacino is clean, the service always great,
the dealers were always fun. When we did sit down
and do blackjack, dealers were great. Yeah. But yeah, just

(29:46):
again a little different.

Speaker 3 (29:48):
Yes, So next.

Speaker 4 (29:50):
Up, let's get into the food. This is kind of
one of the things I I'm excited to talk about
just because it was you know, it was just so
I guess different than what I thought and like different
than my expectations, especially with how they branded. But there
was a lot of good about it too, So I'm

(30:11):
I'm kind of excited to talk about it.

Speaker 2 (30:13):
Yeah, let me set the table if you will.

Speaker 3 (30:16):
Oh wow, okay.

Speaker 2 (30:18):
So to kind of go into the uniqueness of the brand,
I think, and how they did the cruise ship, how
they lay it out is that there's not one big
atrium area that everyone kind of gravitates to. They had
multip there's no big dining room, which I love. I
love not I don't miss the big dining room.

Speaker 3 (30:34):
Yeah, I don't miss that at all.

Speaker 2 (30:35):
I love that they didn't have the giant dining room,
which is where everyone will go and all the meals
were included and usually get seated with you know, random people.
Didn't mind not doing that because Jen and I never
did that anyways, when cruise I always try the specialty restaurants. Yeah,
so what they do is they have a bunch of
restaurants all throughout the cruise ship that you can go
to and they're included.

Speaker 3 (30:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (30:55):
I like that as well. I thought that was really cool.
I do miss though, before we get right into the food,
I do miss just having that main atrium area where
like you know, most cruise ships have like this grand
area with big staircases and you can see multiple levels.
They didn't really have that here by design. They didn't
want that. They wanted all these little pockets which going
onto the ship. I'm like, oh, it's pretty cool, like

(31:16):
everything will be spread out and you kind of walked
out the ship. Actually, I kind of missed the big atrium.
I missed like the hub everyone where all the hustle
and bustle is and the shops and the restaurants and bars,
and I did kind of miss that a little bit.
But I'm just kind of setting the table here. So
you would go to the restaurants and again, love all
the options. The food quality was good. I mean you

(31:37):
can't the food quality was fine. The only and I
don't even want to call it a point of improvement
is I just feel like they needed bigger menus more options.
They and that's kind of a theme on the food.
Like even in their quote unquote buffet area, it's not
a buffe area. It's like they're what what do you

(31:58):
even call that the food truck here?

Speaker 3 (31:59):
I don't even Yeah, it's like I think they call
it the galley.

Speaker 2 (32:02):
The dining hall or the galley. Yeah, yeah, so the
galley where they have all these little you can get breakfasts.

Speaker 4 (32:06):
And such, your typical like buffet area on a cruise ship,
except they took and maybe like, yeah, they do serve
you the food, which is nice, but I would have
I would think they probably have a lot of waste
with that but anyways, who knows. Yeah, yeah, but so
they had like individual stations that they live.

Speaker 3 (32:25):
Like that was the food truck.

Speaker 4 (32:27):
Area essentially, so like they had like a Burger restaurant
in there, but it was like just a counter, you know, yeah,
a salad area, different things like that. But let's let's
we'll get into that in a second.

Speaker 2 (32:37):
Yeah, it's a bufetan out of fab But I say
that to say just the menus were really small in
my opinion, Again, these are our opinions, guys, Like some
people you'll you'll go to on different podcasts and love
Virgin I mean, these are just our our opinions based
on the experiences we have. And I personally and I
know me and you both love this. We love trying
like upgrading to a nice bottle of wine or upgrading

(33:00):
the meal to like maybe something above what's included, and
if you want to do that both on the wine front,
the options are very limited and on the food front,
they usually only had like one entree or two entrees
you could upgrade too. Yeah, and I was just kind
of like I missed that kind of enhanced experience that
if I want the option to pay for more, right,

(33:21):
wouldn't you agree?

Speaker 4 (33:22):
Yeah, And I would say my favorite restaurant was the Italian.

Speaker 3 (33:29):
That was real, that was really good.

Speaker 4 (33:30):
Week we did pay and upgraded to the steak that
they had, which was absolutely amazing.

Speaker 2 (33:37):
That a great stack.

