Scarlet Lady Embarkation Day

Think back to your days in school.   You had a big test the next day and you couldn't sleep.   That's what it's like when you are cruising on Virgin Voyages Scarlet Lady in the midst of this pandemic.   The difference is that you can't study for this test and it's either pass or fail.   Currently an antigen test is administered at the pier.  You must test negative for Covid-19 to board the ship.  No other test results can be used.

Note:   At the time of this writing, Virgin Voyages Terminal V has not been completed.  It will be ready soon, and your experience will differ from ours.

We arrived at the terminal and proceeded to check in.  You show the agent your app on your phone and they scan each passenger's boarding pass.   Prior to arrival, you need to complete several steps using the app including health questions which can only be done on embarkation day.   You've uploaded your vaccination card, passport information, and a photo already.

Our Sailor bands had been mailed to our house, so they just needed to scan them to activate them.  Next we were onto the next station to go through security.   After security, it's time for the all important test.   A few swirls of the swab and we were done for now.   

Tip: Make sure you have your phone, because you'll be checking for an email with your results.   Within 15 minutes you should receive an email with a PDF file attached.  Download the file, hold your breath, and if you pass, go on to show your results and head towards the waiting room.

The picture above means we passed our test and were heading towards the waiting room.   It was around noon when we arrived at the terminal and now it was about 12:30 PM.   We were handed a group number (#3) and directed to the seating area.   We met some of our friends, who had already had their results, and were in the group ahead of us.   

Jacob was one of the greeters who kept us amused in the 1.5 hour wait.  They don't let anyone on the ship until around 2 PM.    Every now and then there would be a cork pop and he'd be celebrating a birthday or other event for a passenger.    There was a constant parade to the vending machines to get some food or drink.  We've been told there will be food and drink in the new facilities when they open.

Once onboard we headed to our cabin to drop off our luggage and then off for some lunch.   There were plenty of crew around to direct you to your cabin and help you get around the ship.   The story continues in our next post.   Welcome aboard Scarlet Lady!

Click the image (left) to read more about this cruise.

Bookmark this page and come back to read all about this award-winning new ship.

Visit our Shutterfly Page to view photo albums.

 

Connect With Us On

Sign-up for Exclusive Email Offers

I recently completed extensive training and have become Travel Safety Verified. As your dedicated Travel Advisor, your safety is our priority, and it's our job to ensure you have the necessary information you need to give you confidence and peace of mind when making your future travel plans. Click the link to review our Travel Safety program with valuable resources that will answer many of your questions.

Where have you explored? 

Gather your travel and food pics and join us every Wednesday afternoon at 4 PM Eastern for the latest installment of #FoodTravelChat

Diary of Virgin Voyages Scarlet Lady Cruise

Introducing a New Cruise Line & New Ship 

In February 2018, Virgin Voyages debuted its headquarters in Plantation, Florida. In November 2018, Virgin Voyages expanded its commitment to Miami by announcing it would build Terminal V, a new 100,000 square-foot terminal at PortMiami estimated at US $150 million, with a scheduled completion in November 2021, and also sail the cruise line's first two vessels from Miami through 2022. 

As of this writing, Scarlet Lady is sailing 4 and 5-night Caribbean voyages out of Miami and the new terminal, now overdue, is almost completed. In fact, when our ship returned to Miami, they did practice docking starting at midnight. 

Virgin Voyages is an adult-only cruise line with many innovations you won't find on other cruise lines. Most notable are the food venues, which are all included, and entertainment which has a unique spin. 

Scarlet Lady was awarded Cruise Critic's Editor's Choice award for Best New Cruise Ship in 2021. They cited "bringing new concepts to sea" and "transforming not just a cruise line but providing excitement for the industry overall" as reasons for the award. 

Is this ship for you? 

Whether you are a first-time cruiser or an experienced one, we highly recommend booking your dream vacation with a travel professional that has cruised on Virgin Voyages as well as other cruise lines. Virgin Voyages set out to transform cruising, and they have hit the mark. However, it's not for everyone, and it could impact your future cruising experiences if you don't have the proper expectation setting from a professional. 

Follow along with us on our voyage to the Dominican Republic and Bimini while investigating this brand-new entry into the cruise industry.

Bookmark this page and come back to read all about this award-winning new ship.  This will serve as the anchor post to his mini-series.  

