Hi, and welcome to host Pat, I'm Lisa, and joining me, this is going to be a special episode. I've got Amber and her boyfriend, hey. Hello! Here. Alright, so, the reason we've got them, and I think I've wrapped you guys for this. I let you know that you've ever had the opportunity to go out first, put in voyages, cruise, and that was pretty cool. And I've got all kinds of questions for them, and I want to, so they got home on Friday, and today is Sunday, and I have not talked to them about it at all, which has been very painful,

and because I wanted to save it all for an authentic podcast. So that's where we are now, so I'm like super excited, and I want to hear all the wonderful things that they've done, seen, eaten, tasted, experienced, everything. A little background, well, I'll just make this a conversation. So they're new to podcasting. You need to move the microphone between the two of you, please. By the base, there you go. Swing the base, so you can both talk into it.

Yeah, that's better. Alright, so don't be afraid to get close to it. So I want to know, Amber, you've been on other cruise lines. Yeah, I have. This was my first time on Virgin Voyage, as though. And you just turned 19. Yes. And you did make one comment that you felt you were the youngest. Oh, I definitely was. There were maybe 10 other couples we saw that were in their 20s, but other than that, the majority of sailors were 30 to 50 years old, I'd say.

OK, that's pretty cool. But it was super nice because it was adults only. No kids at all. You were the kid. Yeah, yeah, I was. OK, what did you expect going on to this? Did you expect a lot of? I think we did expect more people to be around our age. I don't know why we did, but I guess it makes sense that there would be a lot more older sailors because it's no kids allowed. Well, that and money. Yeah. Yeah. You know, not every 19-year-old and a Ford to go on to this, this was for your 19th birthday.

It was. Yes, your birthday was just ended. Now that I'm off the cruise, I don't have a birthday anymore. Well, it's nice to hear you admit that because you still prance around like it is your birthday. OK, so let's just get into this. I have some structure that we can get into, but I just want to have a conversation with my daughter at this point as far as how was the cruise? Oh, my gosh. Oh, good. And this was Hayden's first cruise. First time going out of the country.

It was it was his first time going past Panama City Beach. OK, and so Hayden, Virgin is known for passports only, but if you had to, you can go with birth certificate and government issued ID, which I kept telling you, you'll be fine. You'll be fine. And I don't know if you believe me, 100%, but how was that process versus what you saw Amber and her passport? I mean, really, the only other thing was it took a few extra minutes for them to take a pictures of the ID and everything and passport that passed.

Yeah, and that was about it. They did it at the same spot. The only thing that was different was when we got it. off the ship, they could scan my face and my passport was in there. But his face wasn't recognized. There's no photo ID with the birth certificate. So they sent him to a separate area and it just took a couple extra minutes. Now, do you mean, um, demarcation or just at ports? Oh, no, demarcation. OK, so final. Yes. Final. Yeah. No, there were no issues getting off the ship.

We didn't even need it. OK, good. That wasn't an issue. So let's talk about first impressions. OK, I'm getting ahead of myself. The whole check-in process. You were not aware. So we had a couple of hiccups with the app check-in process because it didn't accept you're supposed to do a picture of your passport because 99% of the people doing this are using a passport, but Hayden didn't have that. So it was his birth certificate. And it's very difficult to do an online or, you know, the app online check-in when you

can't provide that. Yeah, it would not let us finish. Right. So you ended up with a late boarding time. It was 345. And we weren't happy about that. It doesn't sail until 7, but Virgin is very strict about boarding times. They said on a lot of different places. And even when we checked in, I said, hey, I know we have a time. But I think I have blue extras. And before I said blue extras, they said, no, I'm sorry. It's 345 strictly. And I said, OK, well, I heard that with blue extras.

You can get on it. I believe it was 145. And immediately they were like, oh, yeah, yeah, you just have to go in the priority lane. OK, so can you explain what blue extras is and how you got it? Yeah, I actually don't know how I got it. I talked to my, yeah, which probably, Jim, parents and they worked some out of it. Yes. It was super nice, especially because we had that 345 time originally. And we had already gotten there much, much earlier than that.

So that would have been such a letdown. We ended up getting in the priority line. Hayden would have no idea how to do any of this. And I know I've been there. He was very confused. But we got in the line around like 120. And we were standing for maybe 10 minutes before they let everybody in. And we went to this really nice, like, little lounge area. They had food in some areas we weren't allowed in there. I haven't been there. You haven't been there?

