In this episode, Justin and returning guest Mandi share their detailed trip report of their January 2025 Virgin Voyages Scarlet Lady cruise.
They discuss onboard dining options, port stops, how they got a comp offer, and many money-saving travel tips. They also talk about their experiences at various ship amenities, shows, and fitness classes, and cover practical advice for disembarkation and travel logistics.
Follow along for insights into affordable travel using credit card points, miles, and rewards. Subscribe for more travel content!
Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction to Low-Cost Travel
00:49 Virgin Voyages Cruise Overview
02:15 Dining and Port Stops
02:51 Comp Offers and Casino Matches
06:30 Boarding and Onboard Experience
08:30 Dining Options and Experiences
15:47 Casino Adventures and Challenges
27:56 Delicious Dining Experiences
32:09 Exploring Fitness Classes on the Ship
34:30 Port Adventures: Roatan and Costa Maya
36:42 Bimini Beach: A Tropical Paradise
39:02 Entertainment and Shows on Board
41:07 Disembarkation and Travel Tips
45:52 Listener Questions and Future Plans
52:00 Closing Announcements and Farewell
Show notes:
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Rough Transcript:
Theme Song: [00:00:00] Travel at low cost with points and miles. Credit card rewards bring the smiles. Many adventures, tales to be told. Make and save money, the world will unfold.
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Justin: You’re listening to the hurdy gurdy travel podcast. I’m your host, Justin Vacula, here to help you travel the world at next to no cost with credit card points, miles, benefits, and rewards, make money, save money, and take advantage of great deals. Thanks for joining me for today’s episode. Virgin voyages, scarlet lady trip report, returning podcast guest, Mandy and I talk about our January, 2025 cruise, including how we got a comp to offer [00:01:00] onboard dining options.
Port stops and more visit meetup. com slash Philly miles and points to RSVP for monthly greater Philadelphia travel credit miles and points meetups. I host in Willow grove, Pennsylvania. The next meetups are January 26th and February 23rd, 2025. Find a link in the show notes for more content between podcast episodes, follow her to Gertie travel podcast on Facebook and X formerly known as Twitter.
Follow Justin Vekula on Instagram, subscribe to Hurtigurdy Travel Podcast on YouTube, where you can also become a channel member for daily content, including travel videos, clips, community content, and other bonus videos. On with today’s episode. Welcome back to the show, Manny.
Mandi: Hello, Justin. Glad to be back.
Justin: Alright, hopefully the audio works out well. We’re inside Hyatt centric South Beach, Miami at the [00:02:00] moment, recording to talk about our cruise.
Mandi: We just got back from the Virgin Voyage cruise. It was seven days. Very, very nice. Very sunny weather compared to what’s going on right now. I hear there’s fires in half of the United States and snow in the other half.
Justin: Alright, so we get a good world here in Miami and we just got back from Cheesecake Factory. Uh, splitting tender as I’m known to do.
Mandi: But once we explained that we needed the 10 credit on each gold card, an MX gold card, she was very happy to, uh, to take care of us.
Justin: Yes. And we used the 15 bonus card from December promotion and got a free slice of cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory Rewards Program and stacking a review with the secret shopper website, Observani.
So lots of fun here in South Beach. It was a seven minute walk from the hotel. So nice. And before the cruise, how did we match to get this comp offer paying about 222 a [00:03:00] person?
Mandi: Mine was, I had the Virgin Voyage comp cruise that I took back in August. So I actually called when they still had the Carnival cruise match.
You may have done the Carnival cruise match at that point too. There were multiples that they would match at that, but I think they cut down since then.
Justin: I initially matched in June of 2024. I used a casino player inquiry form. It’s still on their site. Looks like a Google forum still on their site in January of 2025.
You can Google Virgin voyages player inquiry. So from what I remember, I matched at cruise offer from MSC from ocean casino in Atlantic city. And yes, carnival, other offers might be allowed and also matching players club statuses with MGM, Caesars, potentially other casinos as well. We couldn’t get any Virgin status.
In addition to getting the comp offer, they said only [00:04:00] one was allowed, but of course, the comp offer paying 222 a person, this included the base wifi gratuities, port fees, and taxes, and included dining options. So for 222, I was definitely
Mandi: fired. Besides the MSC crews, which is, uh, I think completely free, this is probably the next best casino match offer.
Justin: And we were talking to people on the ship who weren’t in miles and points, and they were talking about paying only 3, 000.
Mandi: And then we had one, I had one that, uh, I think for two of them it was 4, 000. So for a very similar group, so. We had to explain to them how to do this.
Justin: Yes. We said, well, next time I think you can do a lot better and cruise for a lot less.
So we’ll see if they actually follow up on anything and hopefully save some money going forward.
Mandi: That’s right.
Justin: And you as a listener, [00:05:00] hopefully you’re not saying I only spent 3000 or 4, 000 to cruise. Hopefully you will get comp offers like this. We got the sea terrace. Room. So this was at balcony rooms, but even better that interior cabin.
Mandi: Yes. The balcony was very nice. It had the traditional red hammock. Very nice views. I thought the cabin was spacious.
Justin: Yeah, it was really nice for both in there. There was originally a very large bed. They moved it out to an L shape. So maybe it was two twin beds
Mandi: at that point. Yes. Still plenty of room.
Justin: I slept on my side, but it still worked out.
And before we went to another Hyatt property, Hyatt House Miami Airport, from the looks of it, 8, 000 points or using a Category 1 through 4 free night certificate. This was maybe a 20 Uber ride from that hotel to the cruise port. And to get to the hotel, there was a [00:06:00] complimentary shuttle service from the airport.
