I Tried an Adults-Only Cruise – It’s Advertised Wrong!

I’ve just disembarked an adults-only cruise with the controversial cruise line Virgin Voyages.

Virgin describes their cruises as “luxurious and fun”, but if you’ve ever seen Virgin cruises mentioned in a news story, it’s probably been about the crazy parties, the very adult entertainment or perhaps the onboard tattoo parlours.

Virgin cruises are all about being different – and they certainly are.

I was nervous about whether this cruise would suit me because when I’d tried a short Virgin cruise way back in 2021, I came away unconvinced.

I avoided a lot of the interactive adult entertainment and was so confused by some of the decisions that Virgin had made – like the black soap.

The spontaneous shows were really weird, and I even found a ‘time to play’ kit full of adult toys in my cabin.

That cruise was only short though, and it was a long time ago. Ever since, I wondered if I was missing out on something I’d really like by not considering a Virgin cruise.

I knew that they had changed a lot of things since I was last onboard, a lot based on guest feedback.

Friends of mine who had cruised with Virgin tried to convince me for years, and after five years, I decided to try it again.

My hope was that the cruise line would have settled down a bit and it would be clear who this cruise line was for. My fingers were crossed that it would be me.

I decided to book 10 days onboard Valiant Lady and booked the trip with a couple of friends. This cruise wasn’t cheap by any stretch of the imagination, and as I chose it, I hoped that my friends wouldn’t be disappointed.

They’d never cruised with Virgin before but had cruised with the more mainstream cruise lines.

I figured that if things were really bad or strange, we could at least laugh together but if the cruise did deliver what it promised, it could be a new favourite of mine.

The reality was not what I expected, and being onboard all those years ago really didn’t prepare me for this cruise.

I boarded the ship in Portsmouth and our planned itinerary was heading across to Amsterdam then up to Scotland and onto Iceland.

I was given a boarding time of 2:30 pm, and because I arrived after that time the check-in was really fast and easy.

The only bad part for me was that I had some sour sweets in a random sandwich bag in my handbag, and because you can’t usually bring open food through security, I ate a whole mouthful in one go.

If anybody saw me checking in for this cruise, I wasn’t crying I promise, I just couldn’t feel my jaw.

I had sour sweets in my bag because I am a motion-sick person, and it stops me from feeling car sick in cars.

I hoped that we wouldn’t have any rough weather on this cruise because if we did I’d have paid a lot to just be asleep. Given the itinerary, that was a very real risk.

Boarding so early did mean that I wouldn’t be onboard for lunch like I am on some cruises, but that’s because on a Virgin cruise you don’t have to leave your cabin until 10:30 on disembarkation day, which is pretty unheard of.

On most cruises, you have to be out of the cabin by 8 a.m., and I’ve been on cruises before where it’s been 7:30 a.m., which really is miserable.

I hoped that I’d find other surprising benefits like this that I’d enjoy more than other cruise lines.

The staff put this wristband on my wrist and this is what we would use throughout the cruise, we’d use this to get into our room, to get on and off the ship and to charge any onboard spend to.

It’s called the band, which isn’t the most inventive name, but I like it, it works.

Looking up at the ship, it was clear Virgin wanted to be different with this design. Personally, I think it looks more like a battleship than a cruise ship, but Virgin had to do something different to stand out.

No other cruise line has had a grey ship like this before, I’ll leave it up to you to decide if that’s a good thing or not.

At the back of the ship I could see a net high up. I knew that this was something that you could walk on if you wanted to and I definitely wanted to try that during the cruise.

That is not something to do if you’re afraid of heights, but to be honest I was much more afraid of the onboard entertainment than the net.

Interactive entertainment usually has me running far away, and I knew that I even had an interactive dinner on the schedule.

Walking into the ship, I met my friends in what is called “The Roundabout”. I’d call this the atrium, and there are lots of situations where Virgin have different names for common cruise things.

For example, they call their passengers “Sailors” instead of guests, and they claim not to have a buffet, although I don’t agree with that one. The reception desk is “Sailor Services”, and onboard credit is “Sailor Loot”.