No, I have to do my blue extras. So let me take a step back. And blue extras is essentially the status matching that Virgin does with other cruise lines. And a couple of different cruise lines do this right now with the status matching, where a lot of people have loyalty levels that they've earned with, say, Royal Caribbean or celebrity or Disney. And that you get used to the perks and the priority boarding and the priority this and that. And so they don't want to leave that to try a newer ship like Virgin or a new cruise line.

So Virgin is anyone who does this. I think it's genius because now they will match your status. So I didn't know that's how that was working. I believe that's how it worked. And so you have platinum status with Disney. Disney is our main cruise line that we do. And your platinum, so I went online and I looked up Virgin Voyage's status match and they made it pretty darn easy to do that. They asked, so, who what's your name? And then with whom do you have the status and what status level do you hold?

And then just submit a picture to prove that this is your status. That's awesome. I thought you just kind of cheated your way for me. There's no cheating. I don't have like super agent powers. Yeah, there's no cheating. Otherwise I would have cheated for myself. Yeah. I've spent hours sitting on the curb at Virgin because like even if you were in Miami, it was hot. It's hot. And so a couple things on that, you know, hotel checkout 11 a.m. And if you do come the night before as you should for a cruise just in case your flight

has issues, it's always good to go in the night before. But I did that and then 11 o'clock checkout. So you pretty much go to the port. And if you have a 345, you're hoping that, well, maybe they'll let me in. No, no, no, no, they don't. They have these corrals, these cues, or every 15 minutes or half hour, I'm not probably 15 minutes. And they don't even let you enter the queue until it's time. So I literally sat on the curb and widdle my thumbs.

I'm on TikTok. I'm doing some emails. And you are outside. You don't even have like with Disney, if they don't do it this way anymore, but you used to be able to wait in the terminal. At least you're out of the seats. That's what we used to do. No, we were sitting on the curb. We were only out there for about an hour. And we checked in as soon as we got there, which was nice. And then we went inside and then we went in the priority line. But a lot of people didn't do that.

They got straight in the priority line and they didn't check in. So we were already checked in and we just went straight. OK. It was nice. It was nice. Everyone else, they were like, oh, you have to go this way. And they're like, oh, you're already checked. Yeah, go lastly. All right, that's awesome. But I do want to point out that there is, there's like local shopping near the port. And they have like a hop on hop off bus that you can get on. And it'll take you to the shopping.

I don't know if there's a charge. It might be nominal charge. But it is an answer to how to kill a couple hours because they're not going to let you on that ship early. They are other cruise lines have. In the past, I do think that in the last year or so they've gotten a lot more iron fist. But they don't expect to get on early just because you showed up three or four hours early because you're going to be highly disappointed. OK. So you go through the whole process sounds like it was smooth sailing, no pun intended.

And you take your first steps onto the ship. What are you thinking? What is your first impression? Well, I think that's a better question for Hayden. It was his first time stepping onto a ship at all. OK, well, we'll go to Hayden and then we'll go to you because you've taken first steps on many ships. So OK, so Hayden, first ship, first cruise. What what did you expect versus what you saw? Well, honestly, I don't really know what I was expecting. I mean, we stepped on the ship and there were two restaurants or are left into our right.

And there was a I think there was like a vinyl record store. Fair to head. Yeah, there was that I've never seen on a ship. It wasn't that like, like when you go on Disney, you have that grand room that you come into with that beautiful staircase. You've got quite the entry. And you know, and Disney, they also are like, welcoming the Griswold family. Yeah, we didn't get any of that. I think he was very grateful for that. But it wasn't a grand entry like most ships that I've been on.

You walked onto deck seven, which was you have an ice cream place to your right. You've got a bar and you kind of just stand into staircase. He kind of just walk into the room. It wasn't to the grand entry. Yeah. OK, that's fair. They don't have a huge boy or area. No, they don't. It wasn't like necessarily a let down, but I was kind of hyping it up for him. Oh, and he's like, where did we go now? Yeah, you just kind of OK. Yeah, so we were wandering after that.