Speaker 4 (33:38):
And then but that mean you had a ton of options,
you know, like you could get pasta multiple appetizers and
then they had different things you know for the entrees.
But all of the other restaurants and we'll talk about
the ones in the galley in a second, it's just
the options were kind of limited, and especially if you
are a picky eater like myself. Yes, so I pretty

(34:03):
much you know, just eat like steak, chicken, and you know, vegetables, vegetables, fruit,
you know, nothing crazy with lots of potatoes, salads. I love,
you know, like kind of just basic your base. I'm
your basic eater and that's okay here, Yes, but a

(34:24):
lot of their stuff was just like way more kind
of unique and out there.

Speaker 3 (34:29):
In my opinions, I think.

Speaker 2 (34:30):
If you're a really big foodie.

Speaker 4 (34:33):
And you want to and you want to try new things. Now,
if you're more of a basic eater like myself, you know,
it's nothing truly wowed me. On the ship, if I'm
going to be honest, except for our meal at the
Italian restaurant, and so like they have their steak restaurants
called The Wake and it's steak and seafood. Now, this

(34:54):
couple that we met that night, it was the first
night of the cruise, they got this extra seafood that
they paid extra for that look which if I was
a seafood eater, that looked absolutely amazing. So I think
that they're upgraded options and a lot of the restaurants,
you know, that is super high quality, whereas I think
like they're branding, you know, where they put out there,
like all this specialty dining, Like you think that every

(35:17):
single meal is going to be like that, and in
my opinion, it just wasn't. So Like for this the Wake,
we got steaks on the very first night, you got filets, and.

Speaker 2 (35:26):
While they were good and they were fine, But.

Speaker 4 (35:28):
Like when I compare it to Princess, which we've been
on numerous times.

Speaker 3 (35:33):
And they have a free steakhouse.

Speaker 4 (35:35):
Yes, so they have a steakhouse on board that is
an up charge. I think it's fifty dollars a person.

Speaker 2 (35:39):
Crown grill.

Speaker 4 (35:40):
Yes, it's called the Crown Grill and that steak is
like way like light years.

Speaker 3 (35:48):
Ahead in quality. In my opinion, that's that was.

Speaker 2 (35:50):
A true steakhouse experience. Like this everything was all a
car at the sides and everything, like they just have different.

Speaker 4 (35:56):
Salts they put out like that, you know, so we
like just comparing it to that experience, I just think
that that is a miss on their part, and I
kind of just wish that they had, you know, more
options that you can upgrade to for especially restaurants you know,
like World Caribbean Celebrity, Norwegian Princess, they all have like

(36:20):
multiple well depends on the.

Speaker 3 (36:22):
Age of the ship, but the whole.

Speaker 4 (36:25):
Is especially Yeah, you pay extra for it. Now, I
would rather pay extra for it if I know that
I'm going to get like, you know, a super amazing quality.
So that's just my personal opinion. Now getting to the Galley,
so at first I was like, oh my gosh, this
is so cool. We'll be able to go and get
you know, like different burgers or like the noodle bar,
you know, the taco stand. But they only had like

(36:47):
two options for things for like each of those.

Speaker 2 (36:51):
Yeah, yeah, No. One thing I did like about the
Galley is the sushi, sushi. Yeah, so here let's talk
about some pros because we were kind of i mean
some of the stuff's personal preference on the stuff off
the not really industry standards, so we're kind of throwing
a lot at you guys. Things are really like the
grab and go options were great.

Speaker 3 (37:06):
The grab and go options, like.

Speaker 2 (37:08):
If you wanted ssh a sushi roll, you should go
up there and grab it. If you want a chartudery board,
you can go up there and grab it.

Speaker 3 (37:13):
In salad, salad, chicken wraps.

Speaker 2 (37:15):
You can take it back to your room, take it
wherever you want, take it on the back of the boat.
Like I thought that was really cool. That's the best
practice that I think other cruise ships could take from Virgin. Absolutely,
some best practices that the industry that Virgin could take
from the industry is probably beefing up a little bit
there their galley area.

Speaker 3 (37:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (37:34):
So like, for example, the burger bar it had, you
could get a beef burger or a duck burger, and
that was it not even like a chicken sandwich.