Day	Port	Blog Posts (Hoover over link for description)	Photo Albums/Videos
Wed Jan 19	Pre-Cruise	xxx	Pre-cruise Hotels
Thu Jan 20	Pre-Cruise	xxx	Pre-cruise Hotels
Fri Jan 21	Miami	Scarlet Lady Embarkation Day Sea Terrace Cabin Lunchtime in The Galley What's for Dinner Pink Agave	Sea Terrace Cabin A or Z (Getting Around) Casino Entertainment Great Outdoors Places & Spaces Retail Shops Scarlet Lady (Exterior) The Galley Pink Agave Miami Sunset
Sat Jan 22	At Sea	We Dare You to Eat One for Breakfast Lick Me Till Ice Cream There's a Chair Waiting for You on Scarlet Lady Stay in Shape on Scarlet Lady Gunbae Korean BBQ	Well-Being Lick Me Till Ice Cream Great Outdoors Gunbae Test Kitchen Sunset Day 2
Sun Jan 23	Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic	Private Tour Puerto Plata Dinner at the Wake	Puerto Plata Pier Macorix House of Rum Walking Tour Puerto Plata Paseo de Dona Blanca Umbrella Street St. Philip the Apostle Cathedral Driving Around Puerto Plata The Chocolate Store Puerto Plata Beach Fortress of San Felipe Taino Bay Puerto Plata The Wake
Mon Jan 24	At Sea	You Wanna Pizza Me	The Pizza Place Scarlet Night The Dock (Lensball) The Dock (Sunset) Extra Virgin
Tues Jan 25	Bimini, Bahamas	xxx	Bimini by Golf Cart Bimini Beach Photo Op Bimini Shopping Stop Exploring Bimini Beaches Bimini Beach Club Bimini Beach Club Lunch Bimini Beach Club Sunset / Bonfire Bimini - Return to Ship
Wed Jan 26	Miami	xxx	yyy

New Ship Overview (Click Here)

Lensball Photography

Lensball photography is the act of taking a photograph through a glass ball also called a lensball. ... The ball uses refraction to bend the light as it passes through the glass, which is of denser mass than air. The lensball acts as a natural frame to capture the scene directly behind it, albeit upside down.

Connect With Us On

Sign-up for Exclusive Email Offers

I recently completed extensive training and have become Travel Safety Verified. As your dedicated Travel Advisor, your safety is our priority, and it's our job to ensure you have the necessary information you need to give you confidence and peace of mind when making your future travel plans. Click the link to review our Travel Safety program with valuable resources that will answer many of your questions.

Where have you explored? 

Gather your travel and food pics and join us every Wednesday afternoon at 4 PM Eastern for the latest installment of #FoodTravelChat

Imagination Entertainment on Windjammer Cruise

Entertainment On Our First Cruise 

What do you do for entertainment without a big band, or Broadway production? Ask a child. They can turn a cardboard box into a cruise ship, or motor home. That's what life onboard was like on our first cruise. Read on to learn about entertainment on Yankee Trader, a Windjammer Barefoot Cruise.

 

Windjammer Barefoot Cruise

Yankee Trader

Our first cruise was a 3-day trip to the Bahamas on a small sailing vessel which could travel under mast or by motor.  See our previous article, How Our Love for Cruising Started, for the beginning of the story.

Entertainment

Unlike the modern cruise lines that have all sorts of entertainment from small lounge shows to Broadway-style musicals, nightly entertainment would be provided by the Captain, crew, and passengers.  The "stage" was the upper deck which also served as the main dining room, bar, and meeting area.

In the center image at  the top left is our captain with his magical elephant.   You can't see it in the picture, but there is one of the passengers laying on the ground and about to get a surprise shower from the elephant.   Props for the entertainment was whatever you could find onboard the ship including towels and other supplies.   We had some creative crew and passengers.

Another event was the rowing contest where all the passengers grouped on the wooden platform beneath the main mast (their row boat).   I'm not certain they made much progress "sailing" but the beer that was flowing certainly kept the spirits high as they fought the high waves.

Thanks for Starting Our Amazing Journey

Captain Jon S. Helmick was the skipper on our first cruise.   We owe a great debt of gratitude to him and the rest of the crew for making our first cruise so special.   It is now more than 30 years since that first voyage and we can remember the events as if they happened yesterday.  That certainly says something about the dedication of that crew to providing a great experience for their guests.

We hope that your first cruise is as memorable as ours.   And for those that have been sailing for years, we hope that you have many fond memories like the ones we've shared here.

You haven't lived until you've Cruised ....

(Updated:  October 23, 2021)

We are feeling a little nostalgic as the first chapter of our professional travel adventure, as a Cruises Inc. independent contractor draws to a close.   We've begun the transition to our new franchise with Dream Vacations, another of the CruiseOne companies that are part of World Travel Holdings.  

Also we are excited because in just a couple more weeks we will be onboard Celebrity Apex with our fellow agents, owners, and associates for our 2021 National Conference.   One of the best parts of the conference is sharing stories from our adventures.    We hope that you have some memories to share and would welcome the opportunity to assist you in creating new ones as well.