Yeah, I suppose I did notice I know that on like Royal or Disney, like I've been on. You can't go to your room for a couple hours. You kind of have to check in. They won't even open the cabins for you. The hallways, right? Yeah, they won't open it. But this I immediately went to my room. OK. And they let me in at 145. Actually, maybe a little earlier. We were in our room by 145. And it was ready. It was. It was nice. Nice. OK. So you're on the ship.

And you want to explore. So what caught your eye? Did you find it easy to navigate? Was it? Oh, my gosh. I have never struggled more. I just saw a sword from me. I've never struggled for navigating a ship. It was a mix of the app and the posted signs. They sometimes they would tell two different stories. And it had me showing up late to reservation. Sometimes I'd go to aft. And then it would be on forward because all it would tell me is your dining is on deck sex.

And I'd be like, OK. Where is that? But then signs wouldn't point to where did I go? I was struggling. And usually, they're such a clear signage that I did not have. OK. All right, that's fair. Yeah. That was, I looked like a fool in front of him. Like, OK. We've got dining. I know what I'm doing. And then we'd wander for five, 10 minutes around the ship. We'll get them on a Disney ship. And you can, you can shine. I know my way. I think you do. But I think our favorite part, when we went on the ship,

we immediately went up to deck 15. And we were walking around. And he loved that. He was very excited as soon as he saw that top deck. OK. You saw the basketball court. And that's about lost his mind. Immediately made us play. OK. All right. That's funny. Yeah. He's got this entire ship. And he's like, oh, that's cool. And it wasn't like an overwhelming basketball court. Just like this little netted area. We did go back there a couple of times. We had a dodgeball tournament.

Very exciting. But we just walked around the pools. They have two pools. And one is a small circle. It's not very large. And then the other one was twice its size. But only half of it was like six feet and the rest was like two. Very crowded all the time. So we didn't do much pool. I hear that. OK. Let's start with the food. So I did get a little bit out of Amber before I realized I should. I should try me open. Yeah. Before I realized, no, I don't want to hear anything

until it's on the podcast. So you did say that the food on this ship versus all the other food that you've experienced on six other maybe seven other cruise lines. You said this was either the best or definitely to be top. Oh, yeah. This was, I don't know if it's because maybe I'm getting older and my taste buds are changing. But I ate everything. And I loved everything. Everything was amazing. There was nothing I really had to complain about. The presentation was great.

Everything was amazing. Service was obviously it was good. But when you're used to like, dis me where they're so friendly and happy. And they follow you from restaurant to restaurant. They didn't do that this time. No. And they also weren't like, you know, that cheery disney type, which I'm very accustomed to. Yeah. It was more like, hello, here's your food. I'm going to be nice to you, but it's not like. But you also have to realize that on just about any other

cruise line that does allow kids, they do have a different personality with kids. And you've been always, you've always been viewed as a kid on a ship. You were an adult just like everyone else. Yeah. That sucked. I was off. I didn't get called princess. Oh. They didn't bring you chocolate milk. No. No. Welcome to adulthood. Are people mean or an adult good? They're just maybe. Yeah. It was just, it wasn't necessarily like they weren't friendly. But when I go on a cruise, I usually expect that like, great

over the top service. Yeah. OK. So your first meal on the ship, did you snack around at first? Or did you wait until your first meal? I think we, well, we went to the buffet style area first. We went to the galley. OK. And what we had burgers, fries, I got like four different desserts. OK. Did you do what I asked you to do? I did. But I also asked them. I asked about the macarons, macarons, macarons. Am I sorry? These only available today? She says, no, no, no.

And they were, they were there every day. So when I first saw them, I grabbed four. OK. Because you told me to. Yes. So I'm afraid to tell them. The pistachio macarons that are always available on the first day. But I have literally asked on subsequent days, do you have these? Can you make them? Can you do it? You know what? But the pistachio macarons, they're filled with a nice whipped cream and raspberries. And it is. I had them the next day too.

OK. Yeah. But to now, you were really good though. OK. I'm glad you did it. I was craving them yesterday. I'm glad you got them. And even more happy that you enjoyed them. Did you have a favorite to serve? They had like a peach tart that I really liked. Oh, he did keep going back for that one. OK. Now, did you guys do it? The proper way where you called an attendant, a server to your table, or did you just kind of station? We did both. We did both.

