My Thoughts on Virgin Voyages Resilient Lady (June 22 to June 27 Sailing)

Just a preface, my prior cruising experiences were on the Carnival Sunrise, MSC Seascape, and MSC Seashore. While I enjoyed all 3, I do prefer MSC to Carnival.

Boarding was relatively clean. Waiting and standing in line to board sucks (2:45 boarding time) but we did get on board a little earlier. It was infuriating that my non-surge protected power strip was confiscated though, especially because I have used it for 3 cruises in the past, it explicitly states that it was cruise certified, and the reason Virgin confiscated it was for having more than 2 electrical outlets, a requirement that is not listed anywhere on their banned items list. Oh, and for good measure, several other people had the exact same brand and style of power strip on board. I threw out the power strip instead of going through the entire process to have it held. It was a 12 dollar item, it was not worth my time or the ship's time to file paperwork over. Either way, it was extra nice to see that there were rules not listed on the site, and enforced sporadically at best. I prefer MSC's style of boarding where you can board mostly whenever, very early on, and just have to deal with a messy room and buffet dining only. Keeping everyone in the Galley would be a solid workaround.

Let's keep my whining condensed into one section. The pools are awful. There's two, they're tiny, and during the day they might as well be standing room only. I found that they were only usable at night. And even then, they were just okay. If your idea of a good cruise is being able to swim while on the ship, skip Virgin. The Beach Club at Bimini was great though, but it was not ideal for snorkeling and looking at fish. Jet skis get fairly close to the shore, so the area you can swim in does not get very deep (Less than 6 feet of depth).

That's about it for major negatives, though.

The room is great. The bathroom is larger than a mainstream cruiseline, and the shower had enough room to at least extend your elbows. A minor issue, the seal on the shower door in my room was not attached well, and my partner managed to more or less flood the bathroom floor the first time she used the shower. I had picked up on the shower door being an issue, the seal more or less had to be wiggled into place to create a waterproof seal.

The interior is nice enough, with a bed I'd consider to be perfectly fine, albeit not luxurious. The tablet being able to control the lights and curtains is a great design. The only negative I have about the room beyond the shower seal is that the USB wired charging was exceptionally slow. As in, plugging a USB cable directly into the wall for my phone was not able to charge it to 100% overnight.

The hammock spoiled me though. We had initially booked an interior cabin and bid on and won an upgrade on a whim. I would not make that mistake next time.

Dining is on the whole, excellent. I would consider every meal I had to be slightly, and I do mean slightly worse than the Butcher's Cut on MSC, but the dining here was complementary. The free options are not even worth debating, the Galley, Sun Club Cafe, The Pizza Place, and Lick Me Till I Scream are excellent in their own right. If there was a cruise option where you could get a cheaper fare but not have access to the premium options, I'd give serious thought to doing it.

I enjoyed all of the premium dining. We did every restaurant except Razzle Dazzle for dinner, and did get Razzle Dazzle for brunch. The worst of them was Pink Agave. The Guacamole and Chips were very good, but I found the ribeye to be lackluster. It was thin, and mine had a piece of tough silverskin running through it. We were there on Tuesday, and I had thought that if this was the best steak on board as some claimed, it would be rough. The New York Strip at The Wake was much better thank Jebas.

Other than the Pink Agave steak, I'd consider everything else I had to be somewhere between very good and excellent. Gunbae was the standout. It helped that we had a party of 6 who all knew each other, so no strangers. But I consider the food at Gunbae to be every bit as solid as Korean BBQ locations on land. The Short Rib was especially divine. Extra Virgin and the Wake were very solid. The Braised Meatballs and Chowder were the standouts there. The Test Kitchen was a lot of fun, but I do feel like it was something more interesting to experience, than a culinary destination in and of itself. I would try it again, but since the menu is mostly fixed, I would either need the alternate menu, or go in 2027 where they (hopefully) change up the menu for recurring patrons. Also, I hated the final drink pairing with the dessert at The Test Kitchen, but that's because I don't like Campari and underestimated how much it would be Campari forward. In short, the food was consistently awesome.

Costa Maya was neat. Not going to go into too much detail there, but we had a good time checking out the shops and the main tourist strip. The Beach Club at Bimini was also very fun. Security could use some work though... when I tried to get a drink, a poor confused guy somehow made his way into the beach who was not on VV, and the Bartender had to explain that this was a private outing. Later, a parent with two kids also wandered onto the beach. Not exactly sure how that happens. But the pools were fun, the ocean is always nice, and the food at the club is pretty solid! Just a note, the little gift shop at the Club is NOT run by VV, it's run by the island, so your wristband does NOT work there.

The productions were also by and large, very good. Trivia was alright. Nothing too high or too low there. We attended the Mind Mangler show, Scarlet Night, and Persephone. Mind Mangler was fun, although it's much more comedy than it is magic. Throughout the hour long performance, there were only 4 magic effects performed, with much more comedy than magic in there.

Scarlet Night is comprehensive, fun, and well put together. It's as big of a party as they want you to think it is and they go all out to put on a show. We were out there for about 3 hours, and we were one of the first people to leave. I'm pretty sure it will run until literally dawn. If you want an opportunity to go hard and have fun, the Scarlet Night festivities are the way to do it. Even this introverted loser nerd had fun.

Persephone is another very good musical/acrobatics show, with enough tongue in cheek to keep it fun. It's a standing room only show where the cast move through the audience. So... don't be the asshole who continually gets in the way of the performers so they can record the whole fucking thing. Which happened during our show. That's not the fault of the cast though, who put on a wonderful show.

Disembarking sounds more chaotic, with it being reserved as an excursion but it was actually incredibly easy and stress free. You just leave and make sure you leave before 10:30AM. We left at 9:45AM with no issues, despite our disembark time being 8:15 in the app. I think if you have an early flight it might be more complicated.

I think at the end of the day, it's the little things that made this voyage fun. The Social Club having a Mario Kart battle that my partner won her leg of, and plenty of room for board games for people to play. It's running into the See saw and being a grown adult on a see saw in the middle of the ocean. It's seeing a random ship and using the view finder to try to figure out what cruise line it's with. Being able to say Fuck and not worry about kids being around. The Ladyships have so many little quirks, charms, and pockets that are just really cool and aren't like what I've seen on other cruises. Maybe that's a result of being a bit smaller than the Seaside EVO Class ships I've been on, and 20 years more modern than the Carnival Sunrise. Maybe that's just the Virgin flair, but there were many little things that the Resilient Lady had that I think my mind will drift to.

I absolutely enjoyed this trip, it might be the favorite overall of every cruise I've taken (4 so far), but I do think there's potential issues with all four ships being essentially the same, with the festivities being very similar from ship to ship. The Virgin experience is ABSOLUTELY WORTH DOING at least once, but I can see how it might feel samey after a while.