Fall Leaves to Miami Scenes
We took the cruise line Virgin, our first time cruising with this line for a 13-day cruise. It is a brand-new ship, the Brilliant Lady.
We likely will not take them again for various reasons I will list, but many people love them and continue to book trip after trip with them. Their claim to fame is no children on the cruise. We have never seen more than two or three kids in all our other cruises, but we are often traveling when they are in school. We had heard that this ship was made smaller in order to easily pass through the Panama Canal, in doing so it seemed that they reduced space for its guests. Very limited space made it challenging to get into some of their venues. At one venue the first floor barely seated 100. We were in the overflow on the second floor, unable to see over the first row who were seated, we had to watch it on a TV screen. The nightly entertainment was mostly comedians, one magician, one awesome show with lots of costume changes, and one acrobatic show that was excellent.
Our room was nice and large but had limited drawer space. We chose a balcony and really enjoyed it as 1/2 of the days on ship were at sea. The weather was cold for our trip, so it was nice to look out through the slider. A nice touch on the balconies was a hammock.
Because of the cold weather, people were not using the outside seating, so it was crowded and difficult to find a place to sit in the interior of the ship. The hot tubs were lukewarm and no jets, so they didn't help with fatigue from walking in the ports. The exercise venues were usually booked up as again they only had limited space for a dozen sailors. I was able to attend one outside and it was excellent except quite cold. Because of that, they moved it back inside and then it was filled up or sold out so I couldn't attend again. The sailors aboard ship were mostly physically active, and so because of the space allowed they could not participate in most activities. Only one pickle ball court with people lined up frustrated at not getting to play. Their dance exercise classes were great, but very crowded in the space which made it difficult to move.
They do not have any buffets, instead, walk-in eateries. It was extremely difficult to find seats when one went to eat at peak hours. Instead of having a main dining room, we had access to all 5 restaurants on board at no extra charge. You had to make reservations ahead of time. It being our first time we had no clue that one had to make their reservation at midnight when they first made them available a month prior. So, most of the time we had our evening meal after 9:00 p.m. Many people we talked with also had this problem and sometimes the Virgin AP didn't work properly. They advised us to go to sailor services, and they were able to book 2 brunches and 2 restaurants dinners that we had not been able to get into at all. The dinner times were still after 8:30. Also, Virgin requested that their sailors only eat at each restaurant once for a 7-day cruise or twice for a longer cruise.
We are plant-based eaters and although they did have some vegan options on their menu it still was quite a challenge. Other cruise lines fine dining allowed us to place our order the night before and then the chef would make it vegan. Virgin really didn't accommodate us like others have, many of their items were premade. Finding vegetables on the ship was almost nonexistent and when they did have them, they were overcooked and swimming in oil. In the restaurants their menu said there were veggies, but when the plate arrived, they were in a puree as a decoration. There was a nice assortment of fruit on the ship.
The Test Kitchen was our favorite! Exotic food with flavors that burst in your mouth, decorated and cooked to perfection. They had great vegan options. Ariel, our server who we requested after the first time, made a dining experience that was fun. He was experienced and was diligent to every sailor in his care. He became family and was hard to say Goodbye to.
Their employees were awesome, many were new as the ship, but they gave their all into making us feel special.