What a nightmare!
Valiant Lady Cruise Review to Europe - Western Europe
Contributor Level:
Purser
Cruises: 4-6 cruises
Review: 1
Helpful Votes: 36
11 Night Coast The Canary Islands Spain & Portugal (Portsmouth Roundtrip)
Sail date: March 21, 2022
Ship: Valiant Lady
Cabin number: 8286Z
Traveled as: Singles/Friends
Reviewed: 2 years ago
Review summary
We knew from the adverts and what we had seen when booking this cruise that it was going to be different. What we didn't realise was that it was going to be the perfect storm of two companies that couldn't organise a Pi** up in a brewery. An 80’s Extravaganza on board Virgin Voyages, Valiant Lady with Imagine Cruising is what we booked, with top acts from the 1980’s to dance the night away to. What Imagine Cruising delivered was a damp squib! The dictionary definition of an Extravaganza is “an elaborate and spectacular entertainment or production” this was neither elaborate nor spectacular. Over 11 nights we had three hours entertainment, well actually we personally didn’t even get that as we were isolated in the “Covid Colony” having contracted it on-board the ship so we missed the third show with Tony Hadley at the end of the cruise.Embarkation
Even before the cruise began I had decided that I would never cruise with Virgin Voyages again due to their general poor organisation and dreadful customer service attitude. Trying to sort out what we needed to do with regard to Covid19 protocol was a total nightmare, with contradicting emails arriving almost daily for the last two weeks. Booking in on the App they insist you use for everything both prior and during the voyage had me climbing the walls completely stressed out. We were travelling down to the port on the day and needed to book an arrival time that gave us time for hold-ups, this was impossible so I had to book a time that was so early it was completely unreasonable given the distance we had to travel. The idea of the booking arrival times was to prevent lots of people arriving and queuing at the same time and keep socially distanced to prevent the spread of Covid19, little good that did.
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
The food in the restaurants you had to book, again over the hit and miss app, was lovely, but the menu’s never changed. The only place you could get a hot meal, rather than a lukewarm one, other than the restaurants was the Pizza place but again the menu was limited to four choices which never changed. The “Drip Coffee” included in the price was either like dishwater or sludge, and decaffeinated wasn’t always available. They ran out of basics like breakfast tea and certain lagers very quickly which were not replenished. The price of drinks varied from bar to bar for the same cocktail, we were charged between $10 and $12 for a Mai Tai. Same with wine we never paid less than $9 for a glass of wine with dinner.
Onboard Activities
If you are a fitness fanatic then you will absolutely love this ship as it is a floating gym and most of the onboard entertainment is aimed at you. If like most people who cruise you have no interest in fitness then, like most of the people I sailed with, you’re going to be bored to tears! Most entertainment is booked through the dreaded app which when it does work you will find it’s booked up, as the Red Room along with The Manor are very small so anything happening there is quickly booked solid. The entertainment that doesn’t need booking is very limited and once you’ve seen it, you’ve seen it as it just repeats. Prior to the cruise a huge deal was made about “Scarlet Night” wear something red and prepare to party all night… What a total non-event, a made-up myth about an Octopus and the seats taken out of the Red Room so we could dance as one of the mute DJ’s played music and we were served over priced cocktails. Similarly a great deal was made of the Grog Walk which was supposed to happen on the night we boarded, it happened well into the cruise and was an extra $35. A few things we would have been interested in taking part in came at an extra cost, not exactly what we were led to believe at all.
Entertainment
An 80’s Extravaganza on board Virgin Voyages, Valiant Lady with Imagine Cruising is what I booked, with top acts from the 1980’s to dance the night away to.
What Imagine Cruising delivered was a damp squib!
The dictionary definition of an Extravaganza is “an elaborate and spectacular entertainment or production” this was neither elaborate nor spectacular. Over 11 nights we had three hours entertainment, well actually I personally didn’t even get that as I was isolated in the “Covid Colony” having contracted it on-board the ship so I missed the third show with Tony Hadley at the end of the cruise.
Imagine Cruising advertised five headliners, Martin Fry, Tony Hadley, Toyah, Carol Decker (TPau) and Clare Grogan (Altered Images), with DJ’s Bruno Brookes and Gary Davis. What they didn’t make clear was that Martin Fry and Tony Hadley were doing four shows each over 2 nights; Martin at the start of the cruise and Tony at the end, and you would be allocated tickets for one show. The three ladies did the same amount of shows, but appeared together and only performed for 20 minutes each, again we were allocated tickets. The DJ’s did two shows each before leaving the ship, and you were reliant on Virgins dodgy app and WIFI to know when they were on. This was the total of our 80’s Extravaganza, 3 hours in 11 nights with the headliners and lucky if you found when or where performances from the Radio DJ’s. There were a couple of deck parties with 80’s music but they were arranged by some of the passengers.
Children's Programs
Adult Only Cruise
Service and Staff
The serving and bar staff were excellent, very cheerful and good at what they doing. By the end of the cruise I felt very sorry for them as they were working under very difficult circumstance with so many disgruntled passengers onboard who were not enjoying their holidays.