Mandi: Yes, we had to wait about 30 to 45 minutes from the airport. Um, but it was worth it to us.
Justin: It tested my resolve. I was about to Uber, but I called them and they said the driver was 11 minutes away. So listeners call the hotel first in case they’re just hanging out. They’re not on the usual route.
Mandi: But they will come.
Justin: They’re coming soon. They’re coming soon. Like George R. R. Martin from Game of Thrones, his former podcast guest, Tammy will know. It was a great South Park episode, of course. And what was the boarding process like for this cruise once we got to the cruise port on the day of the cruise?
Mandi: So the good thing was the The cruise port is very distinguishable.
It’s at the very end. It’s marked with the V for Virgin Voyage. The Uber driver dropped us right up front. There were porters immediately there to greet us. Um, we tipped them a few dollars. They took our heavy luggage and it went straight to our cabin in a very [00:07:00] timely manner. I mean, it was there very, very soon.
We did have to stand in a line. We got to the cruise port about an hour early. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to check in early. We stood in a queue for about 30, 45 minutes, I think. Um, but the weather was nice. They had water, boxed water. People were friendly. Uh, so it, it was a very easy check in process.
Justin: And there were designated times. We had our time in the Virgin Voyages app, so we just went in the line that matched our time, which I think was a 2. 30 p. m. boarding.
Mandi: Yes, very straightforward.
Justin: And once the line started moving, it was pretty fast. We went through, we had to show passport. There was a facial recognition, which probably speeded up the process.
And eventually we got special wristbands for the entire voyage.
Mandi: Yes. It also served as our room key. Any extra spend that we wanted to put on our account, we used the wristbands and they were [00:08:00] waterproof. So you really never took them off.
Justin: I like this a lot better than other cruises that just gave you an electronic card that you would have to wear it around your lanyard.
You’d have to keep taking it out of your pocket. The possibility of losing it. So having the wristband on. It was easy to take off, it was pretty easy for me to put back on. The electronic getting back in the room is nice rather than having to take a card out or open the app and do something with that.
Mandi: Or worse, wear a lanyard and have to keep that around your neck. And when we got
Justin: onto the ship, I figured instead of going to the room first where the luggage might not be there, we went to the galley, which is the buffet or perhaps upscale forecourt area. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Mandi: Yes, they had multiple stations for any type of food you could imagine.
The buffet was not a traditional buffet. They serve it to you. There was a glass dividing you and [00:09:00] the servers. And you had the option to stand in line and just choose what you want. Or you could actually sit down, raise your flag. And then a server would come to you and you could order your food that way as well.
Justin: There was a food on noodle and other noodles station, a sandwich station, a Mexican food station, the diner station. They had a cart that had fruit pops for dessert. And some drinks, they had the salad station and much more. So we wait multiple times throughout the cruise and there was always something available.
Even the sushi station had the bento boxes. And even on the way in, there were two cold shelves that you can take wraps, salads, and much more from.
Mandi: And I thought the options were very healthy choices. I think you could eat. Justin being a vegetarian, he was, he had [00:10:00] multiple choices, uh, me wanting to stay, uh, more on the carb conscious side.
It was very easy to choose foods to fit your dietary needs.
Justin: And there were also some quick eats places throughout the ship as there was a pizza restaurant, had individual size or personal size white pizza. There was a vegan pizza, an ice cream station, a Mediterranean, quick eats place, and a social place that had churria games.
And it was a vegan hot dog, pretzel, candy, mud pork.
Mandi: Wings, yeah. They had specialty milkshakes, they had candy stations there. Yeah, that was incredible.
Justin: And going back to the room was pretty easy to find as we had a cabin that had the letter Z at the end of it. So you weren’t getting confused about odd and even, I didn’t find myself wandering down hallways at any point, getting stuck on some other cruise ships.
You would have to be in a certain part of the ship to get [00:11:00] there. So even if we were in the front, the middle, or the back, it was easy to find the way back to the room. And following the letter Z rather than A was the other option. It was very easy to do that.
Mandi: Yeah, very well
Justin: placed. And it was adults only, or at least 18 plus throughout the ship.
So that was something different than other cruise lines.
Mandi: I think it can get made for a very pleasant experience. It, I highly recommend it.
Justin: We have a listener question here going into the timeline of things. What were people wearing? Also, what was the vibe of the ship? Party party? Older over younger.
Mandi: Justin thought it was funny that people were actually wearing pajamas on the first day. So they had like a red pajama party. People were wearing anything from satin pajamas to lounge pajamas to sequined dresses. You could find any type of attire. As long as you were covered, I don’t think they cared.
Justin: Yes, I don’t think it was all party party either, as if you [00:12:00] wanted to be part of the party, you had the option to do so, maybe on the upper decks of the ships, going to the later night events, but if you just wanted to go to some of the shows, the eateries, walk around the ship, I don’t think there was any problem that people were screaming down hallways or running into your car.
Some hooligan behavior, if they have any incidents.
Mandi: And I didn’t see a lot of old people in wheelchairs trying to, you know, get out of the way. I think it was a typical, like what, thirties to maybe early sixties crowd. Everybody was very personable. I met a lot of people that I enjoyed talking to. Past
Justin: podcast guest, Justin Walter said Holland America is typically the older cruise line.
Maybe Carnival was more of the party, party, younger atmosphere. Yeah, I think this one was mixed.
Mandi: Yeah, it was really good. I’ve also done the Viking cruise and that was definitely an older crowd. This was not an older crowd.
