We Did 11 Disney Cruises. Then We Tried Virgin Voyages.
Jen and I have done 11 Disney cruises over 20 years. We don’t have kids. We chose DCL because Disney runs a tight ship — literally — and the adults-only areas were good enough to justify sharing the vessel with 1,500 children in matching Frozen shirts. We also did one Carnival and one Celebrity back in the early 2000s. Neither left much of an impression.
Over the last few sailings, Disney stopped being fun and started being a system I’d already reverse-engineered. Rotational dining was revolutionary in 1998 and rigid in 2026. The entertainment was polished and predictable. Everything onboard had a metaphorical layer of styrofoam rounding off any sharp corners, and I’d started noticing the styrofoam more than the experience underneath it. We canceled our last two DCL placeholders. That’s not something a Platinum-status cruiser does lightly.
In May 2026 we boarded Virgin Voyages’ Brilliant Lady for an 8-night Pacific Coast sailing from Los Angeles to Vancouver. The itinerary hit Catalina Island, San Francisco, Astoria, and Victoria before disembarking in Vancouver. We flew out of Spokane at 6am and were on the ship by 2:15pm, cabin ready, glass of champagne in hand.
That champagne was the first signal that the operating philosophy was different.
Embarkation, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Trust the Drag Queen
The Happenings Cast (VV’s version of the Entertainment staff) were dancing around the boarding area in stylized cutaway boiler suits. The music was loud. Every guest got a glass of bubbles walking on. And Kara Kature — a gorgeous 6’2” drag queen who’s part of the entertainment crew — was personally greeting passengers as they arrived.
Nobody was checking whether your content was age-appropriate, because everyone on the ship was over 18. That’s VV’s headline feature and it changes everything downstream.
Our cabin was ready at 2:15pm. Disney has never managed that in 11 tries. I’ve spent more time standing in the DCL atrium waiting for the room-ready announcement than I’ve spent debugging NFS locks, and the NFS locks were more rewarding.
The Cabin
Central Sea Terrace, Deck 13. A bit smaller than a DCL verandah, which makes sense — Disney designs for two adults and two kids. Storage was adequate, suitcases fit under the bed, and there were enough AC outlets and USB ports for all our devices. Jen had read a tip online and requested the mattress topper from our stateroom host, which made the bed comfortable.
Lights and mood music are controlled by a custom Android tablet on the wall. The TV is a modern wall-mounted LG LED.
One gripe: the wall mount blocks the HDMI ports and there’s no port extender, AirPlay, or Bluetooth streaming. I couldn’t cast from my phone. A sufficiently determined hacker will find a workaround for next time.
Adults Only, and What That Actually Means
I want to be fair to Disney. DCL does a terrific job keeping kids busy and giving adults breathing room. That’s why Jen and I, and our child-free DCL friends, have enjoyed those ships for years. The issue isn’t raucous children. It’s that DCL designed their entire operational philosophy around families, and if you don’t have kids, you’re along for the ride on someone else’s vacation.
On DCL, you’ll have dinner at a set time in a set dining room, see the show either before or after, and choose from a roster of daily activities that are all carefully neutral and inoffensive. The whole experience feels managed. Not badly managed — Disney is very good at managing — but managed in a way that assumes you might break something if left unsupervised.
VV’s model is the inverse. You’re a responsible adult who chose to let loose for the next week. Eat what you want, when you want. There’s always an open bar or food service. There’s always live music or a dance party. Dress formal or casual or anything in between. Get up with the sun or sleep until midday.
The difference isn’t the absence of children. It’s the absence of the system built to contain them.
Dining: The System That Actually Matters
This was personal. I eat smaller portions more often, which is more true now that I’ve been on GLP-1s for a couple of years. Disney’s rotational dinner system, combined with understaffed food service, means almost every other option closes during the designated dinner hour. Unless you want a hot dog. Literally.
VV has 20-plus restaurants, all included, no surcharges. We got reservations at every one we wanted. The standout for daily eating was the Galley, an upscale food court with cuisine windows. Not a buffet — more like a permanent food truck meetup. Open all day, genuine variety, good quality.
We did the bar tab package (buy $300, get $50 free, combined) and ended up spending around $400 total. That’s coffee bar, Red Bulls, cocktails in the clubs, drinks at the bars. I’d bump up a tier next time, but I was glad not to be scrambling to burn it on the last day, which I saw other people doing.
Entertainment, or: I Danced
I’m a 56-year-old introverted engineer who works from home. I do Spartan Races and triathlons to force myself out of my comfort zone. VV’s themed party nights were 100% effective in doing the same thing.
PJ Party was night one. Everyone in cute or frumpy pajamas after dinner; a dance party in the Manor that we skipped because we were at karaoke. I love singing karaoke and only do it on cruise ships.
Electric night: we went to the Glam Glow-up and got glitter art. I asked for the David Bowie Ziggy Stardust lightning bolt and the artist was delighted to do it. We wore our flashiest outfits. Karaoke, then the Manor. I danced. Me.
Scarlet Night and Disco Night were variations on the same format. Theme, dress up, show off, sing, dance. DCL’s closest equivalent is Pirate Night, which is fun, but it’s a choreographed character show on the pool deck where the whole family is there.
The shows were more intimate than DCL’s Broadway productions. VV’s Red Room is a convertible two-sided theater — it’s not anything on the scale of DCL’s Walt Disney Theater. Duel Reality was a modern Romeo and Juliet with dance fights and not much plot. Murder in the Manor and Out of Time were extremely silly and we loved them both. Real song-and-dance productions that refuse to take themselves seriously.
If you’re expecting Broadway spectacle, recalibrate. VV’s entertainment is closer, weirder, funnier, and more participatory. It’s not trying to be Disney. It doesn’t need to be.
