A Transatlantic Cruise from Miami to Barcelona.
2 weeks across the Atlantic Ocean with Virgin Voyages.
It was night time by the time the ship started leaving the dock and turned to line up with the canal leading out to the ocean. Behind us, the imposing skyline of downtown Miami was gleaming in the dark. As the boat slowly moved towards the Atlantic, we could make out the numerous man-made islands dotting Biscayne Bay and the glamorous outline of Miami Beach’s most famous landmarks.
After a few minutes, as Florida was receding in the night by the boat’s aft, darkness enveloped us. It was a mystic start to what would be a two-week crossing across the Atlantic. The Valiant Lady left the port of Miami late – Miami Beach residents know to watch for cruise ships leaving the port and sliding by in the hours before sunset, rarely at night. In the end, it didn’t matter. Our next port, Bimini, was only fifty-five miles away, and we were set to get there the following morning.
Virgin Voyages positions themselves as a luxury line that caters to a younger, hipper crowd
I discovered the world of cruising in 2022 thanks to a Princess Cruise to Alaska, and fell in love with it, for reasons I explain in an earlier entry about another cruise, my 2022 4-week transpacific voyage. After a few cruises, I realized what I enjoyed most were the trips that were going to faraway places or long cruises that felt more like expeditions.
Such was the cruise I took in the spring of 2023. I had chosen to spend a few weeks in Europe and opted to go there via the long way: a transatlantic cruise from Miami, Florida to Barcelona, Spain.
I wasn’t new to these long repositioning cruises that companies use to bring ships from North America to Europe for the summer season, before sending them back, most likely to the Caribbean, for the winter. In fact, I had loved my transpacific crossing so much that I knew a transatlantic one would be coming at some point. The opportunity presented itself when I realized I could sail on one of Virgin Voyages ships and get to Europe with them.
The Virgin brand is fairly new to the world of cruising. In fact, Virgin Voyages was supposed to start sailing in the spring of 2020 – this was of course halted by the Covid pandemic, and the line’s first actual cruise happened in 2021. Starting a new cruise line just after such a crisis, when cruises were seen as spreading events, wasn’t easy and Virgin had to offer very competitive prices to get people to try their ships. The feedback from fellow travelers was excellent and I decided to give them a chance myself.
Virgin Voyages positions itself as a luxury line that caters to a younger, hipper crowd – in line with the demographic target of Virgin Atlantic, its airline big sister. The ships are adults-only, and fares are marketed as all-inclusive, which is different from the majority of Virgin’s competitors like Celebrity, where you are expected to pay extra for internet service or to eat in some of the ship’s restaurants. What most attracted me to this voyage was the potential for a more fun cruise than my previous transpacific cruise, which I enjoyed immensely, but that I would have liked even more if the average age of the cruisers on board had been closer to mine.
I pictured these two weeks on the Valiant Lady as an opportunity to have fun, go out and meet cool people, and I was excited by the prospect of a very different from my Vancouver to Auckland cruise, where I would sometimes read one book a day.
Most of the repositioning cruises that cross the Atlantic aim to stop at least once en route to break the monotony of an otherwise long crossing. As such, stopovers like Madeira, the Azores or Bermuda are fairly common.
Our ship’s itinerary was a little different. Because Virgin Voyages operates a private beach club on the island of North Bimini, in the Bahamas, we would make a stop there right after leaving Miami, and then sail for eight full days to reach Lisbon, Portugal. The cruise would then continue on towards Barcelona, calling at Cadiz and Palma de Mallorca, both in Spain.
Having a beach day just after leaving Miami wasn’t what I was expected – after all, there isn’t much to do on a beach in Bimini that you can’t do in Miami Beach – but I had never been to Bimini proper, and I liked the idea to explore the island, on top of enjoying Virgin’s private beach.
When I woke up in Bimini the following morning, the ship was already docked, and I opened my window shades to turquoise water and bright sunlight. After eating my first breakfast in the galley, I got off the ship, declined the free shuttle that would get me to Virgin’s private beach club in a few minutes, and started walking down the pier towards the shore.