Justin: Back to the room and the ship itself, the Wi Fi was [00:13:00] included, but at numerous times it was really, really slow and at one point I couldn’t even access Google Drive through the Wi Fi.
It was just blocking it. I think we saw that multiple times, certain apps. Certain sites just wouldn’t work. We tried loading our favorite app flues and we couldn’t get to the features and blues, some other apps weren’t loading properly. And even I was trying to complete a flight reservation and I couldn’t pick the seating.
It was just erroring out. So the base Wi Fi had a little bit of issues. I ended up upgrading to the premium Wi Fi, which was 150 for the entire trip. So not so bad as many other cruise lines would charge 20 or 30 a day. But it kind of seems to be a freemium experience in that sense, if you have to pay to access Google Drive or to use certain apps.
But overall, the speeds were a little bit better. I was uploading, downloading content for videos for YouTube. And sometimes it would take like 40 or 45 minutes for a three minute video [00:14:00] file. The wifi had its issue at the time.
Mandi: But I did not upgrade. I kept the basic. I was able to make wifi calling. I was able to use Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp.
I had no issues with what I needed to use the internet for. So. For someone who’s not doing podcasts or uploading drives, whatever you call it, for the regular consumer of wifi, I think you’re fine on the basic,
Justin: I started writing articles now for travel or with Michael Traeger, and I wanted to submit an article using Google Drive that I could be upload it so that that was probably weird.
So other people doing work at sea or working on YouTube, you, you probably have to go with the premium wifi. But thankfully, there’s no situation where you didn’t opt into it before, so now you can’t get it. And another thing I got ripped off, it wasn’t like, Oh, well, now you’re going to have to pay an extra hundred because you did it on board.
Mandi: No, 150. And that was at the beginning of the week. So he had the full week. And the other thing is, is we could switch [00:15:00] devices. So you, you get one device per
Justin: sailor.
Mandi: Justin needed to use two lines at once, he could log into my device and that was no problem at all. I would just be locked out. So you could use the other sampler’s device if you needed to.
Justin: It was a bit quirky at times where I was doing things on my laptop and then I wanted to use the mobile phone, but I had to disconnect from the laptop to go to the mobile phone, connect on the mobile phone. And then go back. If I wanted to say, email myself a picture, I wasn’t able to do that with a laptop.
I have to register the other device. So there was a little bit of going back and forth, which seems to be odd that they’re maybe just trying to get you to pay additional to have an extra device.
Mandi: But overall, I was very happy with
Justin: the wifi. And the first day we were invited to a special cocktail party as we were invited to casino guests, because we did the casino comp offer or took the casino comp offer.[00:16:00]
There was an introduction from the casino host, I believe, Olga.
Mandi: Oh, that was good. Could you remember her name? Yeah. She was very clear that we were able to drink. alcoholic beverages while playing at the casino or at the casino bar. There is a separate bar. You could go up anytime, day or night, and get alcoholic drinks for free.
We were also able to obtain two free specialty coffees per day, per person. This was different than what I did in August. It was unlimited coffees when I was there, so they cut that down to two per day. These were like on two separate floors. Um, they had these specialty coffee stations that were quite lovely.
And then she also explained that we could have up to 6, 000 on a room charge without any interest applied to our credit card at checkout, which we found out was not quite the case. Oh, we’ll,
Justin: we’ll get into that. So room [00:17:00] charge, you can say to the dealer or the pit boss at the time, I’d like to charge 1, 000 to my room and please have 1, 000.
Casino chips. So allegedly the limit was 3000 a day, no fee, and allegedly a $6,000 total limit. Allegedly. You can ask for more. I say allegedly, because as Mandy alluded to, we eventually got back to all that
Mandi: dumb da. Um,
Justin: we , we decided to play multiple sessions, buying in for a thousand dollars, playing blackjack.
And this wasn’t even a great blackjack game, but given that we’re earning credit card rewards on the room loads or the room charges to get casino chips, it was way worth using something like the Chase Sapphire Reserve and getting 3x UR, three times ultimate rewards because it’s coding as a travel expense.
Even though it’s a casino charge, it’s just going to show up as virgin voyages. So even if we’re giving up one or [00:18:00] 2%, we’re getting back 3x points that can easily be worth. 6 percent or more, it was way worth it. What was this game? So the 10 table had a continuous shuffle machine. There’s the first strike, no surrender.
The second strike, the dealer must hit our soft 17 third strike. So the game didn’t have great rules. Like we see at Pennsylvania on the online websites, like FanDuel and DraftKings, the bolt and surrender game. Although to be fair, both would have a continuous shuffler. I mentioned this continuous shuffler because the game goes faster and you’re unable to count, have an advantage in that way.
They offered a table with a single deck, but then the blackjack paid six to five. So that’s total garbage and no one should ever play that. No one should ever play triple zero roulette. They’re just garbage games. So you want to play games with better rules. We bought in for a thousand. We played about 15 to 20 minutes.
[00:19:00] Mandy was betting some 15 hands, played a little bit longer, and we got in four sessions with 1, 000 buy ins. We went back for session number five and what was that experience?
Mandi: It was not a pleasant experience. So we, we thought, well, I thought we played through the thousand dollars. I actually stayed, I think, close to an hour, multiple times.
And like Justin said, I played the 15. I had doubles and splits. I certainly thought I played through the thousand dollars. Fifth time we went into the. Pit boss came over. He looks at us and shakes his head and says, No, we know what you’re doing. You’re not getting any more. You’re welcome to come back to the casino with the money that you have, but we are not giving you any more.