 

National Plan A Cruise Month Promotions 

Cruise lines are offering special promotions and pricing on popular cruises to encourage consumers to plan their next cruise vacation now. We'll be featuring promotions on our website and social media.

Connect With Us On

    
    

Sign-up for Exclusive Email Offers

I recently completed extensive training and have become Travel Safety Verified. As your dedicated Travel Advisor, your safety is our priority, and it's our job to ensure you have the necessary information you need to give you confidence and peace of mind when making your future travel plans. Click the link to review our Travel Safety program with valuable resources that will answer many of your questions.

Where have you explored? 

Gather your travel and food pics and join us every Wednesday afternoon at 4 PM Eastern for the latest installment of #FoodTravelChat

How Our Love for Cruising Started

click images to enlarge

Windjammer Barefoot Cruises

Yankee Trader 

Bahamas

Our Very First Cruise

Do you remember your first cruise?  If you've not cruised before, do you recall an early trip you took with your family?   Vacations are all about making memories.

As part of Plan a Cruise Month we co-hosted a special #FoodTravelChat last week about desserts,  and included many images from our cruises .  We thought it would be fun to turn back the clock to our very first cruise.  Looking through our old photos, we selected a few to use in this column.   The image on the left shows several images of the Bahamas, which was the destination of our short cruise.  It also shows the mast of our ship and a sister ship that was sailing with us. The images in the right photo were from the Captain's dinner which included a toga party and entertainment by the passengers and crew, including the Captain.

Yankee Trader

Certificate signed by the captain of Yankee Trader

Windjammer Barefoot cruises operated out of Miami, Florida back in the 80s when we took our first cruise.   It was normal for two ships in the fleet to sail together.  In our case the Yankee Trader, which we were on, was joined by M/S Fantome, the flagship of the fleet.   You can see her in the photos above as well. Yankee Trader was smaller than Fantome with a length of 179 feet and passenger capacity of 70.

We had no intention of going on a windjammer cruise when I went to a local travel show with a friend.   I filled out entry forms at various booths and to my surprise, got a phone call that we had won a passage on the ship.  All we had to do was get to Florida, and if desired pay for the stowaway night (which cost us $25). 

Toga Party & Captain's Dinner

Unlike other cruises on ocean-going ships, dress code on the Yankee Trader was very casual.  They didn't call them barefoot cruises for nothing.   Dressing up for the Captain's dinner meant putting on your sandals.  The night of the dinner began with a toga party.  The rules were that you needed to make your toga from whatever materials you could find and you must not have anything underneath the toga (and the female Purser checked to be sure).    Some of the people knew about the party in advance and were prepared.  We had not know but still participated.   My husband used a nightshirt for his toga and I used some sheets.   The winner of the event had been on the cruise the week before and had collected vines and other embellishments.

Dinner was a pig roast complete with all the trimmings. The Captain did the honors, carving the pig while the crew finalized the preparation of the other items.  To date we still remember this dinner party and the great time we all had.  This is what a great cruise is made of - memories that last for a lifetime.

It is sad that the current generation will never sail on these beautiful sailing vessels.  The fleet is gone and Captain Michael Burke, their founder, passed away several years ago closing the book on this chapter forever.

It was by chance that we took this first cruise.  We fell in love with cruising and the sea on this trip and the rest is history.   If you've not cruised before, we hope that you'll find a similar experience in your future.  We are certain once you take that first cruise, you'll fall in love like we did.

(Updated:  October 22,  2021)

Yesterday my husband and I signed paperwork to purchase a Dream Vacations franchise.  We've been part of the World Travel Holdings host agency since 2005.   Those that know us, are aware that cruising is our number one favorite mode of vacation travel.   It isn't the only travel option our clients enjoy, so the name change will help identify the wide-range of choices we can help with.   We are Travel Memory Makers and we enjoy every minute of it.

National Plan A Cruise Month Promotions 

Cruise lines are offering special promotions and pricing on popular cruises to encourage consumers to plan their next cruise vacation now. We'll be featuring promotions on our website and social media.

Connect With Us On

    
    

Sign-up for Exclusive Email Offers

I recently completed extensive training and have become Travel Safety Verified. As your dedicated Travel Advisor, your safety is our priority, and it's our job to ensure you have the necessary information you need to give you confidence and peace of mind when making your future travel plans. Click the link to review our Travel Safety program with valuable resources that will answer many of your questions.

Where have you explored? 

Gather your travel and food pics and join us every Wednesday afternoon at 4 PM Eastern for the latest installment of #FoodTravelChat