It depended if there was a line worth waiting. Would it be easier to call an attendant, or would it be easier to get it myself? OK. And sometimes I would grab half of it myself. And then realize, oh, well, now there's a long burger line. I'll call somebody. OK. And then you can sit down and start with a salad or- Yeah. Or that's where we did. Or a plate of desserts. The fresh fruit. They have so much fresh fruit. I love that about cruise lines. We didn't do any fruit this cruise line.

I did a lot of fruit-flavored pastries. Not quite the same. Oh, no, it tasted pretty good. Do you think the quality of pastries and desserts was better on this cruise line versus others? I think the food overall was. I especially- I've been on one carnival cruise that I can remember. And I didn't eat anything. Especially the dessert. It was so bad. And compared to that, especially. I would say it's definitely up there with Disney and Royal. Those are my top two.

Well, you forgot regions. Regions got a big number. I don't remember any of the desserts from region. OK. I remember the pizza. I had pizza every morning. OK. All right. We'll go with that. OK. So your first real sit down meal. We went to the wake for that. OK. So you started off with a bang. We did. And you know, we decided after we were talking about it, we decided as we ate, the wake was the top in each restaurant down. That was our tier list. The wake was the best.

And then after that, and then after that. OK. So what do you remember what you got at the wake? I got- I think we both got a filet. Yeah, we both. But we started with clam chowder. Clam, clam something. I think it was a clam chowder. OK. Clam chowder is at the Italian restaurant. No. No, I wasn't sure. I'm pretty positive. I remember starting off and being like, ooh, clams. And then I got a set of asparagus too. And- Got fries. He did. But we also both ordered drinks.

The drinks were so good. Now, you are 19. Yes. Drinking age on the ship. Was 18. OK. Gambling age on the ship. Also 18. Age for anything you wanted to do. Yeah, the only thing was while we were still docked in Miami, I could not start drinking. OK. We had to wait until I brought out the- When we sailed away, they brought out champagne. And that's when I could start. OK. Yeah. Champagne for a sailor way party. Did you pay for that? No, we had four glasses each of free champagne.

OK, there's some things you shouldn't share with your mother. OK. Very good. It's champagne, so. OK. So the wake was wonderful. It was. Then we go to day two. And we're going to go through this a little faster because, you know, let's cover things as we go. So we're still on food. I think you did resledazzle. No, we actually changed things up. OK. Because we wanted to do gun bay really badly, but we couldn't get a reservation when we were not on the ship.

Yeah, everything was filled up. So I tried to like move things around. And we ended up skipping resledazzle for dinner and keeping two resledazzled breakfast reservations. And we got gun bay night too. OK, so tell me about gun bay. I think that was probably your favorite. Yeah, he loved it. The food I've never had Korean barbecue before. So it was pretty good. I did hear some people say it wasn't the best Korean barbecue they've ever had. I thought it was pretty good.

I have nothing to compare it to. When we did family style, we sat with three other couples that we didn't know. Our weight, that was the best way to ever had. He was phenomenal. He was very entertaining, very enthusiastic, so friendly. We had a great time with him. We had a great time with everyone there. And we ended up playing some drinking games that were crazy. I never lost very, very proud of that. But the girl next to me neither one of us had lost.

So we ended up taking the shots on our own terms. Oh boy. Oh yeah. It was like I think it was like 16%, but it was not good. It was not good. OK. Hayden did. He messed it up a few times. More information that I probably… They were not good. You don't need to try it. Oh no, no, no, no, no. I played the game, but I played with like, hope or something. Yeah, that would have been easier. Which one did you play? We did the one where you can't say three, six or nine.

I don't remember. I must have had too much. There was that one. And then there was one that was called the yearbook. And it was kind of like a most likely to me. No, I think I did the three, six, nine. And there was one more, but I don't remember that one. OK. All right, so you enjoyed that food. And jump to another restaurant. Doesn't have to be an order. So you did extra virgin. We did. We did. Now we both worked good in Italian restaurant. So we had a little something to compare it to.

He's actually one of the cooks on there. So he was paying extra special attention to it. I got… We both started off with meatballs. Those were pretty good. Those were really good meatballs. And then… Well, and the nice thing is you can order as much as you want. That's what I told him. He'd be going… He'd be getting like two entrees at each place. A couple of happeners. Once he figured it out, he's like, yeah, this is good. It was good. And I got you entrees that night.

