Good onboard experience -- Amateur Hour Elsewhere

Cruises: 7+ cruises

Review: 1

Helpful Votes: 9

Review summary

My family and I sailed on the Valliant Lady on its 2023 Christmas (Miami-to-Miami) cruise. My reservation, which included three passengers in one cabin, was part of a larger family group of seven that occupied three cabins. This was a family reunion since the family lives in different parts of the United States. Most of the group are experienced cruisers and have sailed on a wide variety of cruise lines including Holland America, Royal Caribbean, Clipper, NCL, Costa, Paquet and Sun Lines. In my case, I took my first cruise more than 50 years ago. The irregular aspects of our cruise began almost four months before our scheduled departure. We were originally scheduled to sail on the Brilliant Lady’s Christmas itinerary but were informed on September 8, 2023, that the commissioning of the Brilliant Lady had been delayed, which resulted in the cancellation of the trip we booked in May. As you can imagine, rebooking a party of this size for a trip during Christmas week on such short notice is a challenge and it was time consuming and stressful. Despite this, Virgin handled this situation well and we were satisfied with the outcome. On our departure day (Dec. 23, 2023), our flight to Miami was delayed due to an airline mechanical issue. We had a four hour layover en route during which my partner and I spent hours on the phone with Virgin customer service trying to coordinate our arrival in Miami. We spent most of that time on hold while we were waiting to speak with Virgin staff, both customer service representatives and your staff at the Miami terminal. At one point, we were both on hold for more than 30 minutes. We did finally manage to get through but then got cut off midway through the conversation. We called right back and asked by name for the representative who had been helping us, but the representative who answered refused to transfer the call. We then asked to speak with a supervisor but the representative refused. The rest of our party was able to board the ship on time. After they arrived at the Virgin terminal, they contacted representatives at the terminal on our behalf but the terminal staff refused to help. We were told there was a hard stop at 5:00 pm for late arrivals with no exceptions, which seemed unlikely since our original boarding time was 4:45 pm. It seemed increasingly unlikely as we drove past the ship at 5:30 pm on our way to a hotel and saw the ship still tied to the pier with the main passenger gangway in place. According to VesselFinder.com, the ship departed Miami at 6:46 pm, 14 minutes ahead of its scheduled 7:00 pm departure time. Day 1 of the cruise was a sea day, which meant we had to spend two nights in Miami before flying to Puerto Plata to meet the ship. Virgin provided no assistance at all – they simply told us we should board at the next stop (Puerto Plata) and make our own arrangements to do so. When we arrived at Puerto Plata, we discovered Virgin had neglected to inform port security that we would be arriving, which resulted in us spending 90 minutes in the port security guard booth while port security tried to contact the ship. (I would observe in passing that a Royal Caribbean ship was in port that day and also had to embark a group of late arrivals. RCL provided port security with a manifest of the late arrivals on a timely basis and their passengers were cleared through port security in only a few minutes). Our check-in process was equally frustrating as it occurred on the pier while passengers were returning to the ship from their shore excursions. The crew conducting the check-in apparently were inexperienced and encountered technology issues, both of which delayed the check-in process. Once the check-in was complete, we were left to our own devices to find our cabin and carry our own bags. No one showed us to our cabin or explained its features (or showed us the location of our life jackets or lifeboat muster station). There were a number of other, less serious issues as well including repeated cancellations of activities, both on-board and off. Of the activities that we booked, almost half were cancelled. While these were generally handled appropriately by crew, the number was much higher than I’ve experienced on other cruises. We were looking for a cruise that was a bit more sophisticated without being stuffy. The Valiant Lady was an adults-only cruise, which worked for us, but was less sophisticated than we had hoped. The ship has a younger demographic that wasn't always well behaved or decorous. There was one passenger who spent almost the entire cruise confined to his cabin with a security officer outside 24/7. This wasn't especially surprising since alcohol consumption was a constant theme and pushed hard (All alcohol had to be purchased and alcohol sales seemed to be a significant part of Virgin's financial model). I appreciate that Virgin is trying to reimagine the cruise experience and generally appreciated the changes. All of the customer-facing on-board crew were exceptional. However, the background systems were noticeably lacking. These obviously include not providing any assistance to passengers who miss the ship, which happens on virtually every cruise.* They also include (1) not meeting passengers at the airport, which the other cruise lines have routinely done for decades** to (2) frequently-heard complaints onboard about the inability to get reservations to the better restaurants and shows to (3) communication issues caused by over-reliance on technology as well as other technology issues*** to (4) editing mistakes in the cabin guidebook. The customer service staff was also consistently disappointing. They were friendly almost to a fault but their English fluency was below expectations and they often weren’t able to resolve issues, either because they didn’t know the solution or because they weren’t empowered to do so. Reimaging the customer-facing aspects of the experience is important but it can’t come at the expense of basic blocking and tackling. Similarly, technology can be used to enhance the passenger experience but it can’t replace it. Finally, it’s worth noting that the Valiant Lady already had a somewhat checkered history. It’s already suffered two passenger deaths in its first year of service. It doesn’t appear either was caused by crew negligence but it’s consistent with an overall theme: Virgin is new to the cruise industry and is trying to start a de novo cruise line – and it shows. They are trying to incorporate aspects of their other businesses to the cruise industry, but it is causing basic execution issues that you don’t see with more established cruise lines. * This is a rather stark contrast with other cruise lines. I had previous experience when airline issues caused me to miss a cruise ship departure. In that case, the cruise line helped us rebook our flights, met us at the airport and expedited our way through customs, arranged ground transportation and very efficiently handled our check-in process on the ship. Virgin did none of these things. ** When we arrived at the Miami airport for this trip, for example, we saw representatives for both NCL and Royal Caribbean meeting their passengers at the airport and helping expedite transfers to their cruise terminals. Virgin didn’t do this. *** At the time we rebooked our trip from the Brilliant Lady to the Valliant Lady, we were told we could use our Sailor Loot to book shore excursions. The Virgin app encouraged us to book these excursions well before our departure date but when we did, we were unable to use our Sailor Loot. We called the Virgin customer service line but they were unable to help and ultimately told us we would have to resolve the issue after we boarded. Several times, changes were made to dinner and activity reservations without notice. The Virgin app also presented other recurring technology issues. It sometimes crashed and didn’t work off the ship.

Embarkation

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

Onboard Activities

Entertainment

Service and Staff

Ship Quality

Cabin / Stateroom

Ports of call

San Juan, Puerto Rico

The Beach Club (Virgin Voyages), Bimini Bahamas

Disembarkation

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