Virgin Voyages: 4.5/5
- There’s a lot I liked in my Virgin Voyages review, with very few rough spots to improve upon.
- The experience as a guest is near perfection and the crew are a highlight of the line.
- Virgin makes an old concept fresh with adult only cruising. I think it caters to a large and underserved segment of potential travelers.
I’m fairly new to cruising and there’s several reasons for that. One is that the way most cruise lines treat their employees is appalling to me. Floating water parks and roller coasters don’t entice me either – I don’t have kids. Most importantly, I thought I would always enjoy being on land more. Virgin gave me an alternative that I really loved.
As a disclaimer, before we dive in, I want to be completely honest that my wife is a travel agent and sells Virgin Voyages. Onboard we did not receive any benefits because of her career, nor did the staff know what she does for a living. We booked our cruise just like any other customer, because that’s the experience we wanted. These thoughts and reflections are my own and reflect how I feel about the cruise I experienced. Now, here’s my Virgin Voyages review.
The Crew Is Amazing
The most important part of shaping a customer’s experience is their interaction with staff. Among all the positives that I saw in my time onboard, none were as much of a highlight as the wonderful crew on the ship. There’s simply no better way to say it than this, the Virgin Voyages Crew are amazing!
In my opinion, that’s no accident either. I learned from crew members that as Richard Branson and his team were developing the business, they made the decision to pay their employees more than competitors and treat them better. That’s a strategy that always pays dividends and does here as well.
Virgin’s crews receive higher average pay than other lines. According to the many crew members I spoke with, Virgin also has better accommodations for crew. Overall, it seems that their day to day life is better than on many other lines. And because their life is better, it’s a much easier job to for them to make you, the customer, happy. The crew weren’t shy about sharing their experiences with other lines. They often didn’t name the other lines they worked at, but they all heaped praise on Virgin.
We fell in love Rupert and Rey, two of the most fun people I’ve ever met.
A huge benefit for Virgin employees is access to Wi-Fi on the ship. That’s something lots of other lines charge their employees, and customers for (more on that later). Wi-fi means that while they are away from their families for months, they can keep in touch every day.
In case the importance of that doesn’t sink in let me paint a picture. Imagine that you were away from your family and loved ones for 6-12 months at a time. That’s how long most cruise employee contracts last. Without Wi-Fi , that means only talking to your family for a few minutes a week when you’re in port. That port time is often only a couple hours break at most. It’s easy to see how that stress adds up over time. Imagine how much happier the crew is because of this one benefit. I heard lots of crew talk about how much happier they are, just because they can use the Wi-Fi. Once again, being happy makes it easier to make other people happy – which is what you want on a vacation!
Personal Connection
What I saw was that all that attention paid to their employees pays off in their interactions with guests. We had an amazing time with many of the crew, but two of them were something special so I want to recognize them here.
They are Rey and Rupert, and we met them both at The Wake, one of the ship’s restaurants. They happened to be best friends and we had them as our servers for a dinner and breakfast the following morning. We had such a good time laughing with each other and talking about our lives that they asked to take a picture together on the last day. I’ve never had that happen anywhere in the hospitality industry and I wasn’t the only one to bond with the crew.
As we were disembarking, I was with a new friend we made on the ship who went by Sailor Mike. We spent a meal together at Gun Bae and we kept finding each other at ship events. He is a warm and kind person; someone I hope to sail with again. The crew seemed to agree as many of them joyfully hugged him on our way out. I’ve never seen employees bond with guests like that. The fact that they feel like doing so on a cruise ship says a lot about the line itself and the experience of the guests that sail it.
From everything that I saw, Virgin’s investment in their crew made for a remarkable difference in their guest experience. More than anything else, it was the crew that made me want to go back to Virgin again. I would wager that sentiment is true of every hospitality business – it is the employees that make guests want to return more than any amenities available.
No Nickel and Diming
As I’m writing this Virgin Voyages review, I have another cruise I’ll be writing a review for in about 3 months. I can’t help but compare the upcoming experience to the one I just had on Virgin. Obviously, I haven’t even taken the cruise yet, but I already notice one thing that sticks out like a sore thumb – extra charges.