I did the gnocchi and I did carbonara. Carbonara? Carbonara. Mm-hmm. Well, no, no, sure. OK. You did so. Those were really good. That was the best gnocchi I've ever had. I was like, I was loving each piece. I ate. It was amazing. And then what did you get? I think I got a sort of line state and the eggplant parm. OK. Two entrees. Nice. The steak was really good. But I don't know if it's because I work at the Italian restaurant. And we do eggplant differently.

But the eggplant there, it was like grilled. Oh. It was different. Very different. Yeah, usually you see eggplant parm. They're like, they skin it and then they brought it and fry it. And on the ship, it was like half an eggplant not skinned. And then like a very pretty presentation. But I think it was a little too fancy for us. OK. I speak that language. Yeah. All right. Did you do, tell me about Razzle Dazzle? Razzle Dazzle, we only did for breakfast.

But it was just as amazing as I think it would have been for dinner. We did, or at least I did. I did the last time I bought. I, all of it, it was great. It was amazing. But my favorite part were the rainbow churros. I loved the rainbow churros. OK. You'd set me a picture of that. I did. I did. I did so many pictures, but I did get to see that. Did you get the side of bacon? It's like a side fries. I did see it. I mean, we got it. He didn't want to confuse it first because it comes in like a ceramic cup.

Yeah. But it looks like a solo cup that squished. It's like, they put it in a solo cup for you. No. It took me a while. It's just different. It was really cute. I like it. Yeah. OK. Let's see. Did you do pink agave? We did pink agave on our last night. And we decided that was our least favorite. Oh, wow. That's usually top of the list for a lot of people. A lot of our clients. No, we loved the guacamole. We both got that. That was a really good. I had pomegranate in it, which was different.

But really nice. I liked that. But we both got a steak. What kind of steak was it? It was something. But it was so fatty that I only like half of it. It just wasn't anything special to us. And I don't know. We weren't feeling at that night. OK. I know that we're going to lose Hayden because he's got to go to work. Yeah. But I've got you for a couple more minutes, right? Yeah, you can have me for a little while. OK. Well, Hayden, thank you so much for coming on.

We appreciate it. And we'll get your, I'm sure you expressed all your opinions to Amber. So we'll find out your version through her. All right. So Amber, entertainment. Let's talk about entertainment. Yeah. Well, I think I have pretty high standards, especially being on regent pretty recently. I loved the regent shows. But this was really cool. It was a little different. They didn't have that big theater you're used to if you raise a lot. It was like you've got a little, almost like a court,

like a sports court in the middle at the red room. And then you got two sides. It's like going to a gym. And they did, it was dual reality was my second favorite. And that's OK. Asp. OK. That was a really good show. They I did notice I'm very critical. So I'm very sorry. But I did notice that each person did mess up something, which when you're on like Disney or something, that never happened. OK. Did you get a wristband? I did. Who doing does? So Hayden stepped out.

It's OK. And spot. Yes. OK. Do a color where you do. Remember? I was on the left. I was blue. I was blue too. OK. OK. It was really good. I was very impressed with the acrobatics. But I did notice like juggling, they dropped them about three times. And that was each. It's hard. I believe you. I know. I know. I don't want to. I can't was very impressed. And I was like, I've seen better. But I traveled. I know. I know. I know I felt really bad. He's like, you're not enjoying the show.

I'm like, no, I am. And just. But they did, they had a part in the show where they were doing. It was on this, like a sea saw. Oh, the, were they jumping off of it? That was crazy. That scares me every time. It scared me so bad because they kept falling off of it. So I was so scared for them. But it was, it was really good performance altogether. But my favorite one was it's a ship show. That was really good. I liked that it was dining and entertainment.

Oh, the dinner show. Lisa mommy never saw the dinner show. I don't. You can tell he's in parent mode. He just called me Lisa mommy. Lisa, the mommy. Yep. My gosh. I liked that one a lot. We got or I got a chicken Parmesan. I don't. Did I see that? No, it's the dinner in a show. It's in the manner. It's where like the sparkly room. You walk through the casino and go through this really sparkly hallway, the famous Instagram hallway. It was really good.

