Scarlett Lady – I might be Hannah but I have to be ‘Frank’

It has been a while since I did an update, due to technical issues, but I’m back, fresh from my trip to Liverpool last week to spend a night on Scarlett Lady, Richard Branson’s first ship of the Virgin fleet.

I have so much to say on this subject that this could potentially be one of the longest posts that I have ever written, I know I have a tendency to ramble on a bit, but I am going to try to keep it reasonably brief, reasonably!

The ship has been built specifically for passengers aged 18 – 35 with no children allowed on board – do this age group have the disposable income for cruising?

Branson and his team apparently threw everything ‘cruise’ out of the window right from the outset, using different terminology to that usually applied ot cruises and his design team were specifically chosen for their lack of experience designing cruise ships – this is immediately obvious to an experienced cruiser I’m afraid. The cabins have a very ‘Ikea’ feel about them, with just a sofa that converts to a bed at night, sparse furnishing and a moulded plastic desk!

That said, the public areas on the ship are lovely and the Spa is absolutely beautiful, in a very sleek and contemporary way. However, there is no flow and it is very difficult to navigate, venues are tucked away and hard to find, with you needing to go up a deck to go down again to get somewhere. I do like a ship to flow logically!

Food, there are a number of dining venues across the ship and as I only ate in three of them my view of the food on  board might be a bit unbalanced. Dinner was in the Taste Kitchen, a sampler menu, with no alternatives available if you didn’t like a particular course, some courses were tasty, others were distinctly bizarre – raw egg yolk with peas and caviar just doesn’t float my boat, and blue cheese blancmange is just plain wrong I’m afraid. Late night burger and chips with a goodly mug of tea in the Gallery, the buffet style restaurant that is not, was great. Breakfast in Razzle Dazzle, well the red and black decor was a little overwhelming first thing in the morning! The food is mainly vegetarian but you can add in bacon and black pudding – word of warning re the bacon though, it is covered in some sort of chilli oil and sugar – not my cup of tea!

The real issue, and I am sure Virgin will look at this and act, they need to, was embarkation and disembarkation. In a word chaos and they were only embarking 500 of us. With a ship that holds up to 2900 guests they need to  streamline this and get people on and off much more efficiently – guests won’t be as patient as travel agents who are being plied with Champagne!

Scarlett Lady will be offering 4 and 5 night short cruises from her home port of Miami, many of which I suspect will be ‘themed’, they won’t be to everyone’s taste but if they can attract the right crowd then hopefully they can make a success of the new Virgin venture, though how many 18 – 35 year olds can afford £2500.00 per person for a 4 night break in a balcony cabin is a good question – even if it is a balcony sporting a hammock 🙂

I am so pleased to have had the opportunity to experience a Virgin ship because I doubt we will be seeing one in the UK for quite some time and I will watch the progress of Scarlett Lady with interest – sadly not the ship for me, that said it has been a long time since I fitted into the 18 – 35 age group!

For now, happy cruising folks!

Catch you next time……………..