For an atrium that went only over two levels, it did feel impressive. I think the colours and the furniture here are really fun. I know it’s not to everybody’s taste, but I think it makes a nice change from the orange wood you get on more traditional ships.

On both levels there are bars, and this really was the heart of the ship. We’d come back here for the big Scarlet Night party, but more about that later.

At the top level is an ice cream parlour, so I wasted no time heading up there to get an ice cream. The name is “Lick Me TilI Ice Cream”, which I think sums up a Virgin cruise.

You definitely wouldn’t get a name like that on Cunard or a more traditional cruise line, but you wouldn’t get such good included ice cream on any of the other lines either.

On most cruise lines you’ll have a soft scoop or perhaps a couple of flavours in the buffet, but here there were loads of ice cream flavours, different types of cones, and it was open all day. I never saw it closed.

I usually went for vanilla ice cream because it’s hard to beat – it’s just perfect.

Heading outside with my ice cream we decided to walk along the promenade deck and then to head up to the top.

Out on the promenade deck we found lots of seats including a sofa for anybody who has legs that are about 6ft long, and some really strange wooden chairs.

I’d sit on these cross-legged, and they were quite comfy. It seemed to me like these chairs were very much designed for people with no mobility issues at all, so I was curious to see what kind of age range would be on this cruise.

Up on the main deck we found the pool and a few other things you’d expect on a cruise ship, like sunloungers and hot tubs.

There were lots of types of sports equipment around and a running track that is up and above the main pool deck.

The sun was shining, and the red of the ship looked really cool – although I do think a lot of this ship feels quite industrial in places.

As the cruise went on, I’d realise that most of the things I really liked about this cruise weren’t actually to do with the ship itself.

It took me a few days to really work out what a Virgin cruise was about, and I don’t think that the advertising of a Virgin cruise really promotes the things that I care about most.

Virgin for example give all of their crew WiFi for free, which might not sound like a huge thing but almost no other mainstream cruise line does that. For me that’s really important.

I can enjoy my cruise more when I know that the crew are happy and they certainly seemed it.

Virgin have much more relaxed uniforms than most cruise lines and the crew are allowed to have different hairstyles and facial hair!

I wish that was the case across the industry, but sadly it isn’t. On Virgin, the crew can eat in the regular restaurants too, and normally they aren’t ever allowed to do that.

WiFi is included for guests, which is great. There are packages you can upgrade to, but the basic version is free.

As it got closer to dinner time, the app announced that dinner was coming up soon.

We had the restaurant Pink Agave booked and I was really looking forward to it. This restaurant was Mexican-themed, and we had it booked twice during the cruise.

I actually went to every restaurant twice, apart from one I’d try later which we all agreed we didn’t want to do again.

There are no dress codes at all onboard Virgin cruises. Well, you do have to wear shoes and more than swimwear, but I don’t think I’d count that as a dress code; that’s basically just please be dressed.

There were a few suggested clothes for events, like the pyjama night or Scarlet Night, but that was it.

I didn’t ever have to go back to get changed before dinner which was the main thing, I could have worn shorts and a T-shirt on this cruise all day, every day. The weather didn’t allow that, but I could have.

Virgin Voyages don’t have any restaurants that cost extra, which is a massive selling point compared to most cruise lines.

They do have a few items on the menus you can pay extra for if you want, I never did.

We booked all our dinners on the day they opened bookings before the cruise.

I’m so glad that we did because food would be such a huge part of this cruise, and I have heard from other people that if you wait until you get onboard, you don’t have as much choice.

We usually ate around 6 pm, which was perfect, and we never found the buffet completely closed at any point.

This is where a great travel agent is worth their weight in gold, because they can let you know about any quirks like this so you don’t miss out on anything you’ve paid for.

We can even book the restaurants for you if you’d like us to, it’s all up to you. It doesn’t cost extra to use an agent, it often costs less than booking direct.

If you don’t already have an agent you know and love, please get in contact with me and my agency at The Cruise Globe.

You can book through The Cruise Globe app or my website. We have teams in the UK and USA and are ready and excited to help!

All of the food we had in Pink Agave was fantastic both times, and the same could be said for the Italian Extra Virgin and the Wake, which was a steakhouse at the back of the ship.