Speaker 2 (37:42):
You're not even a grilled chicken sandwich, which I thought
was really strange. Yeah, And so like on osburger places,
you're like, chicken is always an option. Yeah, didn't really
have that as an option. Okay, you know whatever. The
tacos were usually like pork or like, they don't even
have chicken tacos.

Speaker 4 (37:56):
Not one time, I think, I think I ever saw pork, which, yeah,
it was a lot of food in pork, which I
don't eat.

Speaker 2 (38:01):
But you're playing Jaine though.

Speaker 4 (38:02):
I know, I know it is my problem, but I'm
just saying, if you are a basic eater like myself,
these are things that you're not gonna like. So the
noodle bar, I was super excited. I'm like, oh, you know,
we can get and go and get like noodles with
chicken or steak, and again all of that was just
like pork and fish.

Speaker 2 (38:21):
Yeah, it was very different, just very different. The salad
bar was really cool.

Speaker 3 (38:24):
I love the salad bar.

Speaker 2 (38:25):
They had an whole salad bar. You could get your
own soup, salad. They'll just custom make it almost like
the most style, like almost like fast casual. You go
up there and you can literally just tell them which
want they'll make it right now.

Speaker 4 (38:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (38:35):
Yeah, really fresh, really good. They did have a coffee
bar right outside of there too, so the coffee bar
was good. One of the things I really liked about
the galley, and this is kind of in general. I
think they had this downstairs too, and what they call
the terrace, which was like a huge area off the
back of the boat, which was really beautiful. I mean
it was stunning.

Speaker 4 (38:52):
Yeah, you could go there like usually in the late afternoon.
I think it opened like two or three, and you
get like kind of like a happy hour spot, like
a lot of appetizers and drinks. But you're talking about
flag service flag. This is another thing.

Speaker 2 (39:05):
That the rest of the rest of the industry could
take away from Virgin Here. It's like, so the menu
is like coming on this little stand that's on every table.
It's on like a stand and you can look at
it and it has a flag at the top that
you have the option, as the guests to put your
flag up if you want service, and keep your flag down.
If your flag's up, a service can come right over
and like.

Speaker 3 (39:24):
See what you They know that you haven't been waited on.

Speaker 2 (39:26):
They know you haven't waited on. So I do like
that because then if you need something, you put that
flag up and they're right there. They jumped on it,
like the service was really good. Yeah, I thought that
was really cool, really good best practice that the industry
will probably take from virgin A.

Speaker 3 (39:40):
Right.

Speaker 2 (39:40):
One of the things I really I liked it It
was very different, though I can see how you Plane
Jane would not like it was the test kitchen.

Speaker 4 (39:46):
I only scheduled this for you because I was like,
I am not going to eat anything here, and I
pretty much didn't, and so I went and got pizza after.

Speaker 2 (39:56):
Which we got to talk about pizza restaurant. The pizza
restaurant is amazing. The test kitchen was really cool. So
what they do They actually like do like culinary testing
at like almost like a food science level, like mixing
flavors and coming up with brand new dishes that you've
never eaten before, which would be pretty much a foreign
language to Jan at this point, but I enjoyed it.

(40:16):
The dishes were small. One of the things I really
liked about the test kitchen is a the ambiance was
really cool.

Speaker 4 (40:21):
Yea.

Speaker 2 (40:21):
It was like the servers wore like scientific jackets because
they're all like it's like a test scientific theme. It's
like a laboratory theme. Yeah, I thought that was really cool.
The service was great. They did a wine pairing with
it if you wanted to upgrade to a wine pairing,
which obviously we did. Yeah, I thought that was really cool.
The wine was good in there. I did enjoy all
the different wines that we tasted. The food, as advertised,

(40:44):
was very different, and some of it I liked, some
I didn't like, And it was just a cool experience.
I thought that was really good. They did a really
good job delivering a great experience. I know you didn't
care for the test food because it's.

Speaker 4 (40:55):
Again, I'm a basic eater, so yeah, it's not my thing.
I just did it for George.

