Review of my Virgin Voyages Cruise on the Scarlet Lady – 7 nights of bliss on the Mediterranean Sea

My seven-night cruise with Virgin Voyages went by so fast! Following, you find my honest opinion of my cruise aboard the Scarlet Lady.

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What awaits you on a Virgin Voyages Cruise

When I first spotted a Virgin Voyage Cruise ship in the port of Miami, I was curious what this beautiful ship had to offer. A glance at their website had me hooked: free Wi-Fi, all the premium restaurants, soft drinks and tips are included. Free fitness classes, plus the balconies come with a hammock.

My only obstacle: their cruises are adults only. Which of course is another main selling point for 95% of the guests on board. However, I am a mother and normally, I travel with my 2-year-old daughter. Would the cruise outweigh being separated from her and everybody at home having to work extra to cover my absence?

To sum up my Virgin Voyages cruise

Well, the cruise has been amazing. The hard-working crew spoiled me from A to Z. I really enjoyed having time to go to all the fitness classes and evening entertainment without having to worry about what to do with my child in the meantime.

Right away I fell in love with the hammock on my balcony. I swayed in it with the gentle waves and stared out at the water whenever I got the chance. I’ll definitely miss this hammock. To me, one thing that makes cruising so wonderful is how close you are to the sea. In Switzerland, I never get the chance to hear the waves or smell the sea salt but during my Virgin Cruise, these wonders surrounded me at all times.

The food options on my Virgin Voyages Cruise

The food selection on the Scarlet Lady covers anything you wish for. Plus, it is of a great quality that even gourmets like me don’t find anything to complain about. My favourite restaurant was The Wake. Even the perfectly cooked sirloin steak is free. I also enjoyed the bone marrow appetizer and the vegetable side dishes. This restaurant can be compared to the best steak restaurants I have eaten at on land.

Since I love Asian food, I was instantly drawn to the Ramen soups that you could have for breakfast until 3 p.m. and the Korean BBQ restaurant, Gunbae. Everything was delicious and I tasted myself through all the soups. The dinner experience at Gunbae was a bit crazy. You share your table with other guests and the waiters really try to turn the meal into a party. It’s one way of doing this, I guess. We had fun and the food was my favorite after The Wake. However, the tables next to us were so loud that we didn’t want to risk losing our hearing by going back a second time. Don’t worry though, at all the other restaurants you can relax and enjoy your meal in a civilized manner.

The desserts and market place

On the sweet side, there was a free ice cream stand serving many different flavors. At the coffee corners I also (too often for my hips) stopped for an inviting pastry like banana bread, a chocolate chip cookie, or chocolate fudge. I’m not really a candy person other than chocolate but they also had tubs of Swedish fish and other sweets. So no matter what craving you have, you will find what you want on your Virgin Ship.

Apart from the great food, I especially liked that there were windows in most restaurants and you could watch the sea while eating.

We had breakfast at the Galley every morning. That’s an all-day marketplace where you find foods from all around the world, including bagels with delicious toppings, avocado toasts, fresh fruit, fresh salads, mouthwatering desserts, popsicles, tacos, chia puddings, and even Swiss muesli.
If you don’t want to make dinner reservations at a restaurant, you will also find different meals here every evening. So, no matter what, you certainly won’t be hungry on a Virgin Cruise.

Sport on the Scarlet Lady Virgin Voyages Cruise

Luckily, the fitness room also faces the ocean so I could enjoy the water while working the kilos off again. I really enjoyed the yoga classes facing the sea and I tried other classes that I normally don’t find the time for at home (like the fascia rollout class). Something I’ve never done before was the bungee fitness class. It was a lot of fun to bounce around and do supported push ups or jumping jacks and it was the most tiring workout out of all the fitness classes I’ve joined.

I also participated in some group dance classes like Zumba or VHS acrobatics. The classes were all great fun, and the instructors were in a good mood that spread throughout the room.