And I said, Oh, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I thought the limit was 6, 000. And he said, but you’re not playing the 6, 000. He wouldn’t explain. Justin even said, you know, we’re putting this in as miles and points on our card, and you clearly [00:20:00] stated we could have 6, 000, but that’s clearly not what they ruled in this case.
And he said, you know, management and I have had a conversation, and you will not be getting any more money. You’re welcome to come down and play with the money. We know you have money from our casino, because obviously Justin and I were ahead on Blackjack.
Justin: And we played well there. Yeah, there were several horrible, horrible plays.
There were players just standing on hands like 8 4. There was one time a player doubled with his 8, a snowman versus a dealer ace. And then people were just not doubling on 11. They weren’t splitting when they should be splitting. I mean, then I’m not saying borderline things that, okay, well, maybe some people don’t know that a seven versus dealer deuce is a double, or maybe they don’t know to split nine in certain situations.
Oh, I already have an 18, but they were just really playing horribly.
Mandi: The one that was the worst was the, the player had an eighth and a four. And the dealer, I [00:21:00] think, had like 10 showing up, and he didn’t pull the card. And I looked at him, and I said, I couldn’t, Justin is the one that usually is the truth teller.
I try to keep my opinions to myself. But I looked at him, and I said, Your hand can’t get any worse than it already is. Like, you can’t really screw that up. You should really hit. And he said, no, no, I’m going to stay, I’m going to stay. And he stayed on Ace 4.
Justin: Yeah, some players might not want to hit on 15 if the dealer has a high card, thinking that, oh, I don’t want to bust, even though the play is to be hit.
But he didn’t even want to take it with Ace 4, which is really strange, because even if he gets a 10, then he’s just at 15, we get lower cards and improve. But they, they didn’t really know what was going on. There were even times where the dealer said, are you sure?
Mandi: Absolutely. And that’s your key to do opposite of what you’re doing.
Justin: Yeah. So, so we got some money down. He ended up off on the sessions and we got the points. So [00:22:00] I’ve been backed off on other cruises. Oh, well, you already have money. So play the money that you have. And this pit boss didn’t want to negotiate. There wasn’t, Oh, well, we’d like you to play 25 at the end or. We’d like you to play a longer session before leaving and maybe that would be doable.
But with some of the rules of the game, a team, a shuffle machine, probably not worth it. Definitely not worth playing straight up. Some people have said, Oh, well, don’t be play longer. The casino would get more offers, but we have eight cruises this year. And we didn’t need to gamble on cruise ships to get any of these prompt offers.
Correct.
Mandi: So we took the 4, 000 in our 12, 000 shades. You are points and we’re good.
Justin: The video poker was really horrible. I looked at the jacks are better payt and they have this silly thing where Jacks are better, pays the same as two pair, so generally two pair will pay two for one, but it was only paying one for one.
Jacks are better and two pair were paying the same. When I plugged their game into the Wizard of Odds pay feeble calculator, it was a 91% [00:23:00] return to player, which is horrendous. That’s terrible, as the full pay would be around 99.54. Or maybe you get a game for a 97 percent return to players. We’ve talked about previous episodes, but a 91 percent return to players, horrible.
It’s almost like if you have a two pair, do you even hold the two pair? You might just want to discard one of the pairs and go for three of a kind or better. That’s how silly it is. So we didn’t touch that. So I don’t know how the process is if you were to charge to room and get slot credit that you play video poker with, or play the slots, which were probably worse.
Or pretty close to that 91 percent return to play. Yeah, it just wasn’t worth it. So blackjack at the tables was okay. We saw roulette, we saw craps. I didn’t see any baccarat and there were also some carnival games, like three card poker, I believe was there too.
Mandi: Well, I know I played in August and I think I took 3, 000 out.
Uh, it was a very short cruise and I had no problem with any of the limits at that point. [00:24:00] Virgin, uh, let me take the 3, 000 out without any problem.
Justin: All right, moving on to the restaurants. We talked about the galley, but there were also individual restaurants that were sit down, you get served from items on a menu that you select.
So we reserve some in advance, we try to double reserve these restaurants to have, say, Pico Gave, which was the Mexican restaurant, two times during the cruise, but you were not allowed to reserve two of the same restaurant. If you reserved one, try to reserve it the second time. An error message pops up saying that you have to go for walking in as we’re giving other diners the opportunity to dine at the restaurants for at least one time before you go two times.
Mandi: Yeah. So I would, um, book your restaurants well in advance of getting on the ship, and you should get an email saying that your dining options are available, and I would book one of each one, because they don’t have your traditional dining room like most of the other cruise [00:25:00] ships have. Where you have your same place that you sit at every night, the menu changes.
It’s not like that on Virgin Voyage. You actually go to their different dining rooms. And we went to every one. So, the, as far as the sit down restaurants. So yeah, I would recommend you booking
Justin: those in advance. Pink Agave, I think that was the first one we went to. And probably my second favorite of all the options.
This was a Mexican restaurant.
Mandi: Yes, I agree. I rated it
Justin: second as well. Very good food. They had a lot of vegetarian options. I know I probably got something like tacos. They had quesadilla that we had with the, they had chips with guacamole. They had some salads. They had some veggie options for tacos.
Mandi: Yes, it was all fresh.
Justin: Very good. The other place we went to was called The Test Kitchen.
Mandi: Multiple people had different opinions on the test kitchen. This is more of a culinary [00:26:00] experience. This is a take your time restaurant. You’re supposed to enjoy your food, taste the different mixtures. I enjoyed it. I did go away full. I heard some people say they didn’t go away full.
I was very full. And I think you could order multiples if you weren’t full at the end. But I had a wonderful tenderloin. I think you had some squash, some sort of a squash. Again, it was not your average restaurant that I would recommend.
