Resilient Lady
Our Virgin Review

Cruising has its good points and bad points.
Let's start with the bad one.
Lines.
Cruise lines have been doing this for decades, yet nobody has solved the mystery of getting 2,500 people onto a ship without making them look like cattle off to slaughter.
At some point, we should all just start mooing.
It's 2026. We have facial recognition, artificial intelligence, self-driving cars and computers that write hit songs. Let's make this happen.
Virgin has a different boarding philosophy: everybody arrives late.
Our assigned time was 3:30.... cruise departure was 5pm.
The good news? Your cabin is ready.
The bad news? Half your first vacation day has already filed for divorce.
On most cruises, we're aboard around noon. Not Virgin.
Unless, of course, you have a suite.
Then you're VIP and can board before 1:00.
Cruise lines love class systems.

But...
"Hugh, please remain with the cattle."

Moooo.
Once aboard, Virgin doesn't speak normal cruise language.
Passengers are Sailors.
The entertainment crew is the Happenings Cast, and they're considerably more... happening... than entertainment staff on most ships.
Virgin isn't interested in, "Welcome aboard. Here's your room. Dinner is at six."
No.
Virgin wants a party.
Immediately.
Around the pool, the music was turned up to eleven, possibly twelve... maybe jet engine level.
The Happenings Cast danced while free champagne flowed.
Okay, sparkling wine.
But "free champagne" sounds festive.
It worked.
The energy climbed quickly.
We're Virgin virgins, so this was all new. Boarding Celebrity or Royal Caribbean isn't quite this intense.
Virgin also does drinks differently.
There isn't a traditional unlimited drink package. Instead, you prepay $200, $500 or $1,000 toward drinks and receive a small bonus.
But you're still buying each drink individually.
And if you don't use all the "credit", Virgin keeps the money.
Judy doesn't drink.
I barely drink.
This seemed like a terrible investment opportunity.
So we're paying as we go.
Virgin also doesn't have a traditional buffet. There's an upscale food court with stations serving pizza, noodles, pretzels, hot dogs, hamburgers and more.
There isn't a giant main dining room either. Restaurants are scattered around the ship, and most don't cost extra.
For our anniversary dinner, we chose Razzle Dazzle.
Because nothing says fifty years of marriage like a restaurant that sounds like a 1970s game show.
The menu wasn't huge: steak, chicken and a few other choices.
Seafood cost extra.
Apparently, the fish had a better cabin than we did.
Later this week, we're eating at The Test Kitchen.
Experimental food makes me nervous.
"Experimental" is wonderful for cancer treatments, rocket engines and batteries.
Dinner?
I prefer food that has completed clinical trials.
We'll let you know how it goes.
We already located the emergency pizza.
I'm not stupid.
That evening we saw Mind Mangler, a comedy mind-reader show.
Virgin doesn't have an enormous traditional theater. Smaller venues host different shows, often at the same time, with later repeats.
Mind Mangler featured a wonderfully self-deprecating guy who kept screwing up his tricks for laughs.
At least...
I think he was screwing them up.
Maybe the trick was convincing us he couldn't do tricks.
Either way, we laughed.
Afterward came the Pajama Party on the back deck.
More music.
More dancing.
More Happenings Cast trying to get everyone...

Well...
Happening.
This isn't Hedo or Bliss, so we're used to pajamas containing considerably less actual material.
Tonight there was enough fabric to open a small JCPenney.
But nearly everyone participated: pajama pants, robes, nightgowns and matching outfits.
Afterward we headed to Judy's favorite place on the ship.
The arcade.
Virgin has FREE arcade games.
Ms. Pac-Man.
Galaga.
Dig Dug.
Donkey Kong.
They label them "old style."
Thank you, Virgin.
I remember when these were simply called...

New.
Nothing makes you feel old like seeing something from your youth displayed as a historical artifact.
Judy tried to achieve the high score.
I played on my phone.
Marriage is about supporting each other's interests...
From a comfortable chair nearby.
Basic Wi-Fi is included on Virgin and works reasonably well.
By the time Judy stopped trying to establish arcade dominance, it was well after midnight.
We headed back to the cabin.

Long day.

Very different cruise.
So far, we like a lot about Virgin.
There are also a few other swingers aboard, and we've already chatted with one couple.
Where that goes, who knows?
We've only finished Day One.

More tomorrow.

Have fun.
Have interesting sex.
And live the best life you deserve.

That means...
Get your buttox off the couch!

As you may have heard before Sea Day is really Eat Day. This day was no different.

We didn't even get out the room until 10am. This ship has an area called the Galley. Instead of the big buffet, they have multiple food stations serving this morning, breakfast items. Yes, you could get regular breakfast, but you could also get crossents loaded with Bacon, eggs and cheese or a pinnini type sandwich stuff with ham, cheese and egg or other items.