Speaker 2 (40:58):
Yeah, and I thought it was a really cool spearence.
I would do it again. I kind of hope that, Like,
I would definitely do it again if they changed the
menu to try new things. I wonder if the menu
stayed the same the whole time, that would be a
really interesting thing.

Speaker 3 (41:10):
No, I thought I heard that it was different.

Speaker 2 (41:12):
Okay, that's cool. See, I would go back and do
it again. Then I didn't know that.

Speaker 4 (41:15):
Yeah, and so you know, overall, to kind of sum
up the dying, so it was just different than other
cruise lines. And I feel like going in, I thought
that there was going to be a lot more options
than there actually was, so that's kind of it. But yeah,
like you said, the pizza though, the pizza.

Speaker 2 (41:31):
Well talk about the pizzataurant. It was. The pizza was
so good.

Speaker 3 (41:34):
It was really good.

Speaker 4 (41:34):
And I love that they had like an outdoor terrace
so you could like order go sit out there. That
was really nice, and you could order like beer, wine,
you know, or just like grabb asda in there.

Speaker 3 (41:44):
That was nice.

Speaker 4 (41:45):
It didn't open though until like two o'clock, which is
kind of weird, but I thought it would.

Speaker 2 (41:48):
Be really cool if they opened that for lunch. Yeah,
that was another thing I thought was strange, like, hey,
that's weird spot, like have that opened from probably like eleven. Yeah,
but it was like also one of their late night spots.
I think it stayed open really yes.

Speaker 4 (41:58):
Which you know, on like a lot of other cruise
lines you have like your standard like grills and pizza
areas that are open like all day, you know.

Speaker 3 (42:07):
So it's just different.

Speaker 2 (42:08):
Just another different thing. So I think like they went
like there's the things that like they wanted to pivot
from from your standard, the standard cruise industry norms, and
I think some of the pivots they made, I think
were really good. I think, like like I said earlier,
there's a lot of things they could learn. The rest
of the cruise industry could maybe learn and follow suit
and what Virgin's doing. And I think there's other things
that maybe Virgin could adapt to a little bit more

(42:30):
that maybe consumers really like and customers and guests what
they're like. So I think it's I put it right
in the middle. I think they again, it's different, and
they tell you it's different. They say they like you
read about. You know, Richard Branson's vision for this cruise line.
He wants it to be different. He wants to shake
up the industry, and he's definitely doing that. So if
you like different and want different in your little open

(42:50):
minded on food and stuff, I think it's a great
cruise line for you.

Speaker 4 (42:53):
Absolutely One thing though, Uh I'm sorry, I know some
of this sounds super negative and not trying to be
that way, but I wasn't the biggest fan of the
juice bar either.

Speaker 2 (43:04):
I thought that was I didn't you know the juice bar.
I was kind of hoping they'd have a protein shake,
so they didn't really offer a protein option. The juice bar,
in my eyes, was pretty expensive for what you got.

Speaker 4 (43:14):
It was supposed to be. So we ordered grapefruit juice.
It was supposed to be like fresh squeeze grapefruit juice.
So it's eight dollars a drink, okay.

Speaker 2 (43:23):
For great for about for about twelve ounces grapefruit juice.

Speaker 3 (43:26):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (43:27):
So like, okay, well, if it's like you know, fresh
scree fresh squeeze right from the grapefruit, I'm sure.

Speaker 3 (43:34):
You know it's going to be delicious. But then she
brought out.

Speaker 2 (43:37):
This bag came.

Speaker 3 (43:39):
Out of a bag, like right in front of us. Yeah,
and so that I'm like.

Speaker 2 (43:42):
I was a little disappointed.

Speaker 3 (43:44):
Yeah, that was just said. We didn't really care for that.

Speaker 2 (43:46):
So yeah, it looked like a giant one of those
pouches the kids drinks.

Speaker 3 (43:51):
Yeah, like a giant Caprice Son, like a giant Caprice
sont pouch.

Speaker 2 (43:54):
And I'm like, maybe it was for I don't know,
I didn't see the label on it, or like.

Speaker 4 (43:57):
A giant bat like the Phronsia bag. Knew the bag
wine that's in the box.

Speaker 2 (44:01):
Yeah, yeah, kind of like that pointed by it. I
was like, but it was fine. I know.

