Transcript
Speaker: Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Sober Cruise Podcast. My name is Martin and as always I'm joined by Mark. Mark, how are you? I'm well today, Martin. How are you today? Very good. Thank you very much. And on the last couple of podcasts, we've been talking about the food on board of Virgin Voyages.
Speaker: and so that's what the sailing that we're doing in August 2026 is going to be on Virgin Voyages. Scarlet Lays, been talking about the restaurants on board. And today we're going talking still about food because there's loads of places to eat on Virgin Voyages and we can't do it all in one go.
Speaker: And we'll be talking about the places... the The place that you don't make reservations for and more kind of like in snacks and that kind of stuff. and So it's not necessarily a full on kind of meal. It's more about keeping you going because, you know, Virgin don't want anyone feeling even slightly peckish. I reckon because there's enough place to get food. So we've been talking about things like the grounds club, the the the dark social club.
Speaker: and And of course, my favorite, which is the pizza. place Of course, yes, the the the pizza place is very the pizza is very good. Yes. Now, let's start off with, they do do food there, but it's more about the coffee. So let's talk about the grounds club. and So there's one down on deck seven. There's also one up at the galley um on ah deck fourteen that's all on deck on deck 15. Now, I don't drink coffee.
Speaker: ah So tell us a little bit more about what people can expect from the grounds. Yep, sure. So there is free coffee in the galley. So you don't need to go to the grounds club at all. But if you're If you want kind of a fancy coffee, a latte or a cappuccino, or and then that's the place to go. and Most people would be using their bar tab to buy the coffee. So it's normally a about $5 a cup.
Speaker: and But there are actually a very large selection of croissants and pastries available there as well. Now you don't even need to be buying coffee to get those. you can simply If you see a croissant or a pastry you like, you can simply go up and ask for one of those and and take it away. It's just a nice place to spend half an hour. you know There's some nice chairs and tables, nice comfy chairs around it. And and it's it's just part of the day really. i I've tended to go once or twice a day and just grab a coffee and spend 15 or 20 minutes there.
Speaker: So would said it was very pleasant. Yeah. Did you try the banana bread? I did not, no. Was that good? Banana. was more of a banana cake, I think. It's more, you'll label it, suppose it's banana bread. After after COVID, everyone was making banana bread. but But yeah, that's really, really nice. And they they have cookies in there as well. um And um they also do the jalapeno croissant from... them from razzle dazzle is sometimes on the we can deck seven as well the grounds club down there um you you can get that but as you said yeah you can pick up those pastries whether you're having coffee or not um to me he doesn't drink coffee it um it's you know you got your basic kind of coffee for free but you got your starbucks pret-a-manger sort of style coffee that you your barista made coffees uh and hot chocolates and teas and things that you can get those uh you can get the iced ones as well i'm talking like actually i'm talking about the iced coffees and the iced mochas and i i had an iced hot chocolate i kept on calling iced hot chocolate obviously it's not that but it's an iced chocolate whatever it's called i had those a few times and that was really nice i had that with like a cookie um and that so
Speaker: That is your coffee place that you can go and get your ah start off your day with, or maybe so a bit of a pick me up if you need a bit of a caffeine shot a bit later on.
Speaker: Let's go to the back of the ship. and Let's go to the dock. And did you like the dock? Very much. Now the dock's a lovely area. It's probably one of my favourite areas on the ship. and There's an inside bit to it where it's sort of lots of comfortable chairs and sofas and ah day beds.
Speaker: And then there's an outside bit to it as well, as well which again, more day beds, more plenty of places to lie in the sun. and But of course, they the pièce de résistance in the dock is the food. You know, that they between, i think it's 4.30 and 6.30. Might have got the times a little bit wrong there. 3.40 and... It starts 3.30, they bring this kind of, they what what they call opaar. And if i if my dutch if I remember my Dutch, I think opa might mean grandmother Dutch. Yeah, I think it's meant to be Greek. So maybe it's so true up maybe is Greek for grandmother. and But but it basically Greek-inspired tapas. So little bits of metze, so bits of little palafels, little bits of beef on skewers. Very, very nice.