On board ship is the pool deck with what seems like thousands of people trying to via for a space and a lounge chair. When you own a pool, this never seems like a great idea for us. These days we rarely use our own pool.

We did however found great entertainment from a comic on board Rondell Sheridan... We couldn't stop laughing.

Between that, eating and Judy playing video games we had enough entertainment for the day.

That night after dinner we did maybe one of the best shows we've seen called The Miss Behave Show. Very impromptu comedy with two people that was audience involved and very risque. Adult subjects were not off the table. This is one of the great things about being on board an all adult cruise. They don't have to tone down the entertainment for kids and they don't. This was a later show so we headed to bed afterwards. There was plenty going on around the ship, but we are diving early in the morning.

We will reach out again tomorrow.

Have fun.
Keep having sex.
And find your life... it's out there somewhere.

Today we went scuba diving.
Which meant first surviving one of Grand Turk’s most dangerous attractions...
The Taxi Mafia.
We booked a dive trip with Blue Water Divers, but getting there requires participating in Grand Turk’s public transportation system... which appears to have been designed by the same people who came up with hostage negotiations.
The fare is $10 each.

Sounds reasonable.
But you don't actually go anywhere for $10.
For $10, you get to sit in the van while the driver searches the island for more people.
"Ready to go?"
"No."
"Why?"
"There's still oxygen in the van."
Apparently, if the vehicle has 20 seats, we are not leaving until there are 20 human beings inside it. Possibly 21 if someone is willing to hold a toddler.
And then we don't necessarily go where we want to go.
We go where everybody else wants to go first.
It's less Uber and more...
Grand Turk Kidnapping with Air Conditioning.
Uber was banned here years ago.
Businesses aren't allowed to provide transportation either.
So competition has been successfully eliminated.
Somewhere, a Mafia boss is looking at Grand Turk and saying...
"That's beautiful. Why didn't we think of that?"
Eventually our van achieved the legally required density of a Clown car and we headed toward the dive shop.
Late, of course.
Fortunately, we'd stayed in touch with Blue Water Divers and they didn't seem concerned.
Apparently when someone says, "We're coming from the cruise port," they simply add 45 minutes and whisper...
"Taxi Mafia."
Blue Water Divers is a small operation, which we actually prefer.
No giant cattle boat.
No 40 divers.
No dock either.
The boats are tied up right along the beach, so you walk through soft sand carrying your dive gear.
There are very few moments when carrying 40 pounds of scuba equipment through ankle-deep sand makes you think...
I have made excellent choices in life.
Fortunately, our divemaster, King, grabbed the big bag.
I immediately liked King.
There were only three other divers with us, and everybody was experienced.

Perfect.
No underwater babysitting.
No one signaling "I'm out of air" when they actually mean, "Look... a turtle!"
Our first dive was The Amphitheater.
Almost immediately, we picked up two small sharks.
They followed us around for much of the dive.
Apparently King sometimes kills lionfish and feeds them to the sharks.
So now the sharks see King and think...
DoorDash!
They're following him around waiting for lunch.
"Come on, King. You know you have something in that spear. Don't make us eat tourists."
Unfortunately for them, we didn't find any lionfish.
You could almost see the disappointment in the sharks eyes.
Two sharks following us around thinking...
Worst restaurant ever. One star.
Our second dive was The Anchor.
And yes...
There's an anchor.
A big one.
From the 1800s.
Because apparently somebody dropped it 150 years ago and finally said...
"Ahhh... screw it. Leave it."
This time King DID spear a lionfish.

Excellent!

Dinner!
Except now there weren't any sharks around.

Of course.
When there's no food, they're following us like Labrador retrievers.
The minute King has an actual meal...