We’re so used to “optional extras” in life that we just accept it. If you want toppings on a burger it costs extra. Buying a concert ticket online comes with a “convenience fee”. Even car makers are getting in on this with BMW having a subscription service for their heated seats! One of my favorite YouTubers calls this “capitalism while being a dick.”
Nothing’s Hidden
Fortunately, Virgin decided to avoid this and make pricing very straightforward. Cabin rates are the cost of the cruise – plain and simple. When I looked at the Virgin cruise itineraries, the price they advertised was the price I paid. The listed price showed me what the real cost of the cruise was by including port fees, taxes, and gratuities.
What other lines do, which bugs me, is they advertise one price and then tack on the port fees and taxes during the booking process. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t have to pay the costs that are unavoidable, but just include them in the advertised price. That shouldn’t be hard to do. The actual cost of the cruise won’t change by not including it in the advertised fare, so just show us what that costs up front. If there’s sticker shock from the final tallied bill, it doesn’t matter how good the price looked on the advertisement. That’s just annoying and, from my viewpoint, a bit of bait and switch.
The part I appreciated most when booking a Virgin cruise was the included gratuities. In places where tips are expected, like many resorts and other cruises, there’s a tension between guests and staff. Staff members at these places know that they are working for tips, and because it’s part of their income you need to pay them that tip. That knowledge creates unease and stress for the crew. By getting rid of that by including gratuities in your fare, it makes the cost of the cruise much more straightforward and makes the guest experience a lot less stressful.
No Complex Drinks Package
Then there’s drink packages. Nearly every major cruise lines sells these. The idea is that these packages pre-pay for beverages on the ship each day. Many of these packages include alcoholic drinks, but not all do, and they cost between $40-$100/person/day. They have limits on the cost of the beverages that they include, for example it may include drinks that cost up to $12. If you want a drink that costs more than that, you must pay the difference. Further, these packages often have a drink limit per day, somewhere between 10-18 drinks. If you think that sounds like a lot to try and process, I think you’re right! I’m so glad that Virgin Voyages doesn’t do that.
The drinks are delicious and I’m glad I don’t need a math degree to figure out value vs. cost. The straightforward pricing makes reviewing Virgin Voyages much easier.
On Virgin water, both still and sparkling, sodas (which most lines charge for), milk, drip coffee and teas are all included in your fare. Lattes, and they were very good lattes, and alcoholic drinks cost extra, and you can see how much it costs when you buy it. You charge these to your cabin, and it will be billed to you at the end of your cruise. Done. I even found that the prices were no worse than many bars or coffee shops on land.
The closest Virgin Voyages comes to a drink package is the bar tab, which is a pool of money used to pay for drinks that cost extra. Virgin will often run promotions which include bar tab bonuses, like being given $100 of bar tab when you book a cabin. You can then spend that money on what drinks you want, when you want them, regardless of price. It’s just a pool of money to use without innane rules restricting it.
Best Benefit
The biggest bonus though – the Wi-Fi is included. Almost every other major cruise line charges for Wi-Fi, but Virgin just includes it. There’s a basic and premium Wi-Fi option, with the premium costing extra. I tried both the basic and premium, and the basic is certainly fast enough to send emails or texts, and browse social media, but the pictures might take a moment to load. The premium Wi-Fi was quicker, fast enough to watch a YouTube video or stream Netflix or other services, but not quite fast enough to play online games. The fact remains that Virgin giving all passengers access to Wi-Fi makes it an industry leader at their price point.
I’m not sure that I can emphasize enough how much of a value this gives over other resorts and cruises. At a resort, you’ll usually be paying a resort fee for the Wi-Fi, and other cruise lines have Wi-Fi plans on their own or bundled with larger packages. Typically I see these plans often cost at least $20-$30/day for the same speeds of Wi-Fi that Virgin just includes.
The Rooms Were A Surprise
Of all the things on the ship, the rooms were among the most unexpectedly nice. They weren’t perfect, as I cover a little further down, but overall, I think they nailed it.
