Yes I know this isn't hunting or fishing related but we are allowed to have fun outside of the outdoors occasionally right?
Anyhow TLDR: It was a good time and my wife and I would cruise with them again.
My wife and I haven't had a trip for ourselves in almost 7 years. We're coming up on 17 years married and had planned one at 15 years but that damn virus messed those up. So we talked and got the kids taken care of and decided to do something just the two of us. I was looking at different options and landed on a Virgin Voyages 5 day cruise. Its a new cruise-line owned by the Virgin Records conglomerate. If you watch for deals they have some good ones, we went out of Miami and it was significantly cheaper than any all inclusive resort I was able to find to compare to for the same time period and length of time.
We got a room with a balcony and it was nice enough (the hammock was quite comfy) that had I disliked the ship and other things I could have just sat out there and watched the water go by and been completely fine with my book (kindle).
Food was better than we remembered from our previous cruise on Royal Caribbean with our family in 2016. Each restaurant had some really good dishes but fell short on others so nothing completely wow'd us but it was good food.
I bought us a "bar tab". They don't do a drink package but you can buy a bar tab (use it or lose it) prior to sailing. It was $650 and we used almost all of it but had to slightly try. Beers were $6-10ish and mixed drinks were $10-16ish and not a huge jump in price if you asked for specific higher end alcohol. Now they did have some higher end bourbons that I had told my wife that if we were really needing to I could easily drop some money on a few pours but we didn't have to.
Ship felt really clean, fresh and new but in ships that are only a year or so old I wouldn't expect anything less.
I did buy us the "splash of romance" package and I totally would again. If you look at the price breakdown of everything you get it basically pays for itself but the biggest perk is the priority boarding right after the "rockstar" suites. We arrived at the port and were on the ship in under 45 minutes.
They actually have a World Poker Tour stop on the ship and if you win that particular tournament you win a spot at the Vegas one that ends up on TV. They also have a normal casino also if that's your thing.
I was concerned about my wife and I not fitting in with the "hip" vibe of the ship and the potential crowd along with how "alternative" would the vibe and crowd be on board. I didn't need to worry. Yes there were some same sex couples but there wasn't much over the top that we noticed. There was one couple that one was dressed in drag every night but other than that the most "out there" thing I noticed was a guy in a thong swimsuit. There was a drag queen on board but it was pretty easy to not go to "her" activities. Though we ended up during the one party night being at the karaoke led by "her" for about an hour and it was entertaining. The people watching was good but not much over the top. The one larger (neither pool is large and that is one downside if you like to swim onboard) pool definitely had more of the MTV spring break dancing vibe going which was fun to watch all these 30-40 somethings acting like what I used to watch on TV. Other than that it didn't feel abnormal at all and we didn't feel uncomfortable.
The ports we stopped at were nice but my wife and I enjoy beaches and that but decided if we cruise again a Caribbean cruise is not the destination(s) we would want.
Anyhow TLDR: It was a good time and my wife and I would cruise with them again.
My wife and I haven't had a trip for ourselves in almost 7 years. We're coming up on 17 years married and had planned one at 15 years but that damn virus messed those up. So we talked and got the kids taken care of and decided to do something just the two of us. I was looking at different options and landed on a Virgin Voyages 5 day cruise. Its a new cruise-line owned by the Virgin Records conglomerate. If you watch for deals they have some good ones, we went out of Miami and it was significantly cheaper than any all inclusive resort I was able to find to compare to for the same time period and length of time.
We got a room with a balcony and it was nice enough (the hammock was quite comfy) that had I disliked the ship and other things I could have just sat out there and watched the water go by and been completely fine with my book (kindle).
Food was better than we remembered from our previous cruise on Royal Caribbean with our family in 2016. Each restaurant had some really good dishes but fell short on others so nothing completely wow'd us but it was good food.
I bought us a "bar tab". They don't do a drink package but you can buy a bar tab (use it or lose it) prior to sailing. It was $650 and we used almost all of it but had to slightly try. Beers were $6-10ish and mixed drinks were $10-16ish and not a huge jump in price if you asked for specific higher end alcohol. Now they did have some higher end bourbons that I had told my wife that if we were really needing to I could easily drop some money on a few pours but we didn't have to.
Ship felt really clean, fresh and new but in ships that are only a year or so old I wouldn't expect anything less.
I did buy us the "splash of romance" package and I totally would again. If you look at the price breakdown of everything you get it basically pays for itself but the biggest perk is the priority boarding right after the "rockstar" suites. We arrived at the port and were on the ship in under 45 minutes.
They actually have a World Poker Tour stop on the ship and if you win that particular tournament you win a spot at the Vegas one that ends up on TV. They also have a normal casino also if that's your thing.
I was concerned about my wife and I not fitting in with the "hip" vibe of the ship and the potential crowd along with how "alternative" would the vibe and crowd be on board. I didn't need to worry. Yes there were some same sex couples but there wasn't much over the top that we noticed. There was one couple that one was dressed in drag every night but other than that the most "out there" thing I noticed was a guy in a thong swimsuit. There was a drag queen on board but it was pretty easy to not go to "her" activities. Though we ended up during the one party night being at the karaoke led by "her" for about an hour and it was entertaining. The people watching was good but not much over the top. The one larger (neither pool is large and that is one downside if you like to swim onboard) pool definitely had more of the MTV spring break dancing vibe going which was fun to watch all these 30-40 somethings acting like what I used to watch on TV. Other than that it didn't feel abnormal at all and we didn't feel uncomfortable.
The ports we stopped at were nice but my wife and I enjoy beaches and that but decided if we cruise again a Caribbean cruise is not the destination(s) we would want.