I eat a lot of cruise ship food, but this was without a doubt the best that I’ve had for years.

It felt similar to the food I’d had on luxury lines like Viking, but there was a lot more of it.

I would change the buffet situation slightly personally, but I didn’t know that on the first day.

The interactive, unpredictable entertainment was the thing I was most nervous about on this cruise.

The first show that I saw in the theatre was called the Misbehave show, and as somebody who is used to very traditional singing and dancing cruise ship entertainment, I thought it was really strange.

The title does give that away though.

The show is described as “a chaotic, highly interactive, and unpredictable adult game show blending comedy, cabaret, and audience participation” – which I just went to to include in my video, to be honest.

That isn’t something I’d ever look at and think “Oh great, I love a bit of unpredictability”. Especially with audience participation

Virgin Voyages are completely adults-only and some of the entertainment definitely leans into that.

Not all of it though, you definitely don’t have to go to any of more adult entertainment like this if you didn’t want to

I didn’t find anything offensive at all; I just didn’t really find it shocking, and to me it wasn’t really very funny.

Everybody around me seemed to be loving it though, and I did enjoy watching it with my friends because half the fun for us was looking at each other thinking, “What on earth is happening?”

That said, the performers were fantastic, they gave it their all.

We had some acrobatics on my Virgin cruise in 2021, but we didn’t have any shows like that on this cruise, which was a shame. I would find a lot of entertainment more to my taste though.

Next up was the pyjama party and this was much more me. I got changed in my best Paddington Bear pyjamas and headed to the party that was being held in The Manor.

The Manor is the main nightclub onboard, and it really does feel like a proper nightclub.

There’s a bar on both levels, and I loved standing up on the top looking down. The Diva, who is the resident onboard drag queen, was at the party and I loved it.

She would also host the bingo, which I went to see, and other events around the ship, like trivia.

Her outfits were always amazing. I wish I could walk in those high shoes – every Virgin Voyages ship has a Drag Queen.

The atmosphere onboard was great. There were people of all ages, from all countries, and everybody was so friendly and fun.

It felt like a really inclusive cruise, and I loved that.

The Virgin Voyages adverts might make you think that it’s only a cruise line for attractive young people with tattoos and beards, but that isn’t it.

I saw people all the way from age 18 up to people in their 80s and 90s. As long as you’re somebody who is kind and accepting of others, you’re welcome onboard.

The entrance to the manor feels like a maze of mirrors. It’s very photogenic. This all-round was a very photogenic cruise ship. Very YouTube-able.

I didn’t stay long at the party, but the great thing was that I was already in my pyjamas and was ready for bed. I am kidding – I didn’t wear my party pyjamas to bed.

Our cruise took us first to Amsterdam. We arrived in the afternoon and left the next dinner time. That meant that we could head out to Amsterdam in the evening and then go back out the next day.

She’s a pretty big cruise ship. In total, the ship holds around 2700 passengers, and at this point it really didn’t feel too busy.

We could always get seats anywhere we wanted, but I knew that as the weather got colder, this might be more difficult.

When we were onboard the ship for lunch or breakfast, we would usually head to the Galley. This is what Virgin Voyages doesn’t call a buffet, but I do.

I totally understand them not wanting to call this a buffet, because the word “buffet” really doesn’t do the food justice.

That said though, it is in the part of the ship where a buffet usually is; it has buffet tables, self-service drinks, and I’d always walk up, ask for my food and go sit down with it. To me, that is a buffet.

The food in here is made fresh at each station and it really was amazing food. The desserts, in particular, were so good: they had great doughnuts and cakes.

I also really loved the vegan burger I had here, even with vegan cheese. It was great to see that there were plenty of vegetarian and vegan options on all of the menus, even in the steakhouse.

Before you ask, “Why would a vegan go to a steakhouse?” They do have friends and family, and not having to be left out is great.

I had the veggie option in the steakhouse, and it was really nice. I had it twice actually.

I loved how each area in the buffet had its own design, and here was one of my favourite things about the ship.

The Coke machines. You could get your own glass and get a glass of Coke or something else, whenever you wanted.

As you can imagine, I did do that a lot, and it was good quality. I don’t drink alcohol really, so for me, this was nearly perfect. If it was Pepsi it would have been better, but it was close.