Bimini is the westernmost part of the Bahamas archipelago. Its name means “two islands” or “two twins” in the Lucayan language. Bimini is in fact made of many more, but its two main islands are indeed North Bimini and South Bimini. More than 2,000 people live on the islands.
Being the closest part of the Bahamas from the US, Bimini has historically been visited by Americans looking to have fun, whether the alcoholic kind during the Prohibition era, or gambling and fishing these days. The Hilton hotel and its adjoining Resorts World casino are the two biggest job providers there.
I opened my window shades to turquoise water and bright sunlight.
It felt like a good idea to walk to the Virgin club. I was told it would only take about twenty minutes. I am glad I did, because I got to see a little bit more of Bimini’s North island. To be fair, in April, the heat was pretty intense, and I am glad the club wasn’t further than it was, or I might have had to hail the shuttle for it to stop and pick me up. There is a walking path or a sidewalk for a good portion of the way, and you pass by the Hilton and its casino. I wasn’t planning to gamble (and if I did, there was actually a casino on board the Valiant Lady) yet the walk was peaceful. Before I knew it, I arrived at a small roundabout, showed a guard my Virgin access bracelet and got to the club.
My cruise wasn’t sailing at full capacity, which meant the club never felt too crowded. It was composed of a pool area that sat right beside the entrance shed, and flanked by two restaurant areas where lunch was served (in typical Virgin fashion, tapas style, with a definite Caribbean flair). Beyond the pool, hundreds of chairs were lined up on a beautiful, pristine beach that looked like a picture-perfect paradise.
I put my things down on a lounger and went straight into the water to test it out. It was warm and super easy to get into. I didn’t see a lot of people getting into the ocean throughout the day, so it was unexpectedly the quietest part of the club. Once you were fifty feet away from the shore, the noise and hubbub would fade, and I felt almost like I was alone in the middle of the ocean (sans the sharks, obviously).
Virgin offered excursions in Bimini but I usually like to do my own thing and felt a beach day would be enough to make me happy. It was – although I actually made it a half day. After lunch, and although the heat felt even more oppressive, I walked back towards the ship, went past the pier and tried to discover parts of Bimini that cruisers wouldn’t normally visit – to get a sense of the place beyond the veneer of a luxury hotel or an exclusive beach.
I initially wanted to walk almost all the way to the southernmost point of Bimini’s North island and check out Radio Beach, which was recommended as one of the best beaches on the island, but the heat got the best of me. I saw people coming back from that direction in a golf cart and I felt a little FOMO – I should have thought about renting one earlier, but now it was too late. I turned around towards the pier, then headed west to grab the picture of our ship from a small deserted beach no one had heard of (it’s the image at the top of this article), and slowly made my way back to the Valiant Lady.
As we were leaving Bimini, it felt like the real voyage was starting. The sail away party, a stable of cruises, was set to happen that afternoon – it usually falls on the departure day – so this was a sign the true crossing was about to commence. It would also be my longest time at sea without seeing land. We would be sailing the North Atlantic waters for eight full days. The longest I had been away from land on my Transpacific cruise was six days, as we sailed from Honolulu to Papeete. I wondered how different it would be. Would I actually go crazy after more than a week at sea?
I needn’t have worried. These eight days passed in a flash. I reckon there were two factors at play. First, my mind was in a different place, and I didn’t see this cruise as just a relaxing, reading, sleeping kind of vibe. Second, it was the perfect cruise to have fun.
The first thing I noticed when I boarded the Valiant lady in Miami was the crowd. You could tell from the lines inside and outside the Virgin terminal that it was indeed a very different clientele from my previous oceanic crossing. Overall, people were younger and decidedly more upbeat. While my transpacific cruise the year before was full of American retirees, the Virgin crowd felt more mixed. There were definitely older travelers, but they weren’t as big a group.
I was surprised to see plenty of younger people too. I was expecting it, given Virgin’s image and their marketing targets, but the realization hit me when I scanned the check-in lines. There were many people in their 50s, 40s and quite a few people younger than that. I thought “this is going to be a fun cruise”.