I sailed in an obstructed view sea terrace. That means that a lifeboat hangs outside the cabin, directly in your view. But really, it wasn’t bad at all. Take a look for yourself.
That photo is taken at eye level and at the balcony rail. I am 5′ 10″ or 1.7m.
Some people might want a truly unobstructed sight, but it didn’t matter to me. The lifeboats were kind of neat looking, which I guess is something. Plus, these cabins cost a fair bit less than their unobstructed cousins with the same cabin amenities.
The cabin is controlled by a tablet in the room. Through that tablet you can control lights, temperature, open the blinds, order services, and control the TV. It’s pretty slick, but I wish there was some sort of magnet or other mounting device next to the bed. As it is, the tablet sits on the small desk to charge, and it’d be nice to have a dedicated place next to you when you go to sleep. That small complaint aside, it felt very cool to control the room like that.
I was pleasantly surprised with the bathrooms as well. Showering was actually a highlight of the onboard experience. Okay, I know, kinda weird, but stick with me. The showers have both a wand and a rainfall showerhead above. The water pressure in the rainfall was excellent and let me rinse off quickly, which I can’t say about most showers like that. The included shampoo, conditioner, and body wash were nice. My notoriously fickle hair even liked the conditioner. Worth noting is that the refillable dispensers in the shower get refilled every day. So don’t worry about running out, which is something I’ve encountered at resorts.
Bathroom
The bathroom is small, but it’s size seemed similar to other ships I could find.
There’s been some people complaining that the bathrooms are small, but I disagree. I looked at, and have used, similar cabins on other cruise lines and Virgin’s bathrooms are well in line with their square footage can cabin class. I think they are laid out pretty well, but maybe a bit too much counter space. Because of that counter space, the width of the bathroom can get a little tight by the toilet, but that seems to be a common complaint about cruising.
My personal favorite feature of Virgin’s cabins was the water carafes. The cabin attendants will bring you cold water and ice at any time of day. You even have the choice of still or sparkling water. I know this seems like a small thing, but just having that choice is amazing. Even pouring water from a carafe, rather than filling a cup in the bathroom, makes the whole experience that much nicer. I really loved stepping out of the cabin, whether that was at a port or just to the gym, and coming back sweaty (it’s the Caribbean) and hot, only to find a full ice bucket and crisp cool water to refresh myself with.
No Virgin Voyages review would be complete without mentioning the water carafes.
Cuisine
I had a family member take a Virgin cruise in the middle of last year and she really loved it. Of all the things that she talked about with the cruise, her favorite was talking about how good the food is. She raved about how fun Gunbae is and kept bringing up Pink Agave as the best food she’s ever had on a cruise. She even said that Pink Agave was good enough to hold up in any major city.
That’s building up a lot of expectations, so I was happily surprised when her effusive praise was confirmed.
There were a fair number of dining choices that you have access to. A total of six restaurants, which all offered something very different from any of the others and none of them disappointed. Gunbae is a raucous and fun Korean BBQ that offers excellent drinks and an even better atmosphere. Extra Virgin, the cleverly named Italian restaurant, serves up handmade pasta in classic dishes. No dish struck me as special, but everything was still quite good – certainly better than your average Italian dining. My recommendation would be to go here for a more romantic evening as its atmosphere is well suited for that.
Continuing with Test Kitchen, which is inspired by molecular gastronomy restaurants made popular in the 2010s, offered up a unique experience and a top notch menu. It’s not a place for people that want a quick dinner, as our service was around two hours and change. If you are looking for a foodie experience, this is the place to be though.
Test Kitchen was a lot of fun, but definitely for foodies. I’ve seen that it is the most divisive place in Virgin Voyages reviews.
The Wake is a steak house and it measures up to that pretty well. I personally ordered an entirely vegetarian meal the night we went there, since my dining companions were ordering meat and I tried theirs instead. I really enjoyed my dishes, a corn custard followed by polenta, more than the steak that they ordered, but I’m not much of a steak person. The baked Alaska I ordered for desert was victorious though and I would say it’s a must have should you go on a Virgin cruise.
