I'm having trouble choosing between two cruises.

 

Soon, I will have a minor influx of money which will allow me to choose between 2 similar cruises offered by 2 different cruise lines.  The first cruise will be a 5-day cruise on Virgin Voyages between New York and Bermuda.  It will arrive in Bermuda at 4 pm, and leave at 4 pm the next day.  The second cruise will also be a 5-day cruise on Norwegian Cruise Lines between the same ports, both departing and returning 1 day later.  This cruise will arrive in Bermuda at 8 an and leave at 3 pm the next day.  Which cruise will I take?

Examining the 2 cruise itineraries, Virgin's cruise spends several hours less in Bermuda than NCL's cruise. Is that the only difference?  When I ran the numbers for the add-ons I'd purchase for each cruise, Virgin's cruise comes in with a price a few dollars more than that of NCL's cruise.  However, Virgin serves better food than NCL does.  Even when I factor in the specialty meals I'd get on an NCL cruise, I'd choose Virgin over NCL in this area.  But food isn't my only consideration.  The extra time I'd get in Bermuda on an NCL cruise allows me to get to St. George on Bermuda's other end - for free, if I use NCL's ferry.

What I haven't mention so far is loyalty status.  If I take the Virgin cruise, I won't accumulate much.  I'd have to reach the equivalent of 5 cruises to get an extra specialty coffee and a $100 bar tab per cruise.  However, on NCL, I'd get an extra water container after 1 more cruise.  (I'm at Platinum level, and I get the free bag of laundry already.)  Big deal!  Virgin does not have any more cruises scheduled to sail from New York after this fall, while NCL makes New York one of its home ports.  I don't add much to loyalty status by taking either cruise.  The next level of NCL loyalty status will be easier for me to achieve.  But I would get more on Virgin - if I choose to fly to Florida for one of their cruises.

So, which cruise will I choose?  In a week, I should have the money that I'll use for this cruise.  One cruise sails out of Brooklyn (Virgin), while the other sails out of Manhattan (NCL).  It is easier for me to reach the Manhattan cruise terminal than the one in Brooklyn.  Yet, I'm not sure of what I will do  I'll let you know when I make the decision. 

Odds and ends - all the news that wasn't fit to print.

 

Odds and Ends of Recent Events 

• About a week ago, we got off our Bermuda Triangle cruise, and I noticed an erroneous charge of $25 on my account   I sent an email to Virgin's Sailor Services area, and got an automated response that I'd be hearing from them within 72 hours.  I take this to mean 3 business days.  So, if the clock starts running on Monday morning, I should have an answer from Virgin by Thursday morning.  As of Thursday morning, crickets!
  
  I followed up with another email, this time being sent to both to Sailor Services and to the head of Customer Relations, mentioning the lack of communication on disembarkation day, and tacking on a mention of the $25 dispute at the end of the email.  I figure that I should expect a response by sometime on Tuesday if I'm lucky.
  
  
•  The other day, I went to fill my car up with gas and noted that the price of a gallon of "regular" has gone up by 50% since the Orange Monster started the war with Iran.  It's so sad to see GOP politicians trying to assert that the economy is doing better with the snowflake, and not asserting Congress's sole power to declare war against another country.
  
  
• Recently, King Charles of the UK came to the US and gave a speech to both houses of our legislative branch.  He reminded congress of American values in a way that showed the GOP how much they have capitulated to evil without openly saying as much.  It's a shame that after the speech, that they keep supporting the Orange Monster in the way they do.
  
  
• Yesterday, I went downstairs to do laundry.  I found out that I forgot where I placed the VTM card I use to pay for washing and drying my clothes.  So, I ended getting ready to use backup card I had.  But, by the time I went downstairs to do the last runs of the evening, someone else had claimed the machines for their laundry.  There was no way that I was going to bring my dresses, etc. upstairs, just to bring them downstairs again.  So, I waited until today to do this.
  
  Realizing that I had to find the missing VTM card, I positioned myself that I could inspect shirt/trouser pockets for the VTM card, and toss everything into 2 washing machines while sitting down.  By the time I was halfway through, I found the card, and was able to speed up my work to load up two washers.  When the loads are done, I plan to take the dresses and shirts upstairs and hang them up to dry wrinkle-free.
  
  And guess what happened after I found the card.  I added $20 to it, then lost it again.  This time, I retraced my steps and hope it's at the bottom of a wet laundry basket.  Otherwise, it's $38 gone down the tubes.  AARGH!
  
  
• Once all my summer clothes are out of storage, I'll have to start another donation bag for charity. I need space in my closet to store everything.  That will be a task for the next few weeks. 
  
  Given how many dresses and other things that I own, I figure that I only have enough stuff for a single donation bag.  But, I should also loot at getting rid of stuff that looks drab on me.  A T-Gal should always look her best in public when presenting as female.

