Our Scarlet Lady Sea Terrace review. The Traveling Architect’s are sailing on Virgin Voyages Scarlet Lady’s first Mayan Sol itinerary.
The Sea TERRACE with the signature red hammock
This is one of the most beautiful cruise ships we have been on. For those familiar with celebrity edge it is a real competitor in the new cruise experience market. Tom Dixon, lead designer has brought a clean, modern, nautical experience to the rooms
Unfortunately image only goes so far when you’re in A 250 ft² room for one week. It feels as if the designers never traveled by cruise ship. As I am writing this blog on mobile while aboard the ship I will try to keep a running list of of architectural features that work well and ones that could have been done better. I will place a gallery at the end with photos.
WORKS WELL
Peep hole indoor to keep light out
High end hand stitched chair
Personal hammock. Environmentally friendly
Great temperature control
Fun lighting
Plenty of power receptacles and USB. BUT… see below.
Best cruise ship shower, EVER
COULD HAVE BEEN DONE BETTER
Power receptacles and USB very poorly placed. One is covered when bed becomes a sofa. Can’t reach the one on the opposite side of bed. NO power in bathroom for hairdryer or shaver (if you are that old)
Switches even poorly placed. And hard to figure out what they do
Storage. What storage. Closet bar hugh, but half as many hangers as needed. This is quite important as there are nowhere near enough cunbbyholes to hold your clothing.
As above the cunbies were like limited.. One holds the safe one holds your pool towels and one holds the life jackets.
Compounding the lack of storage; there are no nightstands. We count on a night stand on each side of the bed for add for nighttime pills small storage in a place to plug in and see the clock on your phone.
Sink counter is small and there are no shelves for places to hold even simple things like deodorant, toothpaste or a brush.
There is no receptacle in the bathroom.
I really like the double swing shower door, but it would be nice if there were a handle on the inside allowing you to pull the door in when you have the water running and are inside the shower.
We found the lighting in the bathroom to be poor for grooming and makeup.
The other mirror above the desk has even worse lighting. It would be difficult for 2 women sharing a room to get ready at the same time.
Overall Lighting is inadequate for many tasks. There should have been as much effort put into good lighting as fun lighting.
If you like the very dark room, for sleeping, it will be a challenge. There is a lighting panel to create moods in the room.. The the tablet glows.. As well as iite on the thermostat. All were easily blocked at some point.
I am not sure this belongs here but as a warning some of the lighting settings include opening the terrace blinds. Be careful if you were in port and not wearing clothes.
If you store your suitcases under the bed the room steward is unable to make your bed into a sofa.
SUMMARY
I realize that some of these are are personal preferences. Quality comments and differences in opinion are appreciated. We have been on 31 cruises with this being our 11th cruise line.. We tend to take adventuresome cruises and go for upwards of 2 plus weeks. For short cruises with casual evenings this may be the perfect cruise for you. In the end it is all about expectations.
It is only day two. A sea day. I am blogging on my phone from the pool deck. Virgin has delivered a beautiful new boat with a unique twist to the traditional cruise experience.
LEARN MORE
If you want to learn more about the Virgin voyager’s experience head over to our cruise blog www.TravelLikeAnArchitect.com. …and find us on social there.
for a video of the cabin, click our youtube channel