Speaker: What did you think it? Yeah, I really like that. I mean, we would go down quite a lot at about four o'clock and go and get it. Now you can get little kind of picky bits, like Greek kind of picky bits throughout the day. They just extend the menu for that at 3.30 for that kind of ah longer time. I would say they don't do that on sail away day. So you don't get on the first day, but every other day you can go down and go and have it down there. But it's a nice way. If you've got one of those sunbeds down there, if you've been out there
Speaker: it's one o'clock or something, you're chilling out. The servers will come round, they'll bring you over at Coke Zero, and then you put your little flag up because Opera Almas starting. You go, okay, we're going have that. They do a nice selection of at the Baclava sweets as well, so you can have those, and you can know to get as much of it as you like. It's great, again, to sort of share out. There's a couple of you sort of... Because it was, you know...
Speaker: About four o'clock, there'd be like four or five of us just chatting on the on the beds um and chilling out, relaxing, and then eating this really nice food, drinking our Coke Zeros and ginger ale.
Speaker: Yes, indeed. Yeah. So I've just looked up on Google and we were both right, is Opa Dorsmin, Grandpa in Dutch. Oh, right. Okay. But it has a meaning in Greek. It's just an expression in Greek, like hooray.
Speaker: right. Okay. Happy hour. Happier, happier. That might be it, yeah. my yeah yeah so But Jesse, all you were saying about the food is absolutely right. is it is It is very good. And it might well be for for us on our cruise, it's certainly one of the places we're thinking of for our daily meeting, you know, because it's a nice place for people to just come and go. If we say maybe 4.30 to 5.30 people just to come and go, have a chat and have a bit of food and then maybe go off and get ready for dinner.
Speaker: Yeah. Did you get anything from the grab and go when you were in the dock? So just just before you go outside, there's a little fridge on the left-hand side. And that has things like wraps and overnight oats, that kind of stuff. you need It's already there. It's in yeah a little wear container and you just pick it up and you have to take it back to your cabin. you can eat outside, take it around the ship. But it's kind of quite nice that you don't have to ask anyone. You can just grab something and... They've got those up upstairs in the galley as well, but it's nice that they've got them ah downstairs so you can have them whilst you're chilling out in the sun.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm not even sure I noticed that, so and I didn't use that. But of course, the other thing to mention is that there is a smoothie bar there. so you get some lots of smoothies and ginger shots and all that kind of stuff as well. Yes, yes, you can go and ah have the ginger shots and the smoothies, maybe a proteins movie if you've been to the gym or something earlier, Rob.
Speaker: Now, sticking on deck seven, we'll head slightly more sort of back into the ship and that takes us to the social club. Now, the social club, As youim you can you can tell from the name is where people go to socialize. There's lots of entertainment that goes on there. So this is generally where things like the quizzes happen, and so challenges, some so sometimes entertainment. So the divas sometimes, which the drag queen on board, hosts like a little game show.
Speaker: And then also quizzes, a lot of quizzes. isn't Yes. yeah So the quizzes were one of the things I really enjoyed on the ship. the m On other ships, quizzes tend to be a member of staff standing at the at the front reading questions from a piece of paper.
Speaker: But on on Virgin Voyages, they are ah they're a form of entertainment in themselves. you know they get they get the the a the people The guys from the Happening cast who were doing the quizzes were clearly very invested in making them fun. you know So even if you weren't actually doing the quiz, it was an entertaining way to spend an hour. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, there's different themed quizzes as well. So there's like a 90s one, there's movies, there's films and different decades, stuff like that. So you can kind of go along and say, actually, I don't know anything about whatever. And then you've got like a general kind of knowledge ones as well. So yeah it's a lot of fun.
Speaker: the other thing about the social club is that is it for me it's the the area that kind of is more most virgin on virgin cruises you know it's kind of and i don't mean to be rude to anybody because i include myself in this but it's kind of like geek central you know there were all these tables and there were like jigsaws and board games i'm a big katan player myself and so there would be people out in the day playing cards playing make doing puzzles And then at the back, there's there's a free arcade, you know, with Space Invaders and all those games from the 80s, completely free. and So I really, really like the Social Club. And of course, in a minute, you're going to tell us about the food, you know, the food, that there is food there as well.
