We were ready to get off after 5 days…
My wife and I just got off the 13 day Mediterranean Cruise from Barcelona to Rome. Apparently I can’t copy my original review that I sent to Virgin on their feedback request, My wife and I are both in our mid 50’s, we planned to spend 3 months in Europe and include this 13 day cruise as part of our 90 days traveling abroad, we are from Dallas, TX and also own a Villa in Southern Italy. We planned to spend a month in Spain, then leave on the cruise out of Barcelona, tour parts of Southern France then end back in Italy to stay for the remainder time. My wife and I were under the impression that Virgin Voyages would be far superior over the other cruise carriers, finer cuisine and dining options, upscale clientele, exceptional service, fabulous entertainment, great workout facilities, and carefully curated worthwhile excursions at each country we visited. Without a doubly this was the worst let down and complete waste of time out of vacation. The food and dining was the biggest let down, nothing we ate was good, mostly over cooked and always we were rushed through our meals, the quality of food is buffet quality as in the cooking, tThis was also in their best restaurant The Wake seafood and steakhouse, we tried another restaurant Lucky Lotus as well we were not lucky in this night as well, rushed through dinner again, food was cold and over cooked. We cancelled our remaining night reservations as we were so discouraged and food was not good at all. We filled out three online surveys when asked how we are doing sailor’s? I put this exact feedback and Never heard back from anyone ever! I can go on and on but trust the Galley or their version of a upscale food court was nothing more than a buffet, same desserts daily and the worst Taco, salad, Ramon, and Hamburger bars.
The service was Ok but spotty depending who helped you, most seem friendly but we got the feeling many didn’t want to be there? Many employees occupy the gym equipment, they can’t figure out how to re-rack dumbbells and the gym attendant never did anything to keep the gym tidy and weights put back in the proper spot.
We spent 13 days on the ship and never was able to ever sit in a Jacuzzi not even once, the same usual suspects occupied them every day and never got out except to eat.
The entertainment was Not good and we didn’t enjoy any of it, it was like they missed the mark on who their audience was. The ship had 40-75 year olds so pajama party’s, 80’s dress up themed nights and their Scarlet Red party which we didn’t get at all were all flops and many didn’t attend, how do we know because we saw them all in the Galley each night bored juts eating. The singers and musicians were not great yet Karaoke singers in the bar some had better vocals than the actual entertainers. We were ready to get off this cruise by day 5 and staying all 13 days was a huge chore to keep from going stir crazy. We enjoyed Cannes and Naples but the other stops were huge tourist traps or not worth the time to drive hous.
We wouldn’t recommend this cruise and we know for a fact entertainment on other cruise lines are far better. This was a huge miss for us and regret we even lost valuable vacation time. Do your homework, do not listen to travel agents who get commission, read the fine print especially on excursions, see how long transportation round trip is for each excursion and what real time you actually have to see what you think you want to do I.e. in Florence it was a 5 hour round trip shuttle to only get three hours in Florence, wasn’t worth it! They try to push excursions on you but don’t really explain much until the night before your actual excursion. They also try to push out notice after notice on your apps while onboard to get you to sign up for the other cruises, again not with it!
We really had high hopes but we left feeling disgusted and disappointed, nobody took the time to ever get to know us or offer to make rectify any of our food issues and we filled out nightly onboard surveys so they were notified but we never heard from nobody. The morning we arrived in Rome, it was bitter sweat like we got the feeling thanks for your money now leave the ship!
We met many others onboard that expressed the same feelings and sentiment’s that we had, honestly we thought about figuring a way to just get off and head back to Spain or Italy and just write the whole experience off. If your the type of person that doesn’t care about quality food, like all you can eat buffets, beer is Heineken or Corona as your only beer of choice, drink sub par coffee or espresso, just want to sit at the pool or Jacuzzi all day and not move or dress up, then this would be cruise, Virgin this was a huge disappointment and we still never heard back from anyone on all the reviews you asked of us.