Speaker 4 (44:06):
We were like okay, after taxes, we paid like over
seventeen dollars for two of these.

Speaker 2 (44:11):
It was good grapefruit.

Speaker 3 (44:12):
Juice though, but not worth seventeen dollars.

Speaker 2 (44:15):
No, I thought that was a little that should probably
be included. Yeah, absolutely, yeah again, you know, I this
is just that was just a different Yeah.

Speaker 4 (44:26):
So we we did do a spa treatment, so it's
kind of well the spa, Yeah, so this is different.
So you can book single spa treatments in advance, but
for some reason, their technology does not allow you to
book as a couple a SPA treatment in advance, which

(44:46):
is so bizarre to me. So we had to go
to the spa and book as I wanted to make
sure we got it on the are at C day
or our first at C day, and which we did
so that that was good. But we did an hour
just like Swedish couple's massage and that was awesome.

Speaker 2 (45:04):
It was the couples massage was great. I thought the
whole spa ere it was really.

Speaker 3 (45:08):
Spot was beautiful.

Speaker 4 (45:09):
It was really big, like so maybe that's where their
wellness pre like that space go like they gave it
to the spot.

Speaker 3 (45:17):
Which, Yeah, the spa was awesome. I would highly recommend it.

Speaker 4 (45:20):
I also thought the pricing on all of the services
was pretty reasonable too.

Speaker 2 (45:24):
Yeah. So yeah, the spa was great. Really, I wish
we would have spent more time in the spa, Like
the pool area looked really cool. Service was good there.
You know where were going next year? So oh oh.
A thing I really loved about the room I forgot
is like they wash your clothes.

Speaker 4 (45:40):
That this is another This is another huge perk. So
your standard laundry service like at an all inclusive or
any other cruise line, is pretty expensive.

Speaker 2 (45:50):
Very expensive.

Speaker 4 (45:51):
But they give you a big bag and you can
put as much as you can fit in the bag
and do laundry for fifty five.

Speaker 2 (46:00):
You can and it's a huge back.

Speaker 3 (46:02):
It's a huge bag.

Speaker 2 (46:02):
So we's such a nice perk.

Speaker 3 (46:04):
Yeah, we fit a ton of stuff in there.

Speaker 4 (46:07):
When we were halfway through our trips, we only did
carry ons and that was so I mean we kind
of overpacked since we were able to do that, but
that was awesome. And then we had it back like
in twenty four hours. So that's one thing that other
cruise lines I think could definitely learn from because for
fifty five dollars and you can get all of your

(46:28):
laundry done.

Speaker 2 (46:28):
Oh it was so nice, Like you know, we and
we were so used to paying more for service, like
that's a premium service. They priced it really well and
I thought they nailed it and that was a big win. Yes,
as far as like maybe some of the things I
think that they could change is some of the information
was a little tough to gauge, Like you like on

(46:48):
the times are supposed to be on and off the boat,
that information like, and then they're doing this to be
environmentally friendly, right, so other cruise ships they actually will
put information in your room, whether it's on paper, whether
they do.

Speaker 3 (47:00):
It got Princess it's the Princess pattern.

Speaker 2 (47:02):
Yeah, or whether they do it on the TV or
you have easy access to you know, what times the
boat docking, what time you need back on board. That
information was pretty challenging to find, like it was really
the best source for it was like the elevator TV.
So I thought that was interesting. Wi Fi packages the
most cruise lines now wi Fi like really adequate. Wifis
included their included Wi Fi was I mean, I don't

(47:26):
want to say it's unusable, but just you couldn't really
stream anything so you had to upgrade. The internet was
very expensive. So while but this is like where it's
kind of like being in the yang. The laundry was
like super affordable, really good. Yeah, like great, nailed it.
The Wi Fi packages were crazy expensive.

Speaker 4 (47:42):
We paid it was basically twenty six dollars per person
per day. So for a seven day cruise you're paying
fifty over fifty dollars a day. That's over three hundred
and fifty dollars for decent or Wi Fi. Yeah, I
thought that that was kind of a racket. But you know,
I think one day, one day we will move to

(48:04):
where Wi Fi is just included on cruise lines because
they should want you to share your trip on social media.