I liked it. They did they did some singing in the beginning. And that was just phenomenal. And then they brought out like four different acts. So it was a lot of variety. And I liked that. OK. I maybe I haven't seen it because it was like a circus away. Kind of. Yeah, they had like a sword swallower and then like the people roller skating together. It was crazy. I think I snuck in. They have an upper level there. And I think I saw a little bit of it.

But I had somewhere to be. I don't remember. Well, I definitely do have a recommendation for this. We did the test kitchen at the same night. We did the dinner show. So we did the dinner show before. And then did the test kitchen. OK. Because I know you guys are saying it's really small proportions. It's kind of out there. We actually liked that one better than we like to pick a gauder. So test kitchen. Yes, I did give her the advice that pizza. Yeah, I need a little bit of a handoff.

Well, or after. Yeah, you go to the test kitchen. And it is it's very forward facing food. Yeah. And it's smaller portions. So you may not be full when you leave. And a lot of people will go and grab a pizza afterwards. So it's not unusual. But I like your method too, eat before. Yeah. It worked. It was really good. I liked it. I liked it a lot more than I expected to. We started with this corn shaped butter. And then you put it on cornbread. And I ate the whole thing.

And then we had some salmon and some chicken. And you know what I found out? I found out that they do a different menu every night. So not everyone had the same thing. No, I didn't know until I was talking to somebody else about it. They said they didn't like it at all. And they had a completely different menu. OK. That was interesting. What do you have for dessert there? I had strawberries. It wasn't anything spectacular. It gave me marshmallow shaped strawberries.

And then strawberries, strawberries. And some ice cream base. But before that, they gave me a spare get some spinach ice cream. Yes. That was actually so bad. It was all for you. I remember the asparagus ice cream. Yeah, I can't forget it. I took one bite and was done. But it was exactly what it said. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know who thought of that one. OK, anything else for entertainment? There was one other thing we saw. We didn't see that first show.

I think everyone liked that show a lot. But we were too busy to figure out that it was there. But we did see a magician just in the tea room for just a second. He was there for like half an hour. He didn't really love that one. He's never seen magic before. But I told him, he's like, you know, my father did magic as a kid. So I knew he did just cards. I knew how he did all of them. See, you had some of them. Such the life. I know. I feel so bad. It's like, I'm not impressed.

OK, you I can't believe you did this. But you said you skipped Scarlet night. I didn't know that he went on for so long. We did Scarlet dressing up. We went to that's the night we did Italian. And I dressed up and we looked good. And then I ate and was yawning at dinner and went to bed. I can't believe you're so old. Yeah, we went to bed. The only thing we participated in was the PJ party. And we went for about 15 minutes. And I stood in the hot tub in my pajamas

and watched everyone be drunk. And I said, OK, I'm good. Let's go to bed. She shocked me. She did tell me ahead of time that they were in bed by like 10 o'clock every night. Yeah, I think the latest we see that was maybe midnight. Because if we stayed up, so funny, we sat at the bar and like deck six. I can't remember what it was called. But we had one bartender that we really loved. And we came back to every single night. And he knew our names. That was the service that we really liked.

He was very familiar with us and knew what we liked. And knew our names knew all about us. OK, you did go to the spa, right? Yes, we did. What'd you do at the spa? We did. This like, I think was four hours. We paid $80 each for it. And we got kind of like this all-inclusive thing. We had access to the sauna, the steam room. We had a cold plunge and like just like a room temperature pool. And then we had a mud room too. Oh, and hotstone sauce were so nice.

So we just went back and forth, back and forth. So it was just access to the facilities that wasn't a treatment. No, no. If I wanted a treatment, I was spending hundreds of dollars. Yeah, that's not cheap. No, it didn't feel worth it. I figured I could get something like that at home. Yeah, I wonder who taught you that. Yeah. Steve, do you have questions for her? I'm trying to think. So you didn't do scarlet night. That's so disappointed. Scarlet night is so much.