The Wake doesn’t revolutionize steak house cuisine, but it’s still really well made. We also met our two favorite crew members here.
A very different scene from The Wake is Razzle Dazzle. The decor is designed after razzle dazzle camouflage, something that navies have long experimented with, and it is a visually striking place to eat at. They do breakfasts here, which I really loved, and dinners. Absolutely the best thing to have was the friend chicken. Seriously, make sure your table orders at least one thing of fried chicken.
Pink Agave though, this place was special. The quality of the food here was so good, I had to eat dinner here twice. I ordered the Cochinita Pibil, a marinated pork dish so good that it deserves awards. I’m not exaggerating, I love that dish and I want more of it. Pink Agave further distinguished itself with some delicious tequilas and mezcals. I just don’t have enough nice things to say about this place so make sure that if you book a Virgin cruise, no matter the length, go here.
Every Virgin Voyages Review mentions Pink Agave as a true standout. I found that it held up to the hype. This duck dish was fantastic!
Outside of the restaurants, there are many quick service counters that serve a variety of food in The Galley. It’s sort of a counter service dining area with a bunch of small restaurants to choose from. I believe that it’s mostly intended for breakfast and lunch, but some of these places could do if you don’t want to go to any of the six restaurants for dinner. All in all, there’s nothing to write home about here, but everything is tasty, and nothing was inedible.
This is a typical meal in The Galley. It may not look like much, but these quesadillas were good enough to warrant a picture in my Virgin Voyages review.
There’s also a couple of poolside small bite places to eat on the top deck, a hot-dog diner on deck 7, named The Social Club, and a personal pizza place called, The Pizza Place… Okay the names can’t all be winners, but at least you know what’s there I suppose. The Pizza Place will make you a pepperoni pizza, a cheese pizza, or a mix of daily pizzas. If I’m honest, the pizza isn’t particualrly special, but it’s quick and better made than, I’d say, 70% of take-out pizza joints in the US.
One last thing that’s sort of special is The Dock and its adjoining mini-restaurant, The Dock House. Full disclosure that I never tried the food at either location, they serve the same menu, but I did stop quite a few times to enjoy a drink here. The Dock is a bar that sits at the very aft of the ship, which isn’t something super unique, but what is rather special about it, is that it’s an outdoor bar.
That comes with some ups and downs, like when it’s quite breezy outside and you’ve spent ten plus minutes trying to keep your hair out of your drink. The upsides, though, made for quite a wonderful spot. I recall sailing away from Curacao, with the moon high in the sky, and sipping on a Manhattan, while the smell of the warm sea air wafted about my head. There’s few things more relaxing in life than that.
Virgin’s Commitment To Sustainability Is Essential
I’ll be honest, when talking about the travel business, you have to know there’s a lot of room for improvement when it comes to environmental sustainability. The good news is that Richard Branson is focused on making those improvements across all his businesses. His entry into cruising and the design of their fleet of ships, is very focused on sustainability. Here’s just a few highlights that make me feel better about recommending Virgin Voyages.
Being able to find some sustainability highlights in my review of Virgin Voyages makes me feel better about cruising.
- No bottled water on board—you should bring a reusable travel mug. Both still and sparkling water is widely available throughout the ship and is complementary.
- There are refillable shampoo and soap dispensers in your cabin, eliminating more single use plastics. They’re good products too, so leave your travel shampoo and conditioner at home!
- Even the sunscreen they sell onboard is reef safe. I still recommend purchasing your own reef safe sunblock at home to avoid upcharges though. Here’s my personal favorite.
- Your cabin is programmed to be more sustainable as well. Your room’s environmental controls will sense when you are gone and turn off lights and close the blinds to reduce unnecessary energy usage.
- Food is made to order at every location, which reduces food waste. Wasting food is something that buffets, popular on many cruises, are well known for.
- Virgin has attempted to increase sustainability, right down to The Band. The Band is made from recycled ocean plastic and serves as a room key, access to the onboard purchasing, and other services. Not only does each one take plastic out of the ocean, but Virgin will immediately reuse them. As you disembark on the last day, Virgin asks if you want to give it back to them so that another guest can use it after cleaning. This is a very easy step and makes The Band highly sustainable.