Speaker 2 (48:12):
Nor Reegion was right. Norwegian had a high speed Wi
Fi included. I think we've been.

Speaker 4 (48:15):
On well yet they have as part of their Free
at Sea. Well now they call it more at Sea,
but they do have like one Wi Fi package included
per person, and it could.

Speaker 2 (48:26):
Be similar to Virgin because the Virgin was free. It's
just not fast at all, but like Pier very slow.

Speaker 4 (48:33):
And I know I keep going back to Princess, but
also Royal Caribbean like their Wi fi that you upgrade
to is just a lot less expensive, So it's just
another thing that you kind of have to weigh. So
another thing that I did like about this cruise line
is the themes that they had, the theme nights or

(48:53):
they had like pajama parties, they had a scarlet night,
which was cool, and they did not have any formal nights,
which I actually like. I was okay with that, like
I don't want to travel, you know, all the way
over there.

Speaker 2 (49:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (49:05):
Yeah, so I appreciate that and really like that the
theme nights was more like just casual.

Speaker 2 (49:12):
Yeah it was. It was very and I do and
then you don't have to participate in the theme that
the like the formal nights on the other cruise lines.
But I did like that, like it was very that
part was very casual and convenient. You know. It's just
like I think, to sum this up is, you know,
different in a lot of ways. Different good in a
lot of ways. Yeah, and then different probably a lot
of the things that can improve in a lot of ways. Yeah,

(49:34):
So it's just different. I think if you're going for
a different experience, it's a very upbeat cruise too, very lively. Yeah,
I did a lot of bars, a lot of lounges.
Like you know, they the party at the pool that
one night they did this big I wasn't a Pham party,
but it felt like it. They did like a laser
show and yeah, you can party late on this on.

Speaker 4 (49:50):
This Oh yeah, some friends that we ended up making
they were that night. They were up till three o'clock
in the morning.

Speaker 2 (49:56):
It was like, oh my gosh, I pulled them.

Speaker 3 (49:58):
The most amazing. I wish exit that so well.

Speaker 2 (50:00):
Yeah, we were exhausted. We were exhausted, and it wasn't
like you know, we just like kind of we lost
track on a little bit and we just found our
way to the bed and just yeah, we were exhausted.

Speaker 4 (50:13):
But you know sometimes like you're just ready for bed,
you're just tired, and and like it was after eleven
PM and it was a.

Speaker 2 (50:20):
Large group and it's like do we just say goodbye
and everybody? We just and we just kind of floated away.

Speaker 4 (50:24):
Yeah, you know how like sometimes yeah, when you go
to leave a party, that takes so long to like
say goodbye, and we don't have it in us. Yeah,
so we just kind of, you know, like George said,
floated away.

Speaker 2 (50:37):
We were just tired. Yeah, my head hit the pillow.
I just was out that night.

Speaker 3 (50:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (50:42):
So another thing that I just want to mention, and
this just kind of sums up and then you have
to tell the doctor story on board.

Speaker 3 (50:49):
So uh.

Speaker 4 (50:51):
The disembarkation I actually liked. And I don't know if
it was because of the time that we got off
the ship or I'm not really sure, but I enjoyed
the disembarkation because it was super easy. We like a
lot of times when you're trying to get off the ship,
like first thing in the morning, you know, there's a

(51:11):
super long line that you have to wait in, which
we didn't do on this one because we stayed in
Barcelona at the end and so getting off that morning
and not having to be in a rush was very pleasant.
And I appreciated that because I don't I think you
didn't have to be off until like eleven am, which
we got off I think around like nine thirty. But
that I'm like, if you can take kind of this

(51:33):
process and you have it relaxed and put that at
the front and the embarkation, yeah, that would be great.
But the disembarkation was really smooth.

Speaker 2 (51:41):
And I liked that so agreed one hundred percent.

Speaker 3 (51:44):
Yes, now you have to tell which the doctors.

Speaker 2 (51:47):
Yeah, I just I woke up. I think it was
the first day. It was. It was the first day
in Abisa, which Abisa was awesome.

Speaker 3 (51:55):
Abisa was actually way cooler.

Speaker 2 (51:57):
That was such a cool spot.