Virgin includes soft drinks as standard everywhere. That meant that in any bar or any restaurant we could order them, and they’d just come to us. There was no having to give our room number or anything like that because it’s included for everybody.

It was when we got to Amsterdam that I really started to explore the ship.

Towards the back, I found a lounge called the dock house. I love the design, and it never took us long to be served at all.

I did have $100 of what Virgin calls a bar tab, which is basically onboard credit that can only be spent on drinks, so I had a few mocktails during the cruise.

Walking further into the ship, we came across the social club and The Loose Cannon.

We spent a lot of time here during the trip and decided to sit in a booth for trivia.

It’s perhaps no surprise that our group of Brits always seemed to gravitate to the pub. They’d have trivia most days on the cruise, and the themes really were broad.

We never did win any, but I felt like I’d won something every day, and here they had an unlimited supply of Cake Pops and Swedish Fish.

I’d never had a cake pop before, but it was amazing; I’m now wondering why every cake doesn’t come on a stick. I had one every day from the day that I discovered them.

If this was on any other mainstream cruise line, you’d pay a lot for these. Not having to think about if things were included, really made it feel quite luxurious to me, even if I had paid a lot to be there – more about that later

There was popcorn and pretzels and hot dogs here too. As well as lots and lots of games.

I saw more people playing games and doing puzzles on this cruise than any cruise I’ve been on before. I really loved that. I’m quite a fidget and always need something to keep me entertained, so that worked well.

Although some of the theatre entertainment wasn’t suited to me, this kind of chilled-out entertainment certainly was.

If I were on this cruise and not creating videos, I’d have just avoided the more interactive adult entertainment.

Heading further into the ship, we came across the tattoo parlour and saw a man getting a big tattoo on his thigh.

There was one big thing I was not sure about on the sea day as we headed up to Scotland: going to a restaurant called Gunbae.

It said something about being a very sociable, interactive kind of dinner, but because my friends wanted to go, I went too.

Our tablemates were absolutely lovely, and our host, who was cooking the food for us, was too.

The food itself was pretty good, but I don’t love having to play drinking games with strangers.

It was quite loud, and it was hard to hear the other people. They were chanting GUNBAE! Then they had the food cooked in front of you and you pass it around.

It’s a bit awkward sharing food with people you don’t know, with everybody trying to be polite and not take too much so the bowl can go all the way around the table.

We all decided that it wasn’t for us, we were glad we went but we didn’t need to go back again.

We enjoyed the food everywhere else so much too and only had a limited number of days to try and eat as much as possible. I knew that I had to try the pizza, and I did do that the next day

.I started my sea day by heading to the buffet and picking up one of these quick “grab and go” boxes.

They had different fruits available, and I wish I had access to this every day of my life. I don’t think I’d ever get bored of eating this. They had lots of bagels, cereals and other breakfast foods too.

When the buffet was busy, we would go and sit in Gunbae, which was great – no drinking games required.

That meant that we were always able to find a seat without having to walk around too much.

(I have heard a rumour that Virgin have stopped having Gunbae open for extra buffet seating, but I’m not too sure about that. If that is true, I’m disappointed because it was such a good idea.)

The pizza onboard was great. It is completely included in the cruise fare, and made to order, and it’s so, so good.

They have a menu you can order off, or you can pick the toppings and have your own made.

The chicken pesto was my favourite, and I had three of these during the cruise. The room itself was really nice, and there was outside seating too.

While we were waiting for our pizzas to be cooked, they gave us a little buzzer, and they did the same at the buffet.

Considering it was a sea day, the ship felt spacious, but I knew that everybody was spread out. It was still relatively warm at this point, but that wouldn’t last long.

Our cruise visited Edinburgh and Invergordon in Scotland. In Edinburgh we had to tender to get to land and we were able to pick our tender time in the app the day before.

We picked 10am, and we did board our tender within about 10 minutes of that which was great.

The whole tender process took 40 minutes, but most of that was our tender bobbing around in circles waiting to dock.

We didn’t mind though because we had a dolphin nearby who we were really excited to see. The locals tell me that his name is Derek, which is very cute. Derek the dolphin.