The on-board Wi-Fi

It was great to have free Wi-Fi on board. While it was good enough to post pictures on Instagram, it already lacked the strength to load Instagram’s gifs. So, if you need to work, you probably have to buy an upgrade to get better on-board internet. WhatsApp calls were possible but shaky.

The fellow cruisers

This was the most agreeable cruise crowd I have encountered so far. Everybody was relaxed, and nobody was pushy or needed to be the center of attention. The average age was younger than on other cruises, so the cliché that cruising is only for retired people definitely didn’t apply to my Virgin Voyages Cruise. It was a great ship for everyone to enjoy themselves.

The sustainability of my Virgin Cruise

While cruising definitely still produces a lot of bad emissions, at least the life on the ship was as sustainable as it can get. Since there were not many buffets, food waste was reduced to a minimum. And even at the buffets, it was all served stations and not self-serving. Plus, I didn’t see one item of single-use plastic. You always received a good plate, bowl, or cup. At the takeaway stations, they had reusable containers of good quality, so that one container could be washed and re-used many times. The way Virgin Voyages Cruises approaches sustainability is definitely a step in the right direction.

Were there negative points about the cruise?

Of course, this is a matter of individual preferences but if I have to find a weak point from my cruise, it’s the evening entertainment for me. The shows in the evening had a big focus on cover concerts with famous 80s and 90s songs and if it was a musical production of their own the costumes or content wasn’t as impressive as I’ve witnessed on other ships.

I enjoyed the singers or guitar players that entertained us in the small bars, and I was impressed by the acrobatics group and the mind reader. It’s also always fun to have comedians on a cruise and I laughed a lot. Yet, one elderly comedian actually brought the same program in his show slot and at the Supper Club. If I had known that I wouldn’t have watched his single show since I already got the jokes the first time, thanks.

Generally, you won’t find any action activities like rock climbing or surfing on the Virgin Cruise Ship. Unfortunately there also wasn’t a pool big enough to swim laps. On the other hand, you have more time to read a book in a nice corner, play a board game with your fellow travellers or join a trivia game. Either way, the guests aboard found enough activities to make them happy, so that they didn’t have to gamble away their time and money in the casino. I’ve never seen such an empty casino on a cruise ship, and I mean this in a very positive way.

The app booking system

I didn’t quite understand the purpose of the app booking system since most fitness classes and restaurants appeared as full the whole time. So, for the restaurants, I had to go to the booking services at a specific time slot and then pre-book my restaurants for the whole week. Only this way, I was able to eat at a normal time or at the restaurant I wanted. So, there is no room for spontaneity.

It’s a different story if you have a higher room category. Apparently, if you are a so called “Rockstar”, they always make sure to find you a seat in the restaurant. I actually made a comment about this booking system in the feedback of the app and to my surprise, someone personally replied right away and said they’d try to improve the system. Let me know if it was easier once you take a Virgin Cruise 😉.

It was similar with the booking of the fitness classes. Often, my preferred class was booked out quickly. However, when I went to check, there always was a space. So, try your luck in case you can’t proceed with a booking. The easiest were the dance classes where you didn’t need a booking and could just join spontaneously.

Conclusion of my opinion about the week on the Scarlet Lady

I loved the spacious cabin, the views from my hammock, the many nice public lounges, and the food options. Another positive point was that there was always free drinking water available.

Apart from these points, the ship also always had the best dock in the port. I don’t know if that’s Virgin Voyages’ marketing strategy, but we never had to walk far to get ashore and there often was a free shuttle to the town center. It made entering and leaving the ship so easy that the docked ship felt like an all-inclusive hotel with a sea view.

More than once, I have heard other cruisers say that after Virgin they can’t go back to another cruise line as nothing compares to Virgin Voyages cruises. So, in conclusion, it was a wonderful holiday any parent deserves. I will return with full batteries and even more love for my child since I obviously missed her a lot, too.

Since I actually like traveling with my daughter, my next Virgin Cruise unfortunately will have to wait some years. But I am very grateful that I got to experience the Scarlet Lady – it was a truly wonderful week! If you build a Virgin Ship for families, sign us up!