Bermuda Triangle Cruise 2026 - Afterthoughts (04/26/26)

 

Now that I'm back on dry land, I now have a chance to look back on this cruise.  Strangely enough, an old phrase from a Russian novel comes to mind:

 "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way"

From having friends who are polyamorous, I learned that good communication, honesty and openness are the keys to successful relationships.  In the case of cruising, good communication is essential to having a good cruise experience.  On disembarkation day, Virgin Voyages turned a good cruise experience into a disaster by poor communication.

Will I take a cruise on Virgin again?  Maybe.  But I'll have to see how they respond to a complaint letter I plan to send them.

- - - - - -

A question posed by an old, cynical joke was:

Besides the assassination Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?

This same question reflects my feelings about the cruise.  If I could ignore the last hour or so onboard the ship, it would have been an excellent cruise.  Even then, communication issues were black spots on a very white sheet of paper.   Virgin depends too much on its app to notify people of things going onboard the ship.  Instead of simple announcements that the ship has made port, and that passengers can leave the ship for shore excursions, they only send quiet messages to cruisers via the app.  If one doesn't constantly look at their phone, one can't know what's going on.

- - - - - -

RQS and I have some time before we can schedule another cruise with Virgin.  Before then, we will be taking another cruise with Princess, and maybe a cruise with NCL Virgin won't be back in NYC until autumn.  And then, it has no cruises sailing out of New York scheduled for 2027.  Will they be in New York in 2028?  I doubt it.  And even if they were, I'm not sure if I'd sail with them again.  I don't want to deal with another experience as ugly as our disembarkation experience, even though (for us) it lasted only 15 minutes.  I'd have no problem with Virgin if it had good communications with its cruisers.  But it doesn't.  It is not a cruise line that holds up its customer experience by both belts and suspenders - they don't use both Plans A and B for communicating with its cruisers. 

PS: I got a response on my email to Virgin.  They actually looked into the details of my issue.  Hopefully, they will correct things for the next time something similar occurs.

 

 

 

Bermuda Triangle Cruise 2026 - Nassau, Bahamas (04/21/26)

 

On Virgin Voyages' ships, "The Galley" replaces a ship's buffet area with a bunch of mini-restaurants, each serving a certain specialty. (I won't list them by name here.  Instead, I'll list their functions.)  First, one finds the salad station, where salads are produced according to menu listings.  Next is a burger station.  There is a taco station, a sushi station, and a ramen soup station.  What they all have in common are two key things:

• Simple menu selections mean that dishes can be mass produced without customization.
   
• Cruisers never touch the food before it gets to the table, reducing disease spread. 

As much as I admire Virgin for reworking the concept of the buffet, they have not solved a key problem: How can a cruise line design in adequate seating capacity for busy hours?  Given the nature of The Galley, Virgin has added a new problem: giving cruisers quick service after sitting down in the Galley.

RQS and I have been looking for sit-down dining options for breakfast and lunch that are not connected to the Galley.  It is not easy, as many others are flocking to these venues as well.  And this is one of the things I don't like about cruising with Virgin.

- - - - - -

Today's port stop was Nassau.  We had no intentions of getting off the ship here.  So we took a leisurely lunch in the Galley and then relaxed in our cabin.  RQS was doing her watercolors while I was working on my cruise blog.

Around 6 pm, it was time to go to dinner.  Wayfaring signage on the ship is terrible, and we asked for instructions on how to get to our restaurant - and got lost for a few minutes.  But we ended up in the right place and had a nice meal.  I know when I next get on the scale, I will be shocked of the weight I gained.  But for now, I might as well enjoy the delicacies I'm having that I won't be able to get when I return home.

  

 

 

Bermuda Triangle Cruise 2026 - Embarkation Day (04/16/26)

 

Today would be the first time on a Virgin Voyages ship, and I knew there would be some issues.  The key one would be getting to the ship on time, given the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway in the middle of the week.  With a little advance planning, this would be a minor wrinkle for the day.  What worried me most would be the unknown differences between Virgin and other lines on which I have cruised.

- - - - - - -

We got up at 9 am, and did our final preparations for the cruise.  Around 12:30 pm, I brought our luggage downstairs to make it easier when the Uber was to arrive at 12:45 pm.  As planned, the Uber arrived on time, but it took longer than expected for us to make it to the cruise terminal.  Unfortunately, my GI Tract was about to explode, the most important place I could reach was one where my GI Tract could be dealt with properly.

Reaching the cruise terminal, it was the usual chaos outside the building.  However, Virgin made it worse for many by preventing early arrivals at the terminal from checking in early - unlike most cruise lines making port here.  We were lucky enough to arrive close enough to our scheduled arrival time to be let in early.  Again, we encountered the usual long lines inside the building.  But this time, they ran slower than usual.  

Eventually, we made it onto the ship and began our vacation.  We first went to lunch and then to dinner.  The food was good as expected.  (More on this in my cruise blog.)  And then it was back to the room to rest.