Justin: The portion sizes, I think were a bit smaller. Some people were commenting on that, but yes, you could always ask for seconds.
So the people can really blame themselves if you’re going out of the restaurant. Oh, it wasn’t much. Well, okay. You could have asked for more. Right. This is something we heard from people going to points and miles meetups where, Oh, well, I wasn’t really part of many conversations. Okay. Well, people gave you the option to participate or you could have participated more so you could always ask for extra food and the menu.
They do have an [00:27:00] area that you could spend extra. I think a lot of propaganda, treat yourself, pay 30, pay 35 for this or that. But all these restaurants were included in the base fare for us was the comp offer, or if others were. Spending, you get those included. There’s no upcharge for going into the restaurants, but then there are upcharges on the menu.
So we just avoided all the upcharges and took the free stuff. But from the free stuff, you can pick multiple items. That wasn’t a problem. There was a vegetarian menu and a base menu. So there weren’t as many options of this compared to the other restaurants, but it still ended up being a good amount of food.
Mandi: Then we had the Italian restaurant called Extra Virgin. That was a really good restaurant as well.
Justin: Yes, they brought out a cheese board. I had a bean soup gnocchi with some sort of oil sauce, maybe garlic sauce and eggplant Parmesan. Yes. I
Mandi: think I had the steak that night. I had the New York strip actually.
And it was [00:28:00] very good.
Justin: At the end, they brought out a cart with various toppings and ice screens and created something they call affogato, if I’m pronouncing that correctly. It was a scoop or two scoops of ice cream combined with toppings and then they poured coffee over it. Espresso, I think.
Mandi: Yeah, yeah. It was really good.
Very interesting. I’ve never heard of that.
Justin: So lots of options on the menu with the Italian theming. Then we had a restaurant called Lucky Lotus, formerly known as Razzle Dazzle, perhaps called Razzle Dazzle and Lucky Lotus, as the sign indicates. This was a Korean style restaurant. And there were a lot of veggie options, including dumplings, the Buddhist delight, stir fry options, and more.
Mandi: I actually had the prawns there. It was a walnut prawn, a crispy walnut prawns or something. Yeah, I asked for a second portion.
Justin: It was really good. [00:29:00] I thought towards the end of it, it was a little bit of a salty taste in my mouth. We asked for spicy. Um, sauce on the side and they said, Oh, we only make it a certain way.
So we can give you oil on the side. So that was a little bit different because restaurants like this, usually they bring out various types of peppers or spicy sauces, not just an oil.
Mandi: Yeah. I think this was probably my least favorite restaurant, but it was still really good. It was definitely worth going.
Justin: Yeah. I think all the restaurants were good quality, but I put it at the lower portion of the list. But it was nice to have the veggie, healthy options for sure.
Mandi: Yep.
Justin: And I think both of our favorites was Goondae or Gunbae.
Mandi: Korean barbecue place. I saw it on the menu when I was there in August and we didn’t get a chance to go.
So I told Justin I really wanted to put this on a priority. And we saved it to the last and both of us were super impressed. It was community dining, so we sat with two other couples. [00:30:00] Uh, fortunately we had really good couples with us and they, uh, we played a game at the beginning, it got really loud. It was an, a drinking game.
The server served as sort of a host and a cook and a server. So yeah, she was a jack of all trades.
Justin: Yes. There was a hot area in the middle that was inside of the table where the server cooked the food in front of us. So it was definitely a triple duty or perhaps more. And the loudness, the people behind us.
We’re trimming loud when they did the drinking game. So it was very hard for me to hear the server at the beginning of things. And you even asked me, Oh, are you comfortable? It is just really loud. You were taken aback by that because it was very loud.
Mandi: Yeah, it actually made me pretty anxious because they were screaming so loud.
But once, I mean, that only lasted about maybe five minutes. And then it calmed down and we were able to enjoy the whole interaction.
Justin: They gave us a specialty drink that was 17 percent alcohol content. And they [00:31:00] refilled the shots multiple times. So that was complimentary. That was nice of them. To do that, they assured us that there would be no math involved in the game.
Which is unfortunate, because of course, America loves math.
Mandi: Yeah, Justin lost that game first. Yes,
Justin: I got confused about the rules. Because I thought that if the number were divisible by 3, you were supposed to clap your hands. But they said no, it’s only if it includes a 3, a 6, or a 9. So, when I clapped on 21, I was disqualified.
He had to drink first. And they were very generous bringing extra food as well. They kept asking, Oh, would you like more of this? Would you like more than that? So I don’t think anyone could have possibly walked away feeling hungry.
Mandi: No. And these were, they gave Justin his food first as the vegetarian option, and then they cooked all of the meat.
And we had like steak, shrimp, squid, octopus. It was phenomenal. Very, very good. Yeah. They even had
Justin: a lot on a plate of the [00:32:00] raw meat and the raw veggies, the mushrooms, the onions, and boar. So they were ready to put more out there to serve it to you, but yes, everybody was very full at the end of this. You went to several classes throughout this, as they had fitness classes included in the fair.
The yoga class was the first one you went to?
Mandi: Yeah, I was surprised. I thought there would be an additional fee for these classes because they, there were two gyms. And, um, one on the A side of the ship and one on the Z side of the ship. I just assumed it would be an extra cost. So, I didn’t pay that much attention.
And then I looked at it, and they offered spin classes. And I was like, oh, these are free. And then they offered the yoga classes. And I noticed all of them were free. Yeah, there were probably 25 bikes in one classroom. These are top notch bikes. Not only did they have the bikes, they had the shoes. They had all of the shoes cleaned that clip in.
