Virgin Voyages Cruise Day 1
Heyyy y’all! Last month I went on a FREE Virgin Voyages Cruise that I won through a contest. Can you believe my luck?! I was able to choose a cruise for two between August - December 2022, with some blackout dates. I took my homegirl Tess since we both were talking about cruising with this company. We chose a voyage on the Scarlet Lady cruising from Miami to Cozumel/Playa Del Carmen to Bimini, Bahamas and back to Miami.
The cruise was leaving from the Port of Miami on Sunday, November 6th, so we flew out to Miami on Saturday to ensure that we didn’t miss embarkation. On Sunday our boarding time was at 2:45 PM, so after pulling up to the terminal we handed our luggage over to the porter before making our way inside. The terminal was beautiful! It was pretty empty at first glance, but once we made it to the check in area we saw that it was packed.
During check in they check your passport and give each person a wristband to be worn during your trip. This wristband acts as your lifeline on the boat, so please take care of it. You scan it to use your bar tab, as the key to your room, and as your ID when leaving and boarding the boat when docked. Each wristband had a quirky quote on it. I believe there were a couple of options and I chose the Feelin’ Nauti wristband lol.
After collecting our bands, we went through immigration before actually walking through the tunnel to board the ship. It did not take long at all to make it on the ship. While walking through the tunnel you could hear the vibes and it just hypes you up. As you approach the door some of the crew cheer you on to greet you. Once I crossed the threshold it was like a shock, there were people everywhere!
Tess and I headed to our balcony cabin to put our carry on bags down. The room was so cute and bigger than I imagined. When you walk in to your room there are motion sensor lights to welcome you. There was a closet, bathroom, desk with a mini fridge, a mirror, bed tray, bed and our balcony. Honestly I felt blessed to have a balcony especially since my trip was free. I expected when I received the offer that we would get maybe insider cabins, but they treated us well.
Every room comes with an IPad that acts as a remote for not only the tv, but the room itself. It controlled the tv, the curtains for the balcony, the lights, you could use it to order room service (aka Ship Eats), etc. After settling in, we headed downstairs for our muster drill. A muster drill is basically a presentation that goes over what you need to do in case of an emergency on the ship. Virgin Voyages makes it entertaining by formatting it as a performance you can watch in your room or on your iPad. After the drill we got an ice cream cone from Lick Me Til Ice Cream before exploring more of the ship. After walking around a bit it was time for the Sail Away Party. The crew gave out all you could drink bubbles (champagne) while the DJ played music as we pulled away from the terminal. Sidenote: This was also the first day of daylight savings, so it was dark by 6 PM which was a bit scary looking at from the cabin balcony, but cool to see. As we were leaving Miami there was a tropical storm heading towards Florida, so the water was a bit rough. I had my Dramamine ready just in case.
After relaxing for a bit, Tess and I headed to dinner. I chose dinner at the Test Kitchen for the night purposely to get it over with. The Test Kitchen is an experimental dining experience and I was definitely expecting to still be hungry after lol. There are 6 courses and they only tell you the main ingredient for each course, but the way they prepare these items is off the chart. I would love to discuss the dinner at the Test Kitchen in a separate post since it was such an experience. This is definitely a restaurant to try at least once on Virgin Voyages.
After dinner Tess and I headed to our room to get changed for the pajama party. Usually the party is held on the deck of the ship, but it was raining heavily this night so they moved the party inside. That does change the vibe a bit because everybody is cramped in the space, but we def made the best of it. We snuck out of the party before it ended to get some late night pizza to take back to our cabin before calling it a night.
Day 2 up next!
Day 1 of Virgin Voyages Cruise. *I do NOT own rights to this music.