Queensferry is about 10 miles from Edinburgh, but we got an Uber, and it took around 30 minutes each way. I have taken the train before too, and that’s a good option.

Edinburgh is an amazing city with so much to see and do. It was difficult to do much in the few hours that we had, but I really enjoyed it.

In Invergordon we stuck closer to the port but this is the main port to go to see the Loch Ness Monster, or to go into Inverness. I have been before but didn’t manage to find Nessie.

Have a look at that previous UK cruise I took with Princess Cruises – It was a world away from this cruise with Virgin Voyages!

In the theatre during the evening was a show called The Magnets.

This was much more my kind of entertainment, and I really enjoyed it. They’re an acapella band with a beatboxer, and they were all amazing.

They performed twice during the cruise, and I went back both times. I felt safe in the knowledge that I could just sit and watch this show and wouldn’t be involved at all.

The only time I’ve ever been on a cruise ship stage, they shaved my hair off, so maybe that’s why I don’t like it! (I am kidding, of course; that was for charity and great fun.)

I did sit right at the back at the Magnets show though, just in case. On my first Virgin Voyages cruise in 2021, there were a lot of random things that just happened. I’d be sat in the bar and suddenly in the middle of a jellyfish forest.

The spontaneity of the entertainment is definitely something that’s changed, and as somebody who likes a schedule and a plan, I love it.

This theatre room is really impressive. The chairs fold back, and they did that during a party called the “UNTITLED DANCE SHOW PARTY THING”.

I couldn’t have described it better myself. I found myself a space on the top level and watched as everybody danced and followed the instructions on the screen.

This was a fantastic cruise for people-watching, and I never at any point felt forced to participate.

I realised around now that I had been so busy eating cake pops and hiding at the back of theatres that I had neglected to find one of the most important things on a cruise for me. The cookies!

There was a cafe onboard, and it was here that I found them. They were chunky cookies, very gooey and so good, included in the cruise fare, of course.

You can tell what a cruise lines food is going to be like just by the cookies, and these were as good as the rest of the food.

I didn’t want to eat too much, though, because I had dinner at Ariya, which is an Indian restaurant onboard.

I’d heard a lot about this restaurant as it is still quite new.

The food was fantastic, and I ordered a starter that was a circle of crisps you pour liquid into and then eat. I don’t think I was meant to fill it up to the top because they were hard to pop in my mouth, but they were tasty.

Being with friends on this cruise meant I had more food to film than ever, so I’m sorry if the video of my cruise makes you hungry.

My friends were very kind, and they always let me film their food before eating it. They’d sometimes order multiple dishes too, which meant that I got to see even more.

It’s totally fine to do that if you can’t decide between two dishes or you just want to try both, theres no limit or charges for extra courses.

Between the four of us, we never had a bad dish over the 10 days.

The only slightly negative food experience I’d say was the wait time at the buffet on the busy sea day, which was around 10 or 15 minutes.

That wasn’t a big problem if you were eating the same thing, but when there are four of you all waiting different wait times, it just means that you don’t all end up eating at the same time.

Sometimes I’d eat one dish basically as a starter while waiting for the next. That is the price that has to be paid for this food court style buffet, though.

After eating a massive meal at Ariya for some reason I thought this would be a good time to go up to lay on that net.

I don’t know why I thought that would be a good time, it probably wasn’t, but I did it anyway.

Two people from our group volunteered to stay at the bottom by an area called The Dock.

They say they were being kind by offering to film, but really I think they didn’t want to do this. Which is very fair. It isn’t actually the height that’s the worst part.

You can see me here crawling across the net, and what the net is made up of is plastic balls joined with big ropes.

It’s really uncomfortable to walk on because you have to take your shoes off, but I managed to lie down and look down.

From here, I could see straight down 10 decks and the wake behind the ship. It was good fun for this photo but it definitely wasn’t a comfortable place to lay.

It was a bit bouncy too, considering I’d just eaten three courses.

The rest of the cruise wasn’t as bouncy, but I was prepared for it to be. We headed up to Iceland and had two sea days to make the journey.

Virgin Voyages app did make it sound like we’d be experiencing some bad weather, but I think they were just being dramatic to make the reality seem better.