Speaker: There is food. i mean, you can go to, there's two different ah and sort of types of food. So you can either get like a hot dog, pretzel, nachos, that kind of stuff. So, you know, I'd say it's like fun of their kind of food.
Speaker: um you can You can get those, which is great. Or if you're just walking past, they have a little counter and it's got like little sweet snacks. um So things like peanut bristles, like a cake pop as well. Now, remember when I got off the ship, I went to Orlando afterwards and I sent the group a picture of a cake pop in, I think it was Universal Studios, and it was $10 for that cake pop. I was thinking a couple of days ago, I could have had as many of these as I wanted. So tell you next time on board, I'll be having cake pop.
Speaker: Loads of it because I'm getting $10. It's puff on the... Yeah, um yeah oh they are nice. And they had these big like jars of gummy bears, if I remember. you know that' ah it it's Again, it's it's all part of this fun, slightly quirky m and it's you know image. it's really It really is good. It's a nice place to be.
Speaker: yeah Did you ever have any of the shakes? the mephas No. They're very filling because it's a lot of ice cream and cream and everything, all the syrups and stuff and that. But they are really, really nice. They're about $5 or so, so they're not particularly expensive if you want to have one of those.
Speaker: um But of course, if you want to have something cold, then just around the corner from the social club is Lick Me Till Ice Cream. And you can see what they've done there with the name. It's the ice cream colour.
Speaker: Right. Very good segue there, Martin. Uh, yeah. So there's six flavors of ice cream every single day. and they cheat. There's a couple of them that are on, on every day and then the rest them change.
Speaker: Um, I think I mentioned in a previous podcast that one thing to be a little bit careful of is that one of the flavors of ice cream every day will have alcohol and so we need to be in those of us who, uh, don't drink, we'll be stay away from that. But it does say quite clearly on the label contains alcohol.
Speaker: But it was and it was nice. It was good quality ice cream and it was just a nice way to to spend 20 minutes. Yeah, I think we kind of mentioned before that if you you know freak you if if you're in Palma Mallorca, the same ice cream would cost you six euros probably for a similar kind of quality, I think. And you can have you can go up and go down. Now, a little tip um is if you go and get your ice cream from there, but if you've been to the grounds club just around the corner, you can go and get like a cookie.
Speaker: Or maybe a peanut brittle from the um from the social club and then pull it all into the pot together and make a little creation. So you did that a couple of times where we got a cookie and crumbled it up. It comes in a a bag, right crush it up, yes and then you kind of put that over love a couple of different pots. Gordon Ramsay is in the room.
Speaker: I know, it's just like Beaver Heston, you know, all this is creation. So it is a really nice place to go to. And again, it's those things that on other cruise lines, you know, they might have soft serve ice cream, know, the Mr. Whippy kind of ice cream for free. But the proper stuff, the proper gelato kind of ice cream, you have to pay extra for. It's all free. You have as much as you like. can have a pot, you can have in a cone. have this different kind of cones.
Speaker: It's right next to a door that you can then go outside and there's sun lounges out there where you can go for a little walk or wander around with your ice cream. So it's really nice. I mean, who doesn't mind? right beside the ice cream stand is one of your favourite places.
Speaker: but Of course it is. You know you kind of go again but When you're talking to people about urgent voyages and you say, oh, the peaches are on board really good, they go... going on board a cruise ship to go and have like good pizza well it is really good pizza and i think once they once you try it they make all the pizzas from scratch um they're all to order they have a they have a menu and then they have a pizza of the day but you can always kind of ask for extra things so i would have like the pepperoni pizza and then maybe add some chicken on top maybe some peppers and that kind of stuff and then by the side of it you got things like the tabasco sauce and the parmesan so you can add that extra on top as well
Speaker: they you can either eat them in there or you can get them in the takeaway boxes and take them back to your cabin or take somewhere else around the ship because a lot of times you'll see people you know they're around the pool or up you know up on the top deck eating pizza you know just go and take them and or if you're going back to your cabin and you're in your hammock it's a really nice way to Sweet, how about chat, relax and have your pizza and maybe... Yes, yeah, and it's it's open very late as well, so I was never up late enough to to experience this, but I think it is open until like 1, 2 o'clock in the morning. well what thought we Usually, yeah, depends on on on the on the on the day, but usually two o'clock um it's it's open. so But you can go in there sure yeah for lunch or afternoon snacks. We could, a couple of times, as we if we were having a bit of a later dinner, we could go in, and go and have a pizza between us. so There was you know ah four of us, we might have two pizzas between us. Yeah, it was very good.
