What to Expect on your Virgin Voyages Cruise
We went on our first ever Virgin Voyages Cruise this summer (and our first cruise ever together) and we have a lot of thoughts haha. We are both not really “cruise” people, we just prefer to travel a different way. But we had heard amazing things about Virgin Voyages, so when we got invited to experience it for ourselves, we decided to try it out.
We did the French Daze & Ibiza Nights route which left from Barcelona and went to Marseille, Cannes, Mallorca, Ibiza, and then back to Barcelona. We had never been to any of those places before, so we were really excited to visit. Since this was both of our first time on a cruise in a long time, we didn’t really know what to expect. But we will share everything with you all in this blog post so you can be prepared if you are thinking about booking on Virgin Voyages.
things to note
A few things to note about Virgin Voyages and what makes them different than most other cruise lines is
They are Adults Only. We really enjoyed that aspect of the cruise because that meant as a lesbian couple we felt more comfortable being ourselves. We also didn’t have to watch out for children around the ship in general, and all the activities were geared towards adults.
Prices are all inclusive, but alcoholic drink packages are extra. We didn’t mind that because both of us don’t drink much, but if you are looking for a more traditional all inclusive experience, just know you will have to pay extra.
Most things are done within the Virgin Voyages app. For the most part the app works well (we do have some issues with it that we will get to later on lol) but if you are going with family members who aren’t necessarily tech savvy, it might be difficult for them to understand.
On Board
booking process
Once you select the dates and the voyage route you want to take, the next step is choosing your cabin. We got the Sea Terrace Cabin which faces the outside of the ship on both sides. It’s the middle tier option I believe because it has a outside balcony. There are bigger suites that are more expensive, and rooms in the middle with no windows or balcony for cheaper. It really just depends on your budget, but we like that Virgin has options for everyone.
arriving at the port
When you arrive at the port, you will need to go through the check in process to board the ship. You are given a timeslot to arrive at which is supposed to improve congestion, but when we arrived at our time slot we still had to wait a while to get through. You can either drop off your bags and they will bring up up to your cabin, or you can choose to keep them with you. We only had carry ons so we kept our bags with us. Eventually you get to the check in desk where they give you your tap bracelet that is used for almost everything on board like:
Your cabin key
Entering & leaving the ship
Paying for extras
Checking you into activities & excursions
Once you get your bracelet, you are free to board the ship!
initial boarding experience
This was the part that was the most overwhelming for us. Once you are on board you can go to your room, explore, use the facilities, really do whatever you want. We both hadn’t been on a cruise in a while and this experience for us was very chaotic. There were tons of people everywhere, some people were doing the safety briefings, and it was difficult to find our cabin at first because the ship is so big. Also only certain elevators access certain floors/areas, so that was difficult to figure out at first. There is staff willing to help, but they seemed just as overwhelmed as us during this part lol. Eventually we found our room and were able to take a moment to ourselves before exploring.
The sea terrace cabin
We booked a Sea Terrace Cabin and were so happy with our room. It was much bigger than we expected, and the layout and storage was designed perfectly. We give you a whole Sea Terrace room tour in our YouTube video (linked below) so make sure you check that out to see what it looks like on the inside. We really liked having the balcony, because both of us on our last cruise were in rooms with no windows and it felt very isolating. Having the balcony is a game changer and in our opinion, definitely worth the extra money.
Ship Amenities
Our ship was the Valiant Lady, which has 17 decks. There is so much to do on the ship, you will literally never be bored. There’s 2 pools (which are always crowded so get there early if you want a seat!), hot tubs, a gym, pickleball/basketball courts, casino, a game room, an arcade, theaters, I’m probably forgetting stuff but there is so much to do. Every day there are also performances, shows, and activities you can do on board. Some you can just show up and do, and some require reservations which can be done on the app.
Restaurants on Board
There are 20+ restaurants on the Valiant Lady to choose from for every meal. For dinner, we highly recommend making reservations as early as you can, because time slots fill up early. There are restaurants where you don’t need reservations too, but they are more buffet style. This was one of things we were most worried about as vegans because we weren’t sure if there would be enough options for us or if it would even be decent vegan options at that, but there were so many vegan options on the ship! Basically every restaurant had at least one vegan option, and every buffet stand in the galley almost always had a vegan option as well. We were very impressed and grateful that Virgin put so much thought into their vegan options because it made a huge difference for us.
Sailing + Voyages
Some days on the ship are full sailing days at sea, meaning you will not dock somewhere at all, and some days are docked in the port at whatever destination you are in. Here are some things you can expect when you are sailing between destinations on a Virgin Voyages cruise.
Docked at a port
Each time you are docked at a port the experience was different, at least on our French Daze & Ibiza Nights route. Sometimes we could walk from the port to the city center, sometimes we had to take Uber, Taxi, or Public Transportation, sometimes they provided buses, and sometimes we were docked at sea and had to tender on a smaller boat to shore. This whole experience was one of our major negatives about this cruise. We always felt like we didn’t have a enough time to explore because we were always worried about getting back to the ship in time before it left. It usually took at least 30 minutes to more to get back to the ship, so we had to account for that time when we were exploring.
Once at the port, you were free to do whatever you wanted to do, you just had to be back on the ship before it left, and they would very clearly tell you what time you had to be back. If we were docked overnight, then you could come back to the ship whenever you wanted to. If you want to see what we did at every destination on our cruise, check out our blog posts below for each place:
should you book excursions?
We didn’t book any excursions through the Virgin Voyages app because we are seasoned travelers who know how to get around. However, if you are looking for a more luxurious experience, we recommend booking some excursions for your trip. In almost every destination, Virgin offers multiple excursions that you can choose from. Most excursions will pick you up and drop you off at the ship so you don’t need to worry about anything. Excursions are extra money, but they have more affordable ones and more expensive ones. The popular ones fill up quickly, so book them as soon as possible.
The Virgin Voyages App
As we said above, almost everything on board is done on the Virgin Voyages app. Like:
Accessing WiFi
Ordering room service
Asking for assistance
Making restaurant reservations
Reserving excursions
Adding extras like money to your wrist band or an additional package
Checking the events and activities calendar
Getting important notifications
And more …
And although we are tech savvy and really liked the idea of everything being done in the app, we also had a few issues with it. For example, the app did not work when you were off the ship. Which was very annoying if we wanted to check on our calendar for the day, remind ourselves of any reservations, or if they sent out any important notifications, then you wouldn’t get them till you were back on board. Also the free/included WiFi was very spotty and didn’t work very well. There was a WiFi option you could pay for, but we felt like that should be unnecessary. If you need WiFi to access the Virgin Voyages app (which you need to do everything) then the WiFi should work in our opinion. However, when it was working the app was very easy to use and we liked having everything right in our phones.
Our Honest Opinions
We got a lot of questions about our Virgin Voyages cruise, so we actually made an entire YouTube video addressing them and giving a full review of our pros & cons of sailing with them. You should definitely check it out because the video has the most comprehensive information about our experience. You can watch it below:
Thank you to Virgin Voyages for inviting us on this experience! As always, all opinions are honest and our own. Some links on this post are affiliate links of which we receive a small commission, but the price is the same for you.