Virgin/Imagine 80’s Rock and Retro Extravaganza on Valiant Lady 21/3 - 01/4/22 was so stressful I need a holiday to get over it. There are many reviews showing how dreadful this cruise was due to the dearth of 80’s music, the three hours of live entertainment across 11 days and the misleading information about length of stops and ports of call cancelled entirely or shortened. Therefore I am focusing this review on the experience of a mobility impaired passenger onboard the Valiant Lady. Starting in Portsmouth with the almost horizontal gangway to the entrance on Deck 6, ( I got vertigo just looking up at it) which my husband who has mobility issues couldn’t even contemplate attempting. Once on board (entering through a much more sensible lower access to Deck 4, after flatly refusing to use the ramp) we found our disabled access cabin - space wise no complaints but on other cruise lines entry is via an automatic opening door. On this ship doors open by putting your wristband onto a reader at the side of the door then you have to turn the handle and push the door all within seconds, not so easy if you’re trying to manoeuvre a chair. The door into the bathroom is not automatic either. There are no nightlights in the bathroom so if you need to use in the night you have to turn all the (bright) lights on. (I won’t even go into the often intermittently working app. that you have to use to do practically everything on board. But fortunately there is a switch for the lights!) The emergency button in the bathroom was not clearly marked as such and my husband pushed it thinking it was a light switch. We were contacted within seconds by Sailor Services to see if we needed assistance (very speedy - well done!) There was a wire hanging out of the light IN the shower!!! For a brand new ship this was not good. There is no storage/shelving in the bathroom except for around the washbasin, also no PowerPoint for either toothbrush or shaving. Wet room and seating in shower great. Ramp access onto the balcony was good - though we had to report ours as it didn’t drop back into it’s housing properly which meant we couldn’t close the door on returning into the cabin. The closet has two hanging rails one high, and one low - easily reached by a wheelchair user - but did mean no long length hanging so all clothes end up creased at the bottom. Would be better if they had a handle to pull down the upper rail so clothes could hang better. We only had one bedside table and when we asked for a second we were refused one!
Life vests stored in the top of the wardrobe- impossible to reach if you are a lone passenger in a wheelchair. Maybe storage under the bed or lower down under the shelving in the wardrobe.
Access around the ship fine - though a few of the bar areas/restaurants/sunbathing areas a bit tight to manoeuvre due to the positioning of seating.
Embarkation at Portsmouth was absolute chaos! There appeared to be no system at all - it was just a free-for-all. Passengers were given the option of either putting their luggage outside of their cabins on the morning of disembarkation, or taking their luggage off with them. All were herded together like cattle in the various corridors and areas around The Rocks, with no organisation at all. Consequently my husband and I, and hundred of others according to the many fb/WhatsApp groups set up for passengers on this cruise, returned home to find we had contracted Covid. According to the NHS app due to being in close proximity of a carrier on 1st April 2022. When we asked a member of crew if we were able to use a lower disembarkation point as we had on entry, we were told that this was not possible and a steward would assist in getting my husband off the ship. This entailed an extremely dangerous (for both my husband and the steward) backwards manoeuvre down the ramp. Something he would not like to undertake again as he felt it demeaning and terrifying in equal measure.
We would not take another Virgin cruise despite having been offered a free cruise due to the many issues on board, as unless you are into fitness, health and well-being, yoga or spinning there is little to do. Also having to do everything on a very temperamental App. makes people very stressed which is not what most people want on their holidays.