From fine dining to sex tips, here’s what to expect on a sailing aboard Virgin Voyages’ Scarlet Lady
After explaining how to control the TV, curtains – and sexy mood lighting – in our cabin via a tablet, Baso, one of Virgin’s crew, produced a package named Time to Play Kit from a drawer. “You can use this if you want to have a good time, but it will cost you,” he said. We couldn’t help but laugh, when the contents turned out to be a pack of condoms, lube and a sex toy.
It’s extras like these (some of which you pay for) that make Virgin Voyages different to any other cruise line. It’s a seamless experience, too – checking in on Scarlet Lady at Portsmouth for a Long Weekender cruise was super-fast. We received a free Covid-19 test and in 15 minutes, we had our negative test results and were in our Sea Terrace cabin, our home for the next three nights – Time to Play Kit and all.
On our first night we were approached by a man in a white lab coat and asked: “Do you like being spanked during foreplay?”. He was a researcher for the comedy Never Sleep Alone, which is fronted by New York ‘sex therapist’ Dr Alex Schiller who uses the answers in her show.
Schiller offers sex advice one minute and bursts into song the next
Part of Virgin Voyages’ ‘immersive and modern entertainment’, Schiller offers sex advice one minute and bursts into song the next, while slipping out of her tight, black, tailored suit to reveal a lacy corset, in this cabaret-style show. Only on one of Virgin Voyages’ Summer Soirees will you find entertainment that’s so quirky – aiming to shock and arouse its audience.
Not only did the entertainment arouse us on this edgy ship, but the food tantalised our taste buds too. Where other ships have a main buffet serving a range of cuisines, Virgin Voyages provides a food hall-style offering and table service, with everything from pizza, sushi and tacos to bento boxes, salads and burgers. But my sweet tooth got the better of me, so I joined the queue at the Lick Me Till Ice Cream bar, where I got my tongue around the irresistible scoops.
With six restaurants on board, guests will find something that will tickle their fancy – my favourite was the Test Kitchen, which served a taster menu of six extraordinary dishes that wouldn’t look out of place at a Michelin-starred restaurant. We felt like millennials, with mobile phones always at the ready, using an app to make sure we didn’t miss restaurant bookings, shows and what was going on around the ship (free Wi-Fi for all guests makes this easy).
But mainly we didn’t want to miss a picture opportunity as we explored this Insta-perfect ship. We put the skills we picked up at our blackjack lesson earlier in the day to the test at the casino and managed to win a wad of cash that went towards some retail therapy before returning to our cabin for some well-earned time to play.
Book it
A Long Weekender to Zeebrugge, sailing round-trip from Portsmouth, staying in a Sea Terrace cabin on Valiant Lady, starts from £518.
virginvoyages.com
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