Nothing.
We also saw a small turtle and, most importantly for Judy, a baby drumfish.
Judy loves baby drumfish.
They're tiny, adorable, and swim around looking like someone dressed a tropical fish for a black-tie dinner.
Two good dives... and then back to shore for our return encounter with...
The Taxi Mafia.
Once again, we waited until the van contained the maximum legally allowable number of butt cheeks.
Then off we went.
We made it back to the ship with plenty of time.
We survived Grand Turk.
The sharks didn't eat us.
The Taxi Mafia didn't ransom us.
Successful day.
Back aboard, we showered, ate something, and accidentally ended up playing trivia because we happened to be sitting where trivia broke out.
You're sitting peacefully with a drink and suddenly...
"QUESTION NUMBER ONE!"
Apparently, extensive knowledge of Cameron Crowe's movie “Almost Famous” is required to win trivia aboard Virgin.
Who knew?
I've seen Almost Famous.
Liked Almost Famous.
But apparently there are people aboard this ship who have studied Almost Famous like it's the Zapruder film.
"What color shirt was Russell wearing when..."
WHO KNOWS THIS?
I'm convinced Almost Famous must be playing continuously in the crew quarters.
"You want a promotion?"
"Yes."
"Name three members of Stillwater."
Later we went back to see Rondell Sheridan again.
Once again, we left with our sides hurting.
The adult comedy and entertainment aboard this ship has honestly been some of the best we've seen on any cruise.
Then came Scarlet Night.
Everyone dresses in red.
Except The Diva.
She/he/they (don't want to leave out a pronoun) came out dressed as Scarlett O'Hara from Gone With the Wind.
Scarlet Night.
Scarlett O'Hara.
I wonder how many people caught the reference.
Half the ship probably thought...
"Great dress."
Meanwhile, somewhere Margaret Mitchell rolled over and whispered...
"Thank you."
The whole ship basically exploded into entertainment.
Dancers everywhere.
Performers around every corner.
Music.
Characters.
People appearing from nowhere.
There were even aerial acrobatics happening in the main plaza.
On a moving ship.
Because apparently walking normally down a hallway isn't challenging enough.
After all that, we grabbed some pizza and ended the night watching a three-piece band at the Ice Bar.
They were really good.
Better yet, they played songs we actually knew.
At our age, that's becoming an important entertainment category.
Music Recognized By People Born Before smart phones.
We stayed there until after midnight.
Scarlet Night eventually moved up to the pool deck.
You know...
The music up there doesn't have a volume setting, they are trying to be louder than jet engines, and succeeding.
You don't listen to the bass.
Your internal organs do.
So we stayed downstairs with the band.
Excellent decision.
Tomorrow is another Eat Day...
Sorry.
Sea Day.
Which means we'll probably crawl out of bed around 10:00.
There's more comedy planned.
Judy will undoubtedly play Ms. Pac-Man.
There will be saltwater taffy.
And obviously...

Food.
Lots and lots of food.
It's going to be exhausting.
Until tomorrow...

Always have fun.
Try something besides hallway sex.
And travel somewhere this weekend.
The couch and TV will not miss you.

Up early today.
9:55 a.m.
Before ten counts.
Especially on a Sea Day, which experienced cruisers know is actually Eat Day.
We headed to breakfast...light, of course, because lunch was only an hour away. You don't want to ruin lunch with breakfast. That's rookie cruising.
Then more trivia, where we once again discovered an impressive number of things we don't know.
Eventually all that aggressive ignorance made us hungry, so...pretzels and wings.
We spent the afternoon killing time until Rondell Sheridan came back on at 3:30.
He says his shows are technically the same, but he ad-libs so much they're never really the same. Somebody yells something from the audience, Rondell starts laughing, and suddenly we're ten minutes down a completely different road.
Comedy GPS...
RECALCULATING...RECALCULATING...SCREW IT, LET'S TALK ABOUT THIS GUY IN THE FRONT ROW.
He's back at 10 tonight.
We're going again.
Late-show material at a reasonable hour.

Perfect.
Dinner was Pink Agave, Virgin's Mexican restaurant.
Not one of our favorites.
Judy and I don't do spicy food. Unfortunately, when you ask some cooks to remove the spice, apparently they also remove the flavor.
"Not spicy, please."
"Certainly, sir. Would you also like us to kill it twice?"
Even the desserts didn't interest us.
So we went for ice cream.
We were the only people there.
Apparently everyone else was still eating dessert in the restaurants like responsible adults.
Ice cream isn't on the diet...
But neither is about 93% of what we've eaten since boarding.
At this point the diet isn't dead.
It's missing in action.
Authorities have been notified.
We listened to a duo in the Ice Bar Lounge for a while, then headed back to see Rondell for his final performance.
He killed it again.
That's what we like about him...young, old, black, white...nobody escapes.
Equal-opportunity comedy.
Everybody was laughing until snot was practically running out of their noses.
That's how you know you've seen a great comedian.
If you're still attractive afterward, he didn't work hard enough.
Then it was back to the cabin because tomorrow we're scuba diving in Bimini.
We booked this one from Virgin, and the directions are not encouraging.
No phone number.
No contact information.
Just follow the purple "Shore Things" signs.
That's it.
Apparently somewhere in Bimini there's a dive boat waiting for us.
I'm assuming they'll hand us the secret decoder ring when we get off the ship.
So tomorrow maybe we dive.
Assuming we can find the ocean.

Always have fun.

Someone should be having sex.
And check those couch cushions for spare change. Maybe there's enough buried down there to start planning a vacation.
At least you won't be sitting on the couch.