Later in the trip, I would find out a lot of people were either Virgin cruisers who fell in love with the brand and decided to try Virgin’s longest trip across the ocean, or first-time cruisers who got hooked by both the allure of a Virgin cruise and the great reviews you could find all over the internet as well as the incredible value this crossing represented. For some, especially the youngest travelers, it was a relatively affordable way to celebrate milestones with friends, in an environment that was marketed as miles away from a classic, fuddy-duddy cruising experience.
Virgin Voyages didn’t disappoint on this promise. I don’t consider myself an experienced cruiser (although this Virgin cruise would be my sixth cruise in a year), I haven’t yet sampled the more exclusive lines, yet Virgin felt a step above anything I had done before. From the ship design to the customer-facing crew to the food to the entertainment, this was a cruise that felt fresh, innovative and quite luxurious.
Part of Virgin’s appeal is the idea they offer an all-inclusive experience. People tend to think once you pay your cruise fare, you’re all set, but in reality, there are millions of ways to upsell ahead of time or on board. Think about the drinks package, the gratuities, the internet connection, specialty restaurants, and on some cruise lines, special events on board.
There is none of this aboard a Virgin ship. My fare included several hundred dollars of credit towards premium beverages (although I have to note this is no longer a standard offering as of March 2024), basic internet was free, all restaurants on board were included in the fare, even the ones that skewed definitely high end like the Wake or the Test Kitchen, gratuities were included and almost all events on board were free.
It felt incredibly easy to meet people. After a few days at sea, even if there were almost two thousands of us on the boat, I started to notice familiar faces, and whether at the gym, the galley or the casino, I felt it was effortlessly easy getting to know my fellow travelers.
To let people be their best self on the ship, which helped with the vibe, Virgin Voyages set up quite a few events. From a PJ party to an 80s night, people would wear extravagant or just plain fun costumes that were great opportunities for a chat to break the ice. It also showed people weren’t taking themselves seriously.
Even Virgin’s most dressed up event, Scarlet Night, was a cool evening where people were encouraged to wear red, but not the sort of stuffy formal night you can find on other cruise lines, which for me had always been a turn off.
Scarlet Night usually ends on the pool deck with a nighttime pool party but our ocean crossing didn’t let us do that – the weather was a little too windy and chilly for us to party Ibiza-style. In any case, the whole set of events for the night was fun, entertaining and seriously not serious.
As a result, I met a few people on board, and it made for an even better crossing.
We arrived in Lisbon after 8 days at sea that didn’t seem this long. Time flew by, and although we still had a week to go on the cruise, the atmosphere was different. The ship would anchor at Lisbon, Cadiz and Palma before Barcelona, and on these days, most people would get off to wander around a historic center, lay down on a beach, or do shopping. I am purposedly not writing about these stops as they are fairly well covered by a myriad of internet articles already that a simple Google search can unearth. These are not the point of this travel diary.
That last portion of the voyage was no less enjoyable – I enjoyed discovering Cadiz for one, but it wasn’t exactly the same feeling as crossing an immensely vast expanse of water, like we had done the week before.
Our arrival in Barcelona was grand – and I cherished it even more because I knew it could be one of the last times our ship would dock so close to downtown, as the city is trying to relocate cruise ships to docks that are a little further away. I got up around 5am to enjoy the arrival and the sunrise over the city. The boat felt so empty – people were still asleep and I felt like an intruder in a city that wasn’t fully awake yet either.
Before I knew it, it was time to have breakfast, finish packing up my things and get off the boat. I was excited for the rest of my European trip, but sort of sad to leave behind a bunch of nice people I had sympathized with on board, as well as a stellar, attentive and funny crew.
This Virgin cruise was by far my best experience on a ship, and I would return to a Virgin cruise later the same year with friends, to share the love of this line with them.
For now, I enjoyed a few days in Barcelona before heading to Madeira, Portugal.
Images from top to bottom: Virgin’s Valiant Lady in Bimini from the shore, the downtown Miami skyline on the night of departure, the Valiant Lady docked in Bimini, Virgin’s private beach on North Bimini island, the pool area of Virgin’s private club on Bimini, the Dock area on deck 7 of the Valiant lady, the Manor nightclub on deck 5, the upscale Wake restaurant on board the Valiant Lady, somewhere in the Atlantic ocean aboard the Valiant Lady and the Park Güell in Barcelona, Spain.
All images are mine.