When we woke up, there was no doubt that we were back in Miami.
We had our final breakfast in the open area at the back of the ship next to the Galley. It was hot, humid, and noisy. At least the road noise drowned out the music. And as we were headed to the cool, damp, Pacific Northwest a bit if heat and humidity was a good thing. We wouldn’t see those again for a while.
After breakfast we went down to the gangway area on deck 7 to see how disembarkation was going. It was going well, people were moving quickly and in an orderly manner, off the ship. No huge queues or people tripping over other people’s luggage. I think Cunard has a lot to learn when it comes to trying to disembark everyone in an orderly manner.
When our time came to disembark it was just the same. No queue, we just walked off the ship.
There were very few bags in the luggage area, so we found our 2 rights away and walked to the immigration queue. Again, this was very organized. There were only 3 immigration officers, but there really was no waiting, and all of a sudden there we were looking for the taxi rank. I must say, in all of our years cruising, getting off a ship has never been so easy.
Alas there was no one holding up a sign with our name on it, who would whisk us away to our awaiting day room in a luxury hotel, where we could join in on an exotic wedding, and eat delicious pasta.
We had to find our own taxi who took us straight to the airport. It was 11:30 and we had a long wait ahead of us.
We settled into the American Airways lounge, and caught up with emails. Although it was crowded, and there were screeching toddlers, crying babies, businessmen yelling on the phone, someone watching a movie on his tablet and not using earphones, it all felt good and familiar. I suddenly realized, all of that loud music on the ship had either made me deaf, or made me immune to distracting sounds. Either way, I was quite happy to sit and enjoy my novel and try to process my adventures of the past 2 weeks.
Would I have enjoyed the Scarlet Lady more if I hadn’t just disembarked from the Seabourn Sojourn? It was hard to say. It wasn’t that I didn’t like the Scarlet Lady, and there were things that I really loved. Virgin Voyages certainly does a lot of things right. The more traditional cruise lines could learn from them. I just felt that there are other cruise lines I prefer.
I am glad that we had the opportunity to do this cruise. I do see it as being similar to going on a trip to Vegas. It’s fun when you are there, and you have a good time. You know you will go back again because somehow that just keeps on happening. However, I don’t see Vegas as a holiday destination, it’s more like work. That’s what the Scarlet Lady is like. A Virgin Voyage is something completely different. And I wouldn’t mind giving it another try. Just not yet…..
Lovely to read your review. When we disembarked QE at Port Everglades it was the best disembarkation we’d ever had. Straight off, found our luggage, through immigration and into a taxi within 15 minutes. So different to our West Coast experience!
After the awful time we had in San Francisco in July, and horrendous wait times in Brooklyn in the past, this was such a pleasure. Florida seems to know how to do it!
Wonderful following your posts. Thank you so much. Travel is such a fantastic thing.
It is so good to be back to traveling again. I just love seeing new things and having different experiences 🙂
Thank you for your very thoughtful posts.
From what you say Virgin Voyages is not for me but I think it is good for the cruise industry and hopefully some of their good practices will rub off!
Virgin Voyages really seems to have been able to do a lot of things right, and I agree they are going to be setting some standards for the cruise industry. The way they treat their staff is so good to see, and small things like included WiFi that is a good as the one at home, really should be something the industry looks at.
Enjoyed your reviews on Seabourn Sojourn and on Virgin Scarlet Lady. You did a great job comparing/contrasting the two ships all the while using Cunard as baseline. My personal takeaway is that given the right pricing and ports, I think would like to try both ships. Your track story had my wife and I both in tears we were laughing so hard. Most impressive was the shake for champagne phone app on Virgin. But why limit that to cruise ships or even restaurants? That should be available in grocery stores, department stores, the DMV line and at work after 4:00PM.
Jack
I tried the shake for champagne app at home – it’s just not working correctly at all. I clearly need another cruise! Thanks for reading along 🙂