Up early this morning because Bimini scuba was calling.
Unfortunately, Bimini scuba apparently called from a blocked number and left no directions.
We were told the dive operation was at Kayak Beach.
Oh. Kayak Beach.
We've never been here before, but they said it like we'd spent our childhood summers there.
You might as well say, “Take a left at Uncle John's house. If you pass the goat, you've gone too far.”
So off we go dragging our dive gear.
Technically, our bags have wheels.
These particular wheels were apparently designed for airport floors polished hourly by union professionals. Sand causes them to immediately file a grievance.
We find the free shuttle into Bimini.

Excellent!
Except Bimini shuttles operate a lot like the taxis in Turks. They leave when they're damn good and ready and drop you off wherever they feel would help get them cash from the vendors.
Our shuttle actually passed Kayak Beach...
...and dropped us at a golf cart rental place.

Perfect.
We could now walk almost all the way back toward the ship to the beach we had passed five minutes earlier.
Unlike Uber, here, your driver hates you.
Eventually we arrive at Kayak Beach, where there are several little excursion shacks with absolutely no useful signs.
Because signs would ruin the adventure.
SCUBA CHECK-IN HERE would be far too easy.
Finally, we find our dive boat.
And surprise...
A real dock!
No trudging half a mile through waist-deep water carrying tanks, fins, bags and the shattered remains of our dignity.
The boat was big enough for probably 20 divers.
There were seven of us.
And FOUR divemasters.
Those are odds Judy and I can work with.
Virgin's app said the excursion was SOLD OUT.
Looking around at the enormous empty boat, I'm guessing the dive crew had a slightly different definition.
Our first dive was near the remains of an old wreck, Sapona, around Triangle Rock.
And this was supposed to be the shark dive.
We jumped in...
SHARK!

Excellent!
He looked at us...
...and immediately left.
Apparently even the shark had somewhere better to be.
The dive was incredibly shallow, barely 20 feet. We saw a turtle, but our promised shark population had apparently taken the morning off.
Then we headed back toward the boat.
Remember that one shark?
Apparently he had gone to get his friends.
Because suddenly there were about a dozen sharks swimming around us, some within a couple of feet, while we're trying to climb back onto the boat.
“Excuse me.”
“Coming through.”
“Could you sharks maybe form a line?”
We weren't particularly worried. We've been around plenty of sharks and still had lots of air.
I was mostly wondering what we needed to feed them to make them leave.
Then realizing...
Maybe feeding them is exactly the wrong answer.
That's why Judy handles the important decisions.
Eventually we got everybody back aboard with the same number of arms and legs we'd started with.
Dive Two: Turtle Rock.
Supposedly lots of turtles.
We saw one absolutely mammoth hawksbill turtle plus a few more sharks.
Good enough.
We're divers.
We're accustomed to wildlife ignoring the brochure.
Back on shore, we found our beloved shuttle again.
Remember...
You don't go where YOU want to go.
You go where the shuttle wants to go.
Casino...
A beach club...
Back to the Golf cart place...
Possibly somebody's cousin's house...
Then eventually...
THE SHIP!
Getting back onboard, security had to X-ray my dive bag.
“Dive stuff?” the security guy asked.
“No, sex toys. Drop by the room later.”

Nothing.
Not even a smile.
Cruise ship security takes this stuff very seriously.
They're protecting 2,500 passengers from the greatest maritime threat known to mankind...
Someone sneaking aboard a bottle of Bacardi.
Not exactly terrorist material...
But apparently damn close.
Back onboard, shower...lunch...and then straight to our newest addiction:
Swedish Fish and saltwater taffy.
At this point, Virgin could probably confiscate our passports and we'd negotiate.
Take the passports.
Leave the Swedish Fish.
Tonight's dinner was Gunbae, Virgin's Korean BBQ restaurant.
They seat eight people around a table with a little round grill in the middle and cook everything right there.
But before dinner...
Drinking games!
Because apparently the safest thing to do before putting eight strangers around a hot grill is give them Korean rice wine.
When somebody screws up, everyone yells “GUNBAE!” and somebody drinks.
Our game lasted maybe three minutes.
Apparently we weren't good at the game...
But we were excellent at drinking.
The rice wine is around 14% alcohol, and somewhere shortly afterward eight strangers suddenly became lifelong friends.
The food wasn't really our favorite.
But the people absolutely made the evening.
Everyone talked, laughed and carried on, and it ended up being one of our favorite restaurant nights of the entire cruise.
Sometimes the meal isn't what makes dinner.
It's who's sitting around the table with you.
Afterward, we had to pack because tomorrow morning they're throwing us off the ship.
We talked about going back out...
Looked at the clock...
Almost midnight.

Nope.
We're fun people.
We're not stupid.

Bed.
Until then...

Have fun.

Certainly have sex.
Call a buddy if necessary.
And as we've been reminded recently with Dolly and Tim...life is short. Our hearts go out to their families and everyone who loved them.
So get out there and make some new memories while you can.
Your couch will still be there when you get home.
And if it's gone when you get back...you've got a much better story for tomorrow.