Adults Only
Wrapping up the whole Virgin Voyages package is one of their boldest choices, to make their cruises adults only. It’s also one of the most refreshing things about the cruise for someone like me. Like I said earlier, there’s nothing appealing to me about a floating amusement park. Don’t get my words twisted and think I’m throwing shade, I’m not. There are lots of people who really enjoy that sort of vacation and I know it makes great entertainment for kids. I’m just not one of those people.
The few other adult only cruises out there are either extremely expensive or implicitly… intimate. Fortunately, in my opinion, Virgin Voyages is neither of those things. I think that Virgin looked at the available cruise offerings and found a big gap in the market – people who don’t have kids or people that want a trip without their kids. The folks onboard skewed younger, mostly under 45 it seemed, and when I talked with them, they all said they were sailing because they wanted an experience without children. That’s something many other cruise lines can’t offer since there’s a big difference between vacationing without your kids and vacationing without any kids around.
One of a number of hot tubs on the top deck. It just felt very nice onboard.
And having time away from kids is an important need and one that often isn’t met when you’re a parent. When you’ve got kids at home, life becomes focused on their needs and desires, rightfully so. But your needs as an adult don’t just vanish and you need to have them met. Watching mature television, the kind that kids can’t be in the room for, is often what parents settle for after the kids go to bed. That leaves a lot unmet though, like having a non-work focused conversation with other adults, or just being alone. I think Virgin wants to target the people that are looking for that sort of get away. A vacation where you just want to be unbothered for a little while, whether that means getting a little time away from your kids or keeping your kid free life, well, kid free.
Deciding to pick a lane, like Virgin has with their adults only rule, can be a scary thing for a business. When you do something like that, you’re saying that you don’t want some people as a customer. Yet, when you focus on your target, you become better than you would be if you tried to cater to more people. The upshot for us as customers is that Virgin created an experience that feels like a step up from what your average cruise or resort would offer. It seemed more relaxed, more mature, even more spacious – I never felt crowded on the ship. There’s a sense that extra attention was paid to the exercise facilities, onboard entertainment, and cuisine. Everything just seemed a bit nicer.
Without kids, pools can be more relaxed. No one needs to be told to stop running by the pool.
Admittedly, I haven’t been on many cruises and I’m honest about that, so I want to drive home my emphasis on the word felt because that’s the important part, it felt higher end. That feeling is what matters and I believe that comes from kids not being on the ship. Think about it.
Whenever you see an ad for a tropical getaway, like those famous overwater bungalows in Tahiti, are there kids running around in the picture? No. It’s far more likely that there’s a woman wearing a sarong walking alone down the beach, sandals in hand and a sunset in front of her. I love kids, but they don’t exude that sense of calm and elegance, which is fine because kids aren’t supposed to. The point isn’t whether Virgin Voyages’ ships have facilities and services that are objectively a step up, because that doesn’t much matter when they feel like they are.
Also, they just have really nice ships.
Still a few imperfections
As much as I loved the overall experience, I have to write an honest Virgin Voyages review. Afterall, nothing can be perfect, and neither was the ship I sailed on, which was the Valiant Lady. Indeed, there were a few points that made me scratch my head.
For example, I loved the rooms, especially the focus on making a sea terrace the standard cabin. You also needed to bribe me to leave that unbelievably comfy hammock. But I wasn’t in love with bed.
It wasn’t the worst bed, but it could have easily been better. There’s brilliance behind Virgin’s cabin layout and their modular design. Why, then, did the bed feel like a moderately comfortable futon? With such careful attention paid in making most of what you touch and interact with exceed expectations, to miss on the matress baffles me.
I think I identified the reason for the shortcoming though. Virgin felt it necessary to be able to convert the bed(s) into a couch if you request it. I never wanted that and I’m not sure how much appetite there is for that either. You don’t spend a lot of time in your cabin, so why do you need a couch? I couldn’t find a good answer to that question, and I think it hurt the sleeping experience.