They had multiple times during the day, multiple levels of [00:33:00] spin class. Um, they had the yoga class, which was really nice. It was on the opposite side. They also offered the bungee class, which is something I’d wanted to try multiple times. It’s where they have the bungees hanging from the ceiling and go in and do multiple exercises like jumping jacks and sprints and spins, all of those kinds of things, uh, inverted flips.
And of course they teach you how to do all of that. So I wanted to pay to do that. So being able to do it for free on the ship was really, really nice.
Justin: How much might it cost? In an off ship location.
Mandi: Oh, gosh, probably 20 a class.
Justin: For maybe a half an hour or 45 minutes?
Mandi: Probably 45 minutes to an hour, yeah.
Justin: Okay, so that’s nice they included this in the fare of the ship, that it wasn’t an upcharge. I’ve seen an MSC, oh, you want to use the spa, you want to use this, you want to use that, that’s going to be extra. But here it was included. We didn’t have any haircuts included. I decided to do that myself. And unfortunately clogged the drain a [00:34:00] little bit, the bathroom.
So there’s like a little bit of puddles, but even before that, the shower, it seemed like once you were finished with the shower, there was a little bit of puddle and you had to go wade the water. Into the drain. I’ve experienced that in some high places where maybe the drainage situation in the shower wasn’t the greatest.
It was a bit of a smaller bathroom as well, but they did have a barber shop on board and they also had a tattoo shop on board as well. Could go home with a real tattoo. Probably a squid or an octopus. There was a lot of that imagery throughout the ship. The first stop was. Roatan, Honduras. We ended up walking for a few minutes and to get out of the port, there were two different sides.
It was really dangerous. I thought there’s just a very, very narrow road, cars parked on both sides of it, and there were maybe 10 or 15 people. Taxi, taxi, taxi, a lot of yelling. It was really raucous environments. It, it was very muddy. We tried to walk. We started walking for a few minutes. [00:35:00] People kept approaching us.
And then we just headed back because it didn’t seem so safe and there just wasn’t a proper sidewalk.
Mandi: Yeah, not, not a fan
Justin: of leaving the port area. Things were really broken down. There were some straight dogs that were very underweight. You could clearly see walking around. So I went back to the mating area, but there really wasn’t much to see in the mating area.
There was a bar area with a clear pool. Or a waiting area and several shops, but apart from that, there wasn’t much unless you were going to pay for the taxi or pay for excursions. So I don’t think there was too much out of Honduras for us.
Mandi: And that was okay.
Justin: The next one I thought there was a lot more to it was Costa Maya, Mexico.
And I uploaded several videos. Uh, Flamingos, the approach to Costa Maya with murals, and you could see a playground area, beach, ocean, and the aviary was particularly interesting as you got to go [00:36:00] up close and personal with the flamingos, and for free.
Mandi: And you also saw the swim with dolphins that was in Costa Maya.
Justin: Yes, couldn’t get a good video of that, and there was music blasting in the background that would probably lead to copyright strike me, so that one didn’t work out too well.
Mandi: But it was still a really nice port, a lot of, um, souvenir shops. We think we saw Starbucks.
Justin: And high flying acrobatics. There was a group that called themselves Flyers that had quite the demonstration of playing musical instruments.
There was some twirling. They were atop a very large pole and twirled their way down. So that was really interesting. It was a simultaneous four people, I believe, who were doing it.
Mandi: But my favorite stop was Bimini Beach. That was our last stop. That is in the Bahamas. When we ported, they offered the trams, the golf cart tram, I guess they were connected.
They took us to this private beach area that was just for Virgin Voyages. They had [00:37:00] two or three pools. They had tons of beach loungers and beds and food places. Very, very, very nice.
Justin: And complimentary food too, in the Bimini Beach Club, as there were very large serving areas, they have the jerk chicken, they had a lot of veggie options, desserts, drinks.
The other cruise ports you would have to pay to eat at the restaurants, but this, they gave you the food that was all included.
Mandi: The water was absolutely stunning. It was, like I said, freezing in Alabama, where I’m from, and, uh, I think it was in the 70s. And we were swimming in the ocean, so it was fantastic.
Justin: Yes, I went in the ocean. I was braving the waves. I swam out pretty far and I was able to tread and swim up against the waves that were crashing. So that was pretty fun. I was maybe in the water for about 15 minutes. I thought that was pretty easy, clear water. I got salt in my mouth at one point, but apart from that, pretty good.
A lot of the sand. [00:38:00] So then I went in the pool area and I was able to clean off my feet. And I still have some sand on my shoes at the moment. That’ll go away eventually. You’ll miss it. Some pool experience.
Mandi: You’ll miss that sand.
Justin: The pool’s ownership, I thought, were pretty small. So this gave you a much wider option.
And, of course, going in the ocean was all the space that you could warm.
Mandi: I thought it was, Bimini was my favorite, for sure.
Justin: People were jet skiing as well.
Mandi: Oh, yeah. Those were separate charges, yeah. And I don’t think it was by Gurgen. I think it was, um, some people set up just doing the jet skiing there at the beach.
I think it was Resort Swirl. I think it was a reputable place, but they had additional chairs you could rent from them and jet skis, things like that.
Justin: I didn’t see anyone under 18, but I recall going into the Fisherman’s Village was a part of this Bimini area where I walked around the dock section and saw some of the shops there.
So that was an interesting place. I think I went there on another cruise with different cruise lines. So perhaps this time it was [00:39:00] only Virgin that was there.