I didn't know something I needed to do. You thought you just had to dress up. Yeah, I thought that's all it was. I didn't even, I didn't know they had parties every night. I thought, OK, we're sailing away. Awesome. Do a PJ party. And I went to bed. I like, I'm a very good. Did you see the diva? When we got on, she was sitting on like across the ship and she goes, hello. So you didn't see her perform? No, I can't believe you have to go on another Virgin Cruise

to see what you didn't see. What about Bimini? Oh, we did, we liked Bimini a lot. We did swimming with stingrays in the first half at 10 am. We did that for a couple hours. And then we did go to the beach party. OK, at the pool. Yeah, yeah. The pool was really nice. That was the only time we ever got in a pool on the cruise because the other ones were so crowded. But this one was so big and people were hanging around on the sides, like drinking their drinks.

So we got right in the middle. And I was getting wrestled a lot. What does that mean? You know exactly what that means. You used to alligator roll me in the pool. Who was wrestling you? Hayden. Oh, OK. Well, you said you were getting wrestled a lot. I was. I didn't know if strangers were wrestling you. No, not quite. OK. OK, it was fun. Everyone else was being in a doll. And I was like, OK, I'll take the middle of the pool. OK. Oh, because they were just chilling.

They were just chilling. And you were swimming. Yeah. You were alligator rolling. It was good. It was fun. But it was right on the beach too. So half of the people were in the ocean. And then everyone else was on the pool. Yeah. Did they have floaties? I did. I did. I took a pink one. I liked it. OK. Yeah, I think they do a really good beach party or pool party. They do. They had like dancers all around. Are they not amazing? They are really good dancers.

Yes. And I know it sounds like I wasn't impressed with the entertainment. But it was very good. I'm just seeing how snobby you are now. I know. I feel so bad about it. I can't believe that we did this to you. You've just shown me lots of different options. And I have opinions on all of them. Yeah. OK. Would you do Virgin again? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Considering you missed half the stuff. Yeah. I think I have a lot more to see. And I really did.

I like that there were no kids. There was nobody running around, except me. I was the kid and it was nice. But it was very interesting seeing a ship that wasn't built for kids either. There was no kids club. There was no giant sprinkler area for the toddlers to play. The pool was, you know, it was for adults. Right. There wasn't anything that was catered to children. OK. And you know, like vice versa, there wasn't designated adults area either. There's no like adults pool area.

There's no adult shows. Everything is for you. Yeah. Everything is mature. OK. So there's a bit of a stigma around Virgin Voyage's ships that it's like this pickup. I mean, did OK, so I'll just did anyone hit on you or like just anything to you? No, nobody hit on me. But I did hear some people talking about some upside down pineapples around the cabins. OK. So there were some swingers around. OK. But not any bothers you. OK. There were some people around.

Yeah, some people are a little intimidated or afraid that it's, no, we weren't bothered. And I think we were like the biggest ones there. OK. All right. So Steve, you, you still have some discounts. Oh, I do. I think, yeah. And so Amber needs to help pay for her cruise. What? She does. No. So if you're interested in booking, Amber can give you some advice. And I'm going to make her work off this cruise. That's mean. I know it is. So sorry. But Steve tells about the deal that listeners can get

if they want to book a new Virgin Voyage's cruise. So we have the latest prices on Virgin Voyage's. So whatever the latest deals are, which are really good deals, so we keep up with those. Then on top of that, we've already repaid $300. So we just have to get that back. So it's like off of the price. And for doing that, we get $600 on board credit. And it's not just a bar credit. But sometimes you get a bar credit. Well, Amber found that she didn't use all,

that's a lot of drinking. Yeah. So you could, but the credit we get, you can use as for spa, or you can use it for merchandise or excursions. And for Amber. Amber, would you end up using your zone? Well, we did, it only connected to my band. So if they ever top Taitins band, I went on there. So he ended up having $200 that he had to pay. And he did $80 on spa, I did $80 on spa. And then we did spend about $600 on drinks. Okay. But then you had money.