The Operational Details
This is the stuff I can’t help noticing.
The wearable. VV’s bracelet (the “puck”) is your room key, payment method, and boarding pass. It’s smaller, more functional, and less bulky than Disney’s MagicBands. Not designed to appeal to a six-year-old, which is a feature.
Reboarding. On DCL, reboarding after a port day feels like a gauntlet. Ship card scan, visual bag inspection, X-ray, and a security team whose attitude says you should feel glad we let you back onboard. I’m sure that’s not what Disney intends, but I doubt any of their executives have ever reboarded as a regular passenger. On VV: scan your wearable, get bags X-rayed, done. Actual smiles and welcome-back from the security staff. Valid security controls without the attitude.
Debarkation. You book a debark time on the app, same flow as booking a shore excursion. We picked the latest slot — 10:45am — and it was no problem. DCL wants you out of your room by 8 and off the ship by 9, and the security team will start sweeping.
Wifi. We pre-paid for Premium, which covers two people with two devices each. The two-devices-each part is a real improvement over Disney’s offering. But even Premium was throttled to the point where I couldn’t do anything useful, and I had to upgrade to the “work at sea” package to keep up with my job search. Budget for the upgrade if you need to do anything beyond Instagram.
Laundry. No self-service laundry rooms — a real surprise after DCL, which has them. VV status-matched our Disney Platinum, which got us one bag each over the cruise. We did one around day three and one around day seven. Worked fine. If you’re coming from DCL and planning to pack light and do your own loads, adjust.
Canada customs. Basically nothing. Filled out the declaration, left it for our (wonderful) room host. No customs check in Victoria, nothing at all disembarking in Vancouver. My guess is that VV forwarded our passport information to CBSA and would have let us know if anything else was needed.
The Ports
Catalina: fine. The Wrigley Memorial hike helped my mood on a rough morning. No reason to go back.
San Francisco: we lived in the Bay Area for 22 years. Lunch with a friend, drinks with others, sea lions. No tour needed.
Astoria: our bike tour was canceled, probably for lack of signups. We walked from the ship to downtown, had lunch, did some antique shopping. Lovely town.
Victoria: Empress tea, outstanding as expected. We’d done it before. Service, food, atmosphere, all perfect. Took a wrong turn and walked the long way back to the ship. It’s a pretty city.
Fitness
The strength training gym is well equipped. I used it a few sea days. The jogging track is an elevated catwalk on Deck 15 and the wind made it unpleasant — DCL’s sheltered Deck 4 track is better for actual running. We took the Latin Dance and V/H/S Dance fitness classes and I had a great time. More comfort zones expanded.
Who This Is For, and Who It Isn’t
VV’s culture is young and progressive. Unapologetically so. The “young” part is more “young at heart” — there were plenty of retirees having the time of their lives. But the “progressive” part is non-negotiable. Kara Kature greeting passengers at the door. A crowd where at times the gay couples outnumbered the straight ones, and the fashion and music were better for it.
DCL can market to everyone because Disney is a great equalizer. VV leans into a specific worldview: love is love, the future is now, get on board or stay home.
I’d recommend VV for: adult couples and friend groups who want a real vacation, not a family trip minus kids. DCL veterans who’ve started feeling the edges of the formula. Anyone who values dining flexibility and quality over production-scale shows. People who want to be surprised by their cruise instead of just comfortable on it.
Cost was roughly equivalent to DCL for a couple in a balcony cabin. We don’t drink heavily and I only entered the casino because that’s where the entrance to the Manor nightclub is.
The Verdict
We booked our next voyage — Sisters at Sea, Brilliant Lady, 10 nights from Miami, February 2027 — before we got home. It’s VV’s first-ever four-ship meetup, which is neat from a logistics-nerd perspective, but that’s not why we booked. The itinerary has a stop in San Juan, which we’ve never done. More nights, new ports, same ship.
We haven’t quit Disney. We’ll cruise DCL again — and seeing the Wonder sitting in port when we arrived in Vancouver was extra sweet, the way spotting an old friend in a new city is sweet. This isn’t goodbye. It’s a change, and it’s good to change things up.
We booked VV again because my well-being genuinely improved over the course of the week, in a way that hasn’t happened on our last few Disney cruises. I came home wanting to go back instead of feeling like I’d checked a box.
Virgin Voyages made us want to cruise again. Ask me how the next one goes.
Addendum: special diets (May 15, 2026)
I should have included this in the dining section. I’m a “nonmammaltarian,” which is a word I made up because no real dietary label covers “everything except mammals.” No beef, pork, lamb. Chicken, fish, and shellfish are fine. It’s a weird enough restriction that most cruise dining rooms handle it by accident (order the chicken) or not at all (everything interesting tonight has bacon in it).
VV handled it on purpose. Every restaurant had chicken, Impossible, and veggie options that weren’t afterthoughts. I travel with vegetarian and vegan friends, and they had entire menu sections with options clearly called out. Not the usual “a mushroom pasta dish or a sad salad.” The food service team had obviously thought through every menu for people who don’t eat the default.
If you have dietary restrictions and you’ve spent years quietly scanning cruise menus for the one thing you can order, this is worth knowing about.
One more thing
This trip and most of our 11 Disney cruises were booked through our travel agent, Mary Kraemer at Masterpiece Travels. Mary is an ECC and LCS, which are industry certifications that mean she actually knows what she’s doing rather than just reselling a website. She’s been putting up with our indecisiveness, last-minute changes, and cabin-location opinions for years. If you’re considering a cruise of any kind, talk to a good travel agent. Booking direct saves you nothing and costs you a professional advocate when things go sideways.
This isn’t an affiliate link. Just a sincere recommendation.