No one’s ever said, “That futon is stunning to sit on! Can’t wait to lay down on it later.” I would ditch the ability to convert the beds into a couch and just let them be beds. A modular room that can be configured in many ways to accommodate various groups makes tons of sense. A couch just doesn’t.
Just make the bed a bed. I wish I could say this part was better in my Virgin Voyages review.
There’s also a couple things on the top deck that don’t really work. The most obvious is one that I think Virgin is already doing away with and it’s a marine trampoline. These nets make sense on a catamaran, skimming over the water, letting you feel the breeze beneath you. The implementation on Virgin’s ships, on deck 16, has the net over the outdoor dining areas of The Galley, one floor below on deck 15.
I didn’t want to find out how awkward it would be to have people sitting below and staring up at your bum while they’re eating. It seems that no one else wanted to find out either because I never saw it used. There’s about a hundred better things I can imagine to use the space for, even if it’s just chairs, so I hope they change this the next time the ship is in for refit.
Another top deck oddity are the private cabanas. There were ten of them on the Valiant Lady and it seemed like a big waste of space. These cabanas are rentable for an eight-hour period and come with a dedicated drink and food service. That sounds nice, but the rental fee when I was sailing was $350. Yes, it came with a $100 bar tab credit, but that just didn’t make it worth it. Paying that kind of money for that sort of space just seemed like a waste when there’s so much space on deck to spread out already.
I’m not sure if it could fit, but more basketball courts would be nice.
Also, with the emphasis on making the Sea Terrace the standard room, reserving your own private space on top deck felt redundant when you have a private balcony included in the majority of rooms. I’m not sure what, if anything, Virgin has planned for these spaces in the future, but they seem like a wasted area. I was on a seven-day cruise and only saw them used once. Seems to me that finding more room for things like a second or third pickleball/basketball court would be a better use. (The basketball court was VERY popular).
The last thing that didn’t seem quite right to me was something that isn’t unique to Virgin and, honestly, isn’t really their fault either. The boarding process was a bit of a mess. There’s a few likely reasons behind that, which I can understand.
- We were sailing out of a relatively new port for Virgin, being (I believe) only the second Virgin Voyages cruise to leave the port. The boarding process is mostly handled by the port authority while Virgin, as well as any cruise line, only has so much control over that.
- The people working at the port were nice, and quick, but the whole process of getting checked in was chaotic. We meandered our way to a cluster of people and then someone eventually told us to go to a tent. There hardly any order in place for us to follow. In the hour and change we waited outside at the port, I didn’t see one passenger look like they knew where to go.
Plenty of people were helping, but there wasn’t much organization that I saw. Still, everyone got onboard, so alls well I guess.
- Virgin also made their own blunder, albeit an understandable one. While we were there, the festival of Saint Sebastian was going on in San Juan, which is the biggest festival in Puerto Rico. Every year, between 250,000 and 500,000 people come to the island to celebrate. Virgin sent a message out to every sailor that they should come early because cabs would be hard to find. This made most of the ship show up hours before they needed to (Virgin has you register for a check in time beforehand).
We asked several cab drivers and hotel concierges about the scarcity of cabs. They all told us there was nothing to worry about, because there are more drivers working that day than any other day of the year. The locals were correct. We had no trouble getting a cab quickly because there were so many of them. I believe that every cab on the island was in San Juan that day, moving people around. This sort of thing is a once-a-year kind of problem, but something that a scheduler should have picked up on beforehand and asked local providers and experts about. The warning sent out to all the passengers just made a ton of people freak out. There were lots of us talking about it as we boarded, and we all felt it was overblown.
Final Thoughts
Aside from those few and, truly, mostly minor things, I loved my time on Virgin Voyages. I’ve already booked another cruise with them. This time I’m going with my best friend because I think he’ll love it too.
I truly believe that Virgin is on to something in cruising that, if not new, is wonderfully reimagined. When I heard about what it was like to sail with Virgin Voyages, I hoped that it would be something different and it is. I’m happily surprised that in writing this Virgin Voyages review, I can make it a glowing one.