The app was pretty dramatic all round, we got a lot of notifications and I turned them off after a while. They kept trying to get me to do an IV – which isn’t something I’ve ever thought about on a cruise.

The daily schedule was busy with things like exercise classes and game shows, but I decided to try out the sun club cafe.

It wasn’t sunny, but it didn’t matter. Here they had different bowls of food and popcorn, it was really nice.

They had other small places like this to get food too, like The Dock below the net.

To order here you’d put up the little flag and they’d come over to you. In theory, the same is the case in the buffet, but I never tried that.

When we reached Akureyri and Isafjordur, I was so excited. I love Iceland and knew that we had an excursion booked to a waterfall called Goafoss.

We booked this one independently without the cruise line, and it was half the price of the cruise line’s version. We had a small bus and were actually on the bus with other people from our ship.

The waterfall was amazing, and look who I found. I’ve named him Puff the magic Puffin and I love him.

It was easy to walk around and although to was a drizzly day we managed to stay dry for the most important part.

My raincoat was definitely important on this cruise, but so was my red dress for Scarlet Night.

I’ve been on cruises with coloured themed nights before; white night is the most popular, but it’s always just been a suggestion that a few people follow.

On Virgin, it really felt like the whole ship came alive, and most people wore something red.

I put on a red dress and had to put on a cardigan because it was cold. I didn’t have a red cardigan, but I figured that the Virgin ship is grey and red, so why can’t I be? I was just dressed as Valiant Lady.

Or any of the Virgin ships, actually – they are all pretty much identical inside and out.

Plenty of people just wore a red T-shirt or a red dress, but some really went all out.

There were sequins and feathers and all sorts. I don’t think you could go too far with this. They had giant inflatable octopus tentacles in the atrium and told us the story about the myth of Scarlet Night.

There were games scattered around, and we played a game of Jenga which had truth or dares on it.

I started off on a depressing note with truth: Do you think you know how you’ll die?

But then I had a dare which was very easy for me to complete: speak in a British accent for 5 minutes

I’m pretty sure I can do that for more than 5 minutes.

There was a real mix of Americans, Canadians, Australians, Brits and more. It was great to get so much variety.

The party moved into the theatre, where one of the performers sang a few songs, then into The Manor for everybody to dance the night away.

I do wish that we had had Scarlet Night during a hotter part of our cruise because I’ve heard great things about how the party is up on the main pool deck.

Apparently that’s the reason why the actual pool is so tiny, because it’s more about standing around and dancing.

Still, that does give me a good reason to book another Virgin cruise, which I definitely will.

This cruise wasn’t cheap, but I do feel like I got what I paid for, and it definitely is possible to book a Virgin cruise cheaper than the one I took.

It was the itinerary that attracted me to this cruise mostly, and also being able to cruise with my friends, which I’m so glad I did.

I paid £2479 ($3300) for this cruise (not including my flight back from Reykjavik). That price is based on two sharing, and it’s my half.

Normally I’d say I bought this, bought that, and this is the total, but I didn’t spend any extra money on this cruise.

My friends had an inside cabin, and they only paid £1604 ($2100) for it each, a massive saving, and for them it was well worth it.

If you are interested in a Virgin cruise, or any other, don’t forget to get in touch with my team through The Cruise Globe app or on my website. You can find the details at the bottom of this article.

My friends had no regrets about their cabin choice and, to my relief, really enjoyed the cruise.

Have a closer look at my time onboard in the video below:

I do think a lot of other cruise lines could learn a thing or two from Virgin, and that isn’t something I ever thought I’d say when I took my first cruise with them all those years ago.

I do think I’ll skip a few of the more interactive shows next time, though, and spend the time in my hammock instead.

Before You Go

While I was sailing on Valiant Lady, my parents were taking their first trip with Holland America. Have a look at the cheapest inside cabin on Nieuw Statendam here:

Holland America’s Cheapest Cabin: Was It Worth It? (Under £100 Per Night!)

I spent eight days onboard the world’s biggest cruise ship, Legend of the Seas. Find out how I got on here:

I Spent 8 Days on The World’s Biggest Cruise Ship