Mandi: Oh yeah. Some of the other things we did on the ship. So we went to some of the shows and one of the ones we saw that I thought was the best was the comedy show.
I forget their names. Griffin and John’s. Griffin and
Justin: Jones.
Mandi: Yes. And they were idiot magicians. The seating in there was. It’s pretty good. Um, they had balcony and floor level and it was an hour show. And I think I laughed the whole time.
Justin: Yeah. A mix of comedy and magic. I think they did really well. And they even joked about themselves dragging out some of the tricks, some of the jokes.
So maybe you got three or four tricks in an hour. So it wasn’t so much of fast paced. Kind of experience, but it was good. They were funny. You mentioned about the seating. I think it would have been better if we got there about 15 minutes early, but I didn’t anticipate the place being packed.
Mandi: It was, we got, we actually got there 15 minutes early, but the line was super long.
So for the shows, I think I would probably plan to be [00:40:00] there at least 20, 25, 30 minutes early.
Justin: So that was good. People also mentioned Dual Reality was the name of the show, and they said that was really good. A lot of Acrobatic stunts, good visuals, and more. So there, there were a lot of shows that you could go on.
There was the casino, of course. Swimming opportunities. We got a lot of rest. We were well rested. Sometimes I woke up a little bit hot. So that the HVAC maybe wasn’t the best at times. And I noticed if you opened the door, Door to the balcony, the air conditioning would go off, so you needed to make sure that that closed.
Mandi: I thought it was a very well rounded ship. I, I would, I mean.
Justin: Yeah, for a price of 222, well worth it. Maybe I’d pay five or six hundred to do it. And I say that because we just have so many other crews offers, and we’ll do future shows with future trip reports. But it’s at a point where our schedules were so busy, we had to wait until December.
Of [00:41:00] 2025 to take another cruise because we had so much going on, June, July, August.
Mandi: One of the other things that I wanted to add to the, um, podcast here was the disembarkation. That’s really important on my flights and how I need to juggle things. Getting off the ship from the time we left the room to the customs area after I picked up my luggage.
I put my luggage out the night before. It was exactly 30 minutes. So for me, I thought that went very smooth. There was a little bit of a line, but not much. Everything seemed to move pretty quickly. Customs was just a photograph. They did not require us to take our passports back out. But the problem came when we got into the cruise terminal trying to find an Uber.
So we chose the, we didn’t have a flight to catch today. So we chose to stay on the ship a little bit longer. I think [00:42:00] we chose the 9. 30 time to get off. We went to try to get an Uber or Lyft and it cycled through twice, saying one to seven minutes. You would get your driver details, nothing happened. There were hundreds of people outside in the area.
It was in a separate area from the terminal. I think it was E1. It was an awning that was actually away from the entrance and exit to the cruise terminal. And there were just so many people packed in there with their luggages and everyone was having a hard time getting an Uber or Lyft. So mine circled through the second time and it said, we’re sorry, we don’t have a Lyft for you or an Uber for you.
I think the Lyft to the airport, because we picked up a rental car to Tab in Miami, was at the airport. The Lyft price was about 25. That’s the Chase Sapphire discount with Lyft. You looked at your Uber and it was like, 45, 50, I think. [00:43:00] So we were trying to get the Lyft and, um, it took at least 30 minutes. We still never got one.
The people next to us, I was having a conversation with her and she was lucky enough to get one and she had an, I mean, an, a Lyft XL. So we were actually able to ride share with her, but it took. A total of two hours for us to get off the boat to get to the airport. So that is something I would, uh, make sure people know, like you do not want to try to catch an early flight at Miami.
Justin: Even before we made sure to fly in the night before, so that we can definitely be ready and get on the cruise ship in time because who knows if flights get delayed or canceled and on the way out. Yes. The disembarkation process can take longer. So best not to have a flight at 11 a. m. If you’re expected to get off the ship at nine, that can run too, too close.
So there’s no reason to do that. And we even went a step [00:44:00] further and we’re staying the night after in Miami and then flying out the next day, we’re going to Atlanta. Some people would probably be flying home, but just to give ourselves extra time to not feel rushed, not to be rushing. And if things go wrong, that could be a disaster.
If you end up missing a flight. Because rideshare took too long, or there were some issues with the disembarkation process.
Mandi: The other thing I did back in August was I did schedule my Uber when we were in Bimini, um, the day before. I did use the Wi Fi and schedule my Uber because we did have an earlier flight the day of disembarkation, and we were able to manage that.
So consider scheduling your Uber or Lyft the night before. And you can also let the guest services know if you have a flight to catch, they can manually enter you in to leave the ship earlier. So that’s always an option.
Justin: Maybe you can schedule it for a 11 a. m. pickup if you’re expected to [00:45:00] leave the ship at 9.
30 to give some wiggle room. Maybe that would work, but that could be, that could be dangerous. If you end up taking longer to get off the ship or something goes wrong, or they have to stop the process in some way, who knows they had shuttle options too, but it was 75 a person is what I saw. to go from the cruise port to the airport.
So that, that was really hefty. And the taxis weren’t there either. Yeah, the taxis were
Mandi: not there. They people, everyone was struggling. So I don’t know if this is a normal thing or not, but getting to the airport from the Miami port was, was definitely a challenge.
Justin: It was the first issue I had and all the cruises I’ve gone on that maybe it would be a 15, 20 minute wait max and everything was good, but for whatever reason, lack of drivers, too many people at the same time.
I hadn’t had these problems in Las Vegas either, and that can get quite busy in that rideshare terminal as well. Closing to the end of the show, we have some listener questions. I have the, the subscribe star option that [00:46:00] subscribers can ask guests their questions. Someone wanted to know about you, Mandy.