Speaker 4 (51:59):
Yeah, so I I've loved it. I really want to
go back there.

Speaker 2 (52:02):
Yeah, it was I see where like, honestly, like a
lot of it reminded me of Saint Augustine's. So you know,
Santauxtine has a heavy Spanish influence for obvious reasons. And
it just was like, oh, this is I kind of
see where why Santaxin looks the way it does. Sometimes
it has this architecture from here it looks like a visa.

Speaker 3 (52:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (52:20):
And anyways, I woke up that morning to get off
the boat. And you know when you wake up, you
don't sleep like quite right, and you have like this
creak in your neck I call it creak, your neck stiff,
and you can't move. You lose mobility in your neck,
like you look up and it hurts really bad. So
you kind of have to like rotate your shoulders and
your neck all at once. Well, that happened, and it
rarely happens to me, and I think it's happened to everybody.

(52:42):
But it was like really bad, like incredibly painful, couldn't
really move, couldn't really put my shirt, take my shirt
on and off of that without help. And so I
had to go down to the doctor. And the first
time I read it to go doctor on a cruise ship,
and you know, went down there and you know their doctors, right,
and you know he he's a younger guy, younger guy,

(53:05):
and you know, he was in jeans. It was It's.

Speaker 3 (53:09):
Fine, no, I know, but it's just part of his story.

Speaker 2 (53:11):
It's far of the story. And so like I just said, hey,
I just want like a muscle relaxer and then maybe
a pain medicine. And he was He's like, no, we
got it. We gotta do the shot that I wanted
to give him a shot and I just wasn't feeling
into his neck. I wasn't feeling the shot, and I
just declined the shot and got the pain medicine. And honestly,

(53:32):
his shot wouldn't. It was one of those things where
it's going to take days to recover, and it did.
It took like I'm probably just now I'm looking up
right now, I'm probably just now back. Yeah, but anyways,
but tell the joke. Then he said, no, I don't
want to share that.

Speaker 3 (53:43):
You don't want to share.

Speaker 2 (53:44):
I'm not putting that on the airways.

Speaker 4 (53:45):
Okay, Well he said kind of an inappropriate no, no,
well not it's not inappropriate, but he just made like
reference to it's okay, he just made reference to, you know,
something kind of funny that George doesn't want to talk.

Speaker 3 (54:00):
But it is. But it was just an interesting doctor experience.

Speaker 2 (54:05):
I mean, it's a cruise ship doctor. It is what
it is.

Speaker 3 (54:07):
Yes, yeah, it is what it is.

Speaker 2 (54:08):
That got the medicine needed, made it to a visa
with the wine tours. Awesome.

Speaker 3 (54:12):
Ab people are going to be very disappointed that we're
not telling you.

Speaker 2 (54:15):
I'm not telling that on the air not doing it. Okay.

Speaker 4 (54:18):
Anyways, Well I think that kind of sums everything up.
If you have any more questions, want any more information,
please feel free to slide into our DMS. Go to
pinactravel dot com click request to quote comes directly to me,
or give us a called one eight hundred and six
seven four three two seven eight. So this was our
first Virgin cruise. But we do have someone on the

(54:38):
team who has been on numerous who can probably even
tell you more than we can, So we'd be happy
to help you if you are interested in planning one
of these great cruises. So I think that's time for
a question of the day.

Speaker 2 (54:53):
Or should we tell for a question of the day?

Speaker 3 (54:55):
Or should we tell where we're going.

Speaker 2 (54:58):
We'll do in the next podcast.

Speaker 3 (54:59):
Oh no, Now we said in the beginning that we
were gonna we're gonna the next podcast. Okay, yeah, we'll
do the next one.

Speaker 2 (55:04):
Are you ready for question after the day? Question of
the day? Okay, very simple, but you know, kind of
interesting question because yeah, I remember when emojis became a
thing years ago, Yeah, years and years and years ago.
But like before then, I remember, you know, using an
emoji was viewed as a childish thing. And now you
have forty year old men sending poop emojis to each other,

(55:26):
you know, like, well yeah, you like back when, you
you know, like it's just funny, like everyone uses emojis now,
when at one point it was like a viewed as
a think, like a younger thing to do, like or
like a kid thing to do, to send a smiley face,
but now adults do it. Everyone texts. What is your
most used emoji?