I did. I had a hundred and like 20 bucks left over because he had some money. All the six hundred. Yes, yes. And so would you do with that? Well, it was about 10 p.m. on the last day. And I said, oh my gosh, I need to spend this. Or I don't get it back. So I went down and I bought perfume. I love that. Yeah, it was great. Okay. So Steve saying that we get, so they get a $600 onboard credit, if they book with us. And then also $300 off of the, right of the,

whatever package they book. If they find a cruise and it's $3,000, they look it up. And it's $3,000. They're gonna get $300. Yeah, $300 off. So now it's $2,700. Yep. And you get a $600 onboard credit. But then since… But we've already prepaid of the $3,000, we've already paid the $300. We've made a $300 deposit already. So it's… Well, no of the $2,700. Okay. Because they do get 300 off. And then we already paid the next 300. So essentially I'm making this more confusing

than it needs to be. But it's kind of weird and awkward, but we do ask that you pay us that 300 deposit back. Yeah, we pre-booked a bunch of them and we had to pay for them with real money. So in the end, yes, you do come out ahead. Yeah. And we've got all the latest deals. I've got 300. And they don't have the $600 onboard credit anymore. They stopped doing it. So and there's some extra bonus deals too. Like if you use this on certain cruises because we've pre-booked it,

and some of them actually have extra bonuses because they're trying to sell certain excret or certain ports or certain ships. So… Of your interest, good. Definitely give us a drop us a line. And I'm trying to think, is there anything else that we need to touch on, Amber? Anything that… I don't know. That's what I'm thinking about. I was thinking about my ratings. I said food best like about we're hot on a ship entertainment. I'd say it was above average.

Definitely would go again. Oh, the categories, am I missing? The room was a good size. The room was a really nice size. And we had a hammock. It was so nice. We spent so much time out there. You know about the hammock? I did not. I did not until like a couple of days before. I was stalking our room and I said, oh my gosh, look at that. That was nice. They had… It had some fun room settings that we played with. Okay. Did you see those? Like all the different lights settings?

Yes. And I loved that the curtains I could move with the button. I've never had that before. And you're going to go again. Am I? Well, you said you were. Are you paying? No! Miss 19-year-old? I'm not going to be a while until I'm going again. But I absolutely would go again. We were talking about expanding Hayden's cruising. So we were thinking about either doing another version again after this or doing a Royal Caribbean. Because compared to Royal Caribbean,

I think this was a much smaller ship than most of theirs. Yeah. And I wanted to show them some of that. I was thinking about doing a family Disney. It can show me. Oh my gosh. It took you 19 years to get all these under your belt. You can't throw them in. He literally, we got off the ship because we should be the next one right now. Okay. But, and I'm surprised you didn't even ask about this or think about this. Did you think about booking your next cruise on board?

We did. But then I didn't know what to do. I didn't know if you were going to be like, oh no, don't do that. Or, okay, but you were in Miami at the time. You could have called me. Okay. So there is an advantage to booking on board. Like the offer Steve just said, he did book those, I think, in February or maybe even earlier. But when you are on a cruise and you're like, oh my God, I love this. I want to do it again. Book a placeholder while you're still on the ship.

And you're going to get perks. You're going to get money off or percentage off. And with Virgin, you're going to get a future on board credit. I don't, like Steve said, I don't think they still offer the 600. I think they did reduce that down to 300 for an on board credit. When I was on board, I did see those signs. And it said 300 to 600. But I don't know how true that is. Okay. All right. So that's good to know. But it's going to vary. Ship to not ship to ship, but cruise line to cruise line,

they're usually going to have some kind of incentive to come back on. And you usually have to do it before you leave the ship. So, and they're usually completely refundable if you change your mind. So if you can put down the deposit, it's a placeholder. You don't have to select dates or ship or anything like that. And it's just a placeholder. You go out and look at the stars. I did. I told him about that. How you're going to be in the middle of the ocean.

And there's going to be no lights, except for you. It was so pretty. He's never, he's never been anywhere. So this was an amazing trip for him. He was so, he was so excited the entire time. I think that's awesome. Like showing him new things. Yeah. No, he really liked it. We had done trips before this. And it was like an Airbnb and like Pensacola or Tennessee. So this was so different for him. And he's only ever done like Panama City. So going and seeing the water in the Bahamas,

he's never seen water that blue. It's true. You see pictures you're like, no way can it be that blue. Oh yeah. It is. It was crazy. All right. Any last minute thoughts, Steve Amber? You got everything out of me. I'm glad you enjoyed it. It was so good. It was so hard. You were gone for like a week. It was awesome. And then I had to come back. I immediately went back to work. He did. And you've got to go to work in like less than an hour. Yeah. Reality.

All right. Awesome. Thank you guys so much for listening. If you have any comments or questions for us, you can write to us at commonsatnowschat.net. Thanks so much for listening. Please join us again next time on most of it.