The cabin staff again really couldn't fault them at all. The cabins were spotless and well serviced.
Never saw any off the officers or the Captain. The only time we heard from the Captain was to welcome us aboard when we set sail then when there was bad news to tell us. We had a medivac and a "man overboard" incident.
The cruise was booked through Imagine Cruising who had reps on board. Finding a rep though was a minor miracle as they were very adept at playing “Hide & Seek” in their little office tucked away in corner of Deck 16! If you did manage to find an IC rep whatever your problem or query was the answer was, that it was a Virgin problem not an Imagine Cruising one.
I will never book with Imagine Cruising again as to be honest I wouldn’t trust them to organise a “party in brewery!”
Ship Quality
The ship feels “Bitty” as though the designers decided they wanted this, that and the other and just fitted it in where ever they could, it just doesn’t flow. There is nowhere to just sit, relax and chat or read. If you want to chill and read the only comfortable place is back in your cabin. It is noisy with loud music everywhere you go with different areas playing different playlists. Even after asking for the music to be turned down it very quickly went back to the previous shout to your neighbour level. The pool is teeny tiny and only really designed to take selfies by and even though the ship was not full there were nowhere near enough sunbeds, I heard lots of people complaining about towels being put on beds and left there all day. The usual practice on cruise ships is if a bed is not occupied after a specified time the towel is removed and the bed made available. The ship bobs around like a cork and we noticed a definite difference from Deck 8 where had our cabin to Deck 9 where we moved once we tested positive for Covid19. We never encountered rough seas, the Bay of Biscay is always a little “interesting” but the ship rocked around all the time, quite a few passengers suffered from Sea Sickness. If you’ve cruised before and are expecting something glamorous and luxurious you will be very disappointed as Mr. Branson appears to have tried to reinvent the wheel and failed miserably. The whole ship is really rather underwhelming.
Cabin / Stateroom
Arriving at our cabin we were greeted by a double bed, even though we had booked twin, this was quickly sorted out by the cabin staff, who were great. The cabins DO NOT have facilities for making hot drinks, so if you want a tea or coffee you have to make your way up to deck 15 for one or pay for one on deck 7! Storage is very limited with just a rail and six drawers, two of which are taken up with the life vests and safe. The bathroom is directly opposite so if someone is using the drawers they could be hit with the bathroom door. There is a lot of wasted space in the cabin which would have been much better used for extra storage. The balcony furniture is functional rather than comfortable so you wouldn’t want to spend much time sitting on it, the hammock is nice though, but we didn’t really get the weather to take advantage of it. Everything can be controlled by the tablet, lighting, TV and curtains, but there are old fashioned switches for the lights and curtains. The beds are very comfortable, though the set-up of twin beds is bizarre to say the least!
Ship tip
Don't bother!
Thumbs up
0
Ports of call
. Maderia was pulled less than a month before sailing without any real explanation from either Imagine Cruising or Virgin Voyages, we later found out that Virgin hadn’t even booked a berth there! This port had been off the itinerary for five month yet Imagine Cruising continued to sell the cruise with it included up to 25th February which was less than a month before we sailed.
Santa Cruz De Tenerife, Canary Islands
Did a Whale watching excursion which was not really the best. The Catamaran was lovely and the crew were very attentive. The meal we were served though, awful white bread with plastic cheese! We were told they could more or less guarantee we would see whales, which we did, but the chances of seeing Dolphins was very remote, I don't they even looked for any. We were supposed to be going to a bay for swimming but when we got there we were informed the current was far too strong - I was REALLY disappointed.
Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, Canary Islands
Lisbon was advertised as two days and an overnight in port, which is one of the main reasons we booked this cruise. I found out by word of mouth around the ship the day before we were due to arrive, was only ever going to be one day as it took two days to sail back to Portsmouth. As most of the passengers were expecting two days you would have expected once they realised there was a misunderstanding some sort of formal notice would have been given over the ships tannoy system, but no. It was left to the passengers to disseminate the information ourselves, much like the rest of the cruise, we were left to sort ourselves out. So out of a 12 day cruise we spent 7 days at sea!
I did manage to find an Imagine Cruising rep who confirmed to me that we were indeed only having one day in Lisbon, she told me that they had only found out the day before! What sort of company organises a cruise without confirming details like how long each stop is for?
Disembarkation
Due to tragic circumstances that were beyond anyone’s control we were 12 hours late into Portsmouth so instead of disembarking at 10am we were disembarked at 10pm. We had just come out of isolation, both sick with Covid19 and Virgin was quite happy to leave us to get our car and make our way home. There was no way either of us was fit or safe to drive 250+ miles home at that time of day. Due to our dogged insistence that we were neither well enough nor safe to drive they did pay for us to stay overnight in a hotel. However, the point remains that Virgin were quite happy to leave us to our own devices, their customer service need a kick up that place that the sun don’t shine!