Virgin Voyages - Resilient Lady Day 1 - Embarkation, Grog Walk, PJ Party and Razzle Dazzle

We’ve just returned from our very first experience sailing with Virgin Voyages. We spent a total of seven nights aboard Resilient Lady on a back-to-back cruise, with the first part of the cruise taking us to Amsterdam.

Overnight Stay In Portsmouth

Whenever possible, we try to spend the night before a cruise in the port city we’re sailing from. For this trip, we headed down to Portsmouth the night before and stayed in a Travelodge not far from the port, which was a great location.

When we woke up the next morning, we found out that Resilient Lady had not yet arrived due to the weather. We were keeping a close eye on Facebook for updates and eventually received a message from Virgin Voyages confirming the delay. The ship finally docked around 11am, this was six hours later than scheduled, causing a massive delay for everyone embarking that day.

Checking In and Boarding Delays

The Travelodge had a late checkout time of 12pm so we took the opportunity to grab some breakfast in a nearby pub before checking out. As boarding was going to be delayed we decided to drop off our luggage at the port before heading off into Portsmouth. We found the luggage drop off to be quite strange as we had to drive over an area that didn’t look accessible and the luggage labels were handwritten rather than printed which felt quite low-tech for Virgin Voyages!

We had pre-booked parking at the nearby Morrisons for just £35 for the week, an absolute bargain compared to other parking options. Lots of people onboard were horrified that we left our car on a supermarket car park for a week when we told them, but it was close to the port and worked out really well for us. Our friends Tom and Dom were also on the same cruise and kindly offered to meet us at Morrisons and drive us over to Gunwharf Quays where we did a bit of shopping and enjoyed the lovely weather.

Once we noticed people heading to the terminal, we made our way there as well. Before the cruise we had status matched our loyalty which gave us Deep Blue Extras with Viring Voyages. With our Deep Blue Extras, we were supposed to get priority embarkation, but by this point, our original embarkation time of 1.30pm had turned into 4.30pm.

Embarkation Chaos

Upon arriving at the port, we were met with absolute chaos. Disembarkation from the previous cruise was still happening and there were queues everywhere and we had no idea what any of them were for. Even the staff had no idea what was going on.

There was a separate queue for Rockstars (suite guests) and guests with the Splash of Romance package, and we were repeatedly told to join and leave this line, as different staff members gave conflicting instructions. At one point, we overheard a staff member saying they were "losing the will to live" which was quite unprofessional, considering how stressed and confused everyone already was.

Once we finally got checked in the process smoothed out. We were given our wristbands and went through security which functioned as you’d expect at any cruise terminal. One cause of the delays in Portsmouth is that you need to take a bus to the ship. Its a very short short journey from the building to where the ship is docked but as its a working port this is a requirement. The gangway to the ship was also quite steep and while this was not an issue for us it is something to note for anyone with mobility concerns.

Dinner Reservations

One of our first priorities upon boarding was heading to Razzle Dazzle to sort out our dining reservations. While you can prebook dining on the app, only 30% of slots are released in advance meaning most of our bookings were for later times which clashed with entertainment. The staff at Razzle Dazzle could only adjust that evening’s booking, so we had to manually book the rest through the app which we couldn't get to work. In the end we had to visit each restaurant in person to secure dining times which was an extra hassle when we were already hot and flustered from boarding and pushed for time.

The Muster Drill

The next order of business was muster so we headed to our muster station where staff scanned our bands to confirm we'd attended. As our apps weren't working properly we hadn't watched the muster video yet, so the staff handed us a tablet to watch on. Completing muster unblocked our app and after this we were able to use it properly.

We then hurried back to our cabin as we now had only 10 minutes to get ready for dinner. We had the quickest showers known to man and both managed to get ready in this time before heading out to Razzle Dazzle. Thankfully our suitcases had arrived at our cabin unlike many other guests who were still waiting for theirs.

Razzle Dazzle

Razzle Dazzle was fairly busy when we arrived but we were seated straight away on a table for four in the middle of the room. Our waiter, Henry, was fantastic and gave us detailed menu recommendations. We shared a selection of starters including pork belly and chicken wings both of which were delicious. For main Lizzy had the lamb which was massive and fell right off the bone. Laura had the fried chicken which she also enjoyed. Henry suggested some vegetable sides and fries, which we accepted and regretted, it ended up being far too much food!

Grog Walk

We had no time for dinner after dinner as we had the Grog Walk booked. This a $50 per person bar crawl where you visit four different bars and receive a different drink in each, play games, and meet fellow passengers. We started at Sip with a French 75 cocktail, which was lovely. The second stop, the Draught Haus, served a spicy margarita with a strange pork scratching rim which wasn't as good and lots of people left unfinished!

At Loose Cannon there were bar snacks provided like popcorn and pretzels, but we were still too full to indulge. The activity here was a bit embarrassing but fun and the cocktail was a pineapple-based piña colada alternative which we enjoyed. By now everyone was very sociable making it a great way to meet people and get to know the Happenings Cast.

Pyjama Party

Next, we had just 15 minutes to return to our cabin, change into pyjamas, and meet back at Sip before heading to the PJ Party. We were hoping it would be outside, but due to the weather it was held in The Manor. As part of our Grog Walk experience we got early entry into the PJ party, so this meant we were able to get a table before it got packed. The final drink of the Grog Walk was a whiskey sour and surprisingly, we enjoyed it.

The party was fantastic but the venue was swelteringly hot making dancing a bit uncomfortable. The DJ stopped at 2am disappointing us and many other passengers who expected it to continue later. The only bar still open was the Casino Bar, which quickly became overwhelmed. After a couple of drinks, we grabbed some food at The Galley, where the only late night option was an all day breakfast, this seemed like an odd choice to us but we made do!

We finally headed to bed around 4am after an eventful first day. Despite the embarkation chaos, we had an amazing time and were blown away by how lively and involved everyone was.

If you want to see everything we got up to, check out our video below and don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel for all of our upcoming adventures.