How is your MGM status in early 2025?
Mandi: Well, I have not been able to use the Dan’s deals yet because I’ve been on the road. Unfortunately, I, um,
Justin: That’s, that’s cardcenter. cc for listeners, right?
Mandi: Correct. Correct. So for me, I do my MGM status with, uh, My NGM card. So I have the The
Justin: Credit card. Credit card,
Mandi: yes.
So I do the grocery store deals for that. I don’t have the option to do the blackjack sites where I live, so I plan to hit that hard when I come back. I just missed a Kroger deal. I think this last weekend. As a matter of fact,
Justin: you used the MGM MasterCard a lot in 2024. You spent your weight to MGM Gold status mostly.
With the Kroger in store deals. So you now have gold status in 2025, but [00:47:00] you’ll just need to re qualify it with spending this year, but you’re good for the entire 2025.
Mandi: That’s correct. I just barely, I barely got in under the wire.
Justin: But you applied for the card later in the year. Correct. So an earlier application wouldn’t be best for listeners.
And now we’re recording in January. So if listeners interested in getting MGM status. Get the credit card early 2025, they’ll have most of the year to spend their way to status. So that should be pretty easy because now, as we’ve talked about in previous episodes, the status matching has fallen in many ways that Wingedil is no longer matching Caesar’s Diamond after January 31st.
So the solution is to get MGM gold status through spending on the MGM credit card. We had a whole episode on that with podcast guest, Darren and the Caesars status as well, where we both now have the Caesars rewards Visa card. It’s getting us halfway to [00:48:00] diamond status. And then we’re both going to play video poker during a tier multiplier promotion.
That’s coming in 2025 to get that diamond stats. I’m going to go for seven stars. It’s decided I got the diamond plus status last year. So the drink vouchers will be right for us. In Vegas and potentially other benefits too.
Mandi: I am definitely rooting you off.
Justin: With MGM, my credit card statement closed in early December, around December 4th.
And what I did was spend on the card after the statement closed. So of course I maxed the credit limit. And now I have 37, 000 tier credits with MGM. So I’m halfway to goal, just one state. And I’m going to go for Platinum once again in 2025. Five. I currently have platinum, but I’ll just need to re qualify for platinum status.
And from the online blackjack, that’s giving me a little bit more tier, not much at MGM. But with Caesars, I’m currently at 1400 [00:49:00] tier, just from online blackjack, and maybe a little bit of a rollover tier from a December earned for next year promotion. Another listener question. Compare this to other cruise experiences with other cruise lines.
Mandi: Oh, this, to me, uh, Virgin Voyage is top of the line. With everything included, uh, even if we didn’t have the, um, casino match, I would be tempted to pay for this cruise. It was really, really good. They don’t nickel and dime you here. They don’t try to take your pictures at every stop and then try to get you to buy them at the end.
Everything is just included. It’s really good. It’s really good. Yeah, then, then the no children are there, there’s lounge chairs everywhere. You know, if you’re not sitting in the seat, I think it’s a 40 minute rule, then your things are taken by the guest services and they are put away and somebody else takes your chair.
There’s no saving seat, but I don’t think you would have to worry about that anyway. There [00:50:00] was tons of seating everywhere. The pools were nice. Multiple hot tubs were throughout the, the pool area as well.
Justin: Yes, I, I thought it was much better than the other cruise lines I went on. Yeah. So it’ll be interesting to go back and tie it in a way and then go on the other cruise ships and then, oh, well, I miss the aspect of Virgin voyages, particularly that the galley or the buffet slash food court area, they give you the food.
You don’t take it out of a bin with tongs or a spoon or anything like that. So it’s more protected, more sanitary, and I think more fresh as well.
Mandi: Yes, very much so.
Justin: Anything else to add about the cruise
Mandi: experience? I think we topped out all of it. It was, um, it was just a great overall experience. I thought everything was top notch.
I would definitely recommend it.
Justin: All right. And stay tuned for more cruise trip reports. We’re going to Atlantis in the Bahamas. So this is hard mode of [00:51:00] bringing food with us, not having the use of Various discounted services, gift cards, casino comps, credits. Although, maybe as podcast listener Stannis says, we cheated a little bit because we’re bringing groceries with us and we used various credits.
Mandi: Wraps that we plan on using and maybe some oatmeal. We got a coffee pot today we’re going to bring with us because I don’t think there’s going to be any coffee pots in Atlantis, so
Justin: we’ll see how it goes. Oh, it definitely gets the frugal seal of approval. of bringing this stuff with us. You used your Chase DoorDash credits to get some of the items to get discounts.
We went to CVS here in Miami using the extra care plus formerly known as care pass. I think it would very much be against my ways to go into a restaurant. A 25 for a small salad is what it’s looking.
Mandi: Yeah, we’ll be, I’ll be curious to see how this Atlantis trip pans out for us. We’ll see how much we can save.
Justin: Thanks for listening and stay tuned for future episodes. [00:52:00] Some closing announcements, early bird ticket sales for Zorkfest 2025, a miles points and gambling event are now live at zorkfest. travelzork. com. I hope to see you at Zorkfest 2025 in Las Vegas from December 5th through December 7th. I’m also looking forward to other events in 2025.
And have a successful 2024 speaking at events with Award Travel 101, Travels Org, Frequent Traveler University, and both Chicago Seminars events. If you’re an event organizer and would like to have me speak at your 2025 event, please contact me. Visit meetup. com slash Philly miles and points to RSVP for monthly greater Philadelphia travel.
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