Day One: Travel Day + Embarkment of my Virgin Voyages Casino Comp Cruise (Resilient Lady)

How it (my Virgin Voyages Greek Isles Glow Cruise) started. Oof it’s the second consecutive cruise not off to a good start and again that’s quite the understatement. And that isn’t even accounting for the gaslighting by the VV casino department (which will be another post for another day)…friends, this is the cautionary tale of how when things go wrong, they can go really wrong.

I do acknowledge that some of this was of my own doing by changing my flight into Athens. Yes this was a classic example of do as I say not as I do that came back to nip me in the bud.

TRAVEL DAY: FLYING INTO ATHENS ON DAY CRUISE STARTS

Recap: the first part of my Euro holiday was centered around my Holland America Nordics Comp Cruise and when that ended, I decided to stay in Iceland longer and fly into Greece on the embarkment.

And yes this is something that I advise people from doing in case of any travel issues as you may miss boarding the boat (and this does happen as the ship will not wait for you). I was prepared to catch up to the ship (if allowed) or miss the sailing if that wasn’t allowed if I couldn’t get to the port in time.

Let’s start with the good here: one of the things that I love about travel hacking / award travel is that booking with miles gives me ultimate flexibility in plans as you can know understand that I am constantly changing things up such as deciding last minute to extend my time in Iceland. This was an easy decision to make as I could pay for additional nights at the hotel using points and the flight was booked on points which I could change without fees.

One of the negatives with award travel especially last minute is that the reasonable miles redemption are often not direct flights or the best itineraries but that was not too much of a deterrent as I was not out having to pay $880 cash for a last minute flight and still used only 16,000 United miles and paid slightly more ($68.90 in total) in taxes.

GETTING FROM ATHENS AIRPORT TO CRUISE PORT

Sorry to disappoint as I think there are many of you that thought I missed the cruise right?! I luckily did not experience any travel delays but flying into Athens proved to be a terrible decision nonetheless.

WHY? Check out the miscellaneous expenses portion of my travel expenses. If I had flown in the day before or had a better routing, I wouldn’t have needed to visit the medical center onboard (luckily I did have travel/medical insurance). I would have had time to get to a clinic in Athens (even though my choices were limited by needing to visit on a Sunday) prior to getting to the ship.

Piraeus Port is located ~48 kilometers from Athens International airport and the three main ways to get to the cruise terminal is driving (hiring/renting a car could possibly make sense for those visiting islands that are not on a cruise), taxi and public transportation.

One of the downsides to solo female traveling is that there are times and places that one does not want to deal with being alone in a taxi and this was the case for me here (honestly for a number of reasons I don’t want to get into here) FYI Uber is available in Athens but it is a metered taxi so same, same.

I have been to Athens before solo and felt safe navigating public transportation. The trip by metro would take approximately 1 hour and was $9.86/€9. The cars were clean and air-conditioned and the trip to Pireaus was fairly uneventful – other than the fact that my health was starting to worsen bit by bit.

EMBARKMENT – VIRGIN VOYAGES

This Virgin Voyages embarkment is unlike anything I have ever experienced before – the times that you are assigned/sign up for are adhered to ie you will not be able to board early. Everyone had to come in and sit in the section corresponding to their assigned embarkment times. Note that the time to get on the board starts later than other cruise lines but for a reason – VV does this as they give you the option to have later times to disembark.

It was very hot but luckily a tented area had been set up for people to wait with chilled waters and cold towels being passed out by the staff while we waited. Again a bit of this being my own fault as I definitely did not hydrate enough but I was also starting to have worsening pain and didn’t want to have to ask someone else to watch my stuff when I went to the restroom.

Embarkment was running late and I was already scheduled as the last group to board (at 16:30/4:30 PM) but did not make it onto the boat until 17:20. I made it to my muster station at 17:40 as they were breaking down the station!

VIRGIN VOYAGES’ SEA VIEW (OCEANVIEW) CABIN TOUR

STATEROOM SIZE/CONFIGURATION: All of the 89 sea view/oceanview cabins on the Resilient Lady are the same size measuring 190 square feet / 18 square meters. There’s a comfortable window seat area under the porthole window that makes a cozy reading nook or relaxing place to gaze out at the ocean or even watch TV on the 43-inch smart 4K Ultra HDTV (with access to the infotainment system – Internet, movies on demand, ship info channel, real-time outside camera views)

I never tried it out but apparently the bed can be converted from a full European queen-sized bed to a comfy L-shaped lounger by selecting “day mode” on the cabin’s tablet. Lots of lighting in the room from wall-mounted reading lights to mood lighting behind the vanity mirror to desk lamps

SMART STATEROOM with mood lighting and sensors auto-adjusting cabin’s lighting according to sailor’s (what VV calls passengers) movements. ie the lights and AC would come on when I came into the room or in the evening, the mood lighting would activate. There’s a tablet (pictured below charging in the left photo) that can be used the cabins’ mood lighting, thermostat, smart curtains, and TV + also assists with room service requests.

CLEVER AND THOUGHTFUL DESIGN: See below for more on the well thought out ways that VV designed their cabins and items – especially those to be multi-use/purpose.

Power outlets: There’s a total of 10 power outlets (1 European socket, 3 US sockets, and 6 USB sockets) strategically spread around the cabin

Flexible closet area: featuring a full-length hanging rod with a top shelf and a spacious two-tier cube, plus a single-door wardrobe with 7 shelves and an electronic safe box (17-inch, in the closet)~ again one of multiple storage areas in the cabin (which in my haze from my ailment I neglected taking photos of the closet and videos of the room!)

BATHROOM SIZE/CONFIGURATION Bathrooms are glossy/iridescent cream and white, storage within the s shelving and lit mirrors, and they are all about the same standard size until you move up to premium suites. The showers are pretty roomy with have oversized rain showerheads, glass doors, a second handheld shower sprayer. There are dispensers of red flower-branded bath gel, shampoo and conditioner. Note that Virgin Voyages does not provide lotion

STATEROOM LOCATION The casino was directly above my stateroom but luckily Virgin Voyages restricts smoking to one room so I never had to deal with cigarette smoke. *This is a very big caveat as I was feeling so horrible/alone/raw on the first evening so it seemed a bit noisy (possibly from the casino or the Manor) and lol other evenings I was out myself so I can’t confidently say that it is or isn’t a noisy room

NO SAILAWAY FOR ME…BECAUSE

TMI WARNING here: but I should have drank more liquids throughout the day in general but especially since it was summertime in Greece and ended up pretty dehydrated. But my biggest issue was that was on top of the start of a UTI infection…one that would end up being the worst of my life. And timing was atrocious because by the time I went to the medical center after I showered, it was already closed =/

More on my experience with travel insurance coming up – I am so grateful that I have experienced these before and stopped at a pharmacy in the airport, while they were not able to give me antibiotics without a prescription, I am lucky one of the techs was able to direct me to buy some pills that helped me with the pain and easing other symptoms overnight.