Speaker 4 (55:45):
My most used emoji is the laughing one. You like
the laughing one, Yeah, I would say that's definitely.

Speaker 2 (55:52):
Let me just you know what's funny is when people
send the laughing one, then no one's laughing that hard.
It's just an expression, right, well.

Speaker 3 (55:58):
It's an expression.

Speaker 2 (55:59):
But yeah, so like if you want to get real,
like emoji's way back in the day, remember they were
on MSN, A messenger and aim yeah AOL's a I
am inste Messenger or whatever. They had emojis everywhere, and
then like cell phones came and then like cell phones
came out, they came popular, and then they kind of disappeared,
like you would make the smiley face like a colon

(56:19):
and a parentheses, right, and then now they now they
came roaring back and now like there's an emoji for
every there's too many emojis, there's tons. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (56:27):
So my most us that are in like my top
are the laughing one. Okay, the frustrated one.

Speaker 2 (56:34):
Frustrated frustrated you never send that to me?

Speaker 3 (56:37):
Yeah, I don't know that's your most us.

Speaker 4 (56:40):
It's in my most use and then the one where
the emojis like melting, that.

Speaker 2 (56:45):
One, oh that you like the melting What does that
one mean? You're just kind of like.

Speaker 4 (56:48):
I do that when it's just like like oh no, yeah,
I don't know. And then the hot one, you know,
the one where you're like sweating with this time of year, Charleston,
it's extremely hot.

Speaker 2 (57:02):
And then my other ones IGI is probably mean things
mean different things a different general.

Speaker 4 (57:06):
I wonder if there's like an emoji dictionary. We have
to look that up. Pizza and wine. So also because
those are two of my favorite things I've got.

Speaker 2 (57:13):
The my most recent one, I mean, I think my
most used ones is the thumbs up.

Speaker 3 (57:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (57:18):
It just is kind of like it's a quick way.

Speaker 3 (57:20):
To be liked.

Speaker 2 (57:21):
Though I know I've heard it like it's kind of
like you're ending the conversation.

Speaker 3 (57:25):
And it's kind of just like, oh yeah, I don't care.

Speaker 2 (57:28):
See. That's why I think that younger generation views things
differently than like, you know what I mean, Like, these
emojis mean completely different things to other people. Like if
you're sending it to someone our age, like you know,
late thirties, early forties, they mean, I mean to me,
they mean it. You take it at face value, Like
what you said, there's like a whole new thing. I
think kids the younger generation views these emojis differently. Oh well,

(57:50):
you might think, like if I'm texting someone that's twenty five,
I might send one emoji think and one thing they're
they're reading it something totally different. Yeah, you know what
I mean.

Speaker 3 (57:58):
Absolutely, But no.

Speaker 2 (57:59):
I like I do thumbs up. I got the rocket ship.
Send that to the team a lot. Oh yeah, I
have a glass wine. I do the kiss emoji. I
send that to you sometimes, the island emoji and what
else is in here? The laughing emoji?

Speaker 3 (58:15):
Oh, very nice?

Speaker 2 (58:16):
The lasting emoji. Yes, one of the most funny emojis
is the head that's shouting, the gray one where it's
got its mouth open and the three lines are coming out.
It's like you're shouting something. I think that's really clever.

Speaker 3 (58:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (58:30):
Like anyways, all right, guys, again, that sums up the show.
Thank you so much for listening. If you want more information,
please fel free to reach out. We would love to
help you plan an amazing Virgin Voyages vacation, or any
other cruise line or anywhere else in the world. We
are here and we will catch you next time. Stay tuned.
We're gonna have coming up next a preview episode of

(58:53):
Where We're Going, and we're super excited to tell you
where we're going. We have a lot of travel actually
coming up in the next few months, so.

Speaker 2 (59:00):
The vlogs gonna get loaded up.

Speaker 3 (59:01):
Yes, YouTube pages come back to life.

Speaker 2 (59:03):
So all right, love you guys, have a great week.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}We Cruised with Virgin Voyages — Here's How It Compares to Other Cruises