Speaker: And you can get your Coke Zero from there as well. They have an outdoor area, so if you want go to sit outside, you can go and do that. And again, you can walk off with the pizza. But I cannot stress enough how good and how nice the pizza is. Now, talking about, obviously, you can take this up to the top deck if you want to, um to go and chill out, relax in. But one place that is, it's a bit kind of hidden, isn't it? It's the Sun Cafe.
Speaker: And you didn't actually get a chance to go to it. Now, I have been there. Yeah. Because it's so hidden. it's So you've got the deck 15 where the pool is, and then you've got deck 16 above it. And it's on deck 16 off to the side.
Speaker: um So think a lot of people just don't know is how they are. all It's only open between so of about 12 and 5. I think if people walk past it, you know, on a bit of a morning walk, They might just walk past it and not remember it's there. But um this is one of those places we're going to have to get is to try next time. Yes. So, yes, it was one of the places that I was really looking forward to visiting and because of the very healthy food, poke bowls and salads and things like that and bowel buns. But it's not somewhere that you naturally walk past. You know you need to be going there. So I i just missed it. i just never i just na And again, another's another sign of how good the food is everywhere else. I just never got the time to to go.
Speaker: so yeah It is a nice... parents It's really good. Yeah, if you if you get some food and that there's a little seating area that you can just go and sit down and and eat it there or you can take it back to your sun lounger and eat it. It's not typically massive portion so again, you can sit and eat it while sunbathing.
Speaker: Now, one thing I will say is the you've got the the fiery popcorn, the spicy popcorn which is really nice. It has a slight kick to it as you'd expect um and they will say to you, are you sure you that you want it? Yes.
Speaker: I'm a big boy now, yeah, I can fish. but But, you know they kind of like, big it up and that. And it does have a bit of spice. just but have But it is kind of nice because, you know, it's a little snack that you can have if you just want something a little bit sweet and a bit different as well. You can just have a little snack before, you know, whilst you're around the pool or or whatever, really. um It's not a massive portion.
Speaker: It comes one of the... You this kind of like craze that all these restaurants have of serving like fries and things that are in a little frying... Like the little frying basket, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, it's served in in that for whatever reason. um So you can have that. You also get popcorn down in the um and the social club as well.
Speaker: who I don't think I ever saw that. Yeah. You can get it. It's salted popcorn. I don't particularly like salted popcorn that much. So um you can get that. But I've i've had the pretzels from there. But yeah, the Sun Cafe is definitely somewhere we're going to have to get you to try. First on the sea day.
Speaker: Yes, we'll definitely make sure we make a pilgrimage to the Sun Club Cafe. And we've spoken a little bit about you can take stuff back to your cabin if you want to. So you who have the pizza and sit out on the balcony.
Speaker: Or if you don't want to go and get the stuff yourself, Virgin have what they call it ship eats. And this is their version of room service. Now, you did room service quite a few times, didn't I did. I did. So that it's 24 hours a day, the room service. They do breakfast. I think it's from 5 to 11. And then from 11 to five, it's the the dinner. I didn't do anything for for the the the lunch or dinner, but I had the the breakfast several times. and I would order maybe that an omelet or and fruit. you know maybe Sometimes I would order like two or three portions of fruit and then just leave them in the cabin or put put them in the fridge.
Speaker: Now they do charge for the delivery $10, but if you buy anything to the value of $10 or above, they waive the delivery charge. So I would generally just buy like ah an orange juice and a coffee and that means it was free. And then of course my second favorite insider tip,
Speaker: is that you can get cans of pop. So you can get Coke Zero or Sprite or whatever you like for free. you know So I would i would order maybe eight cans of Diet Coke or Coke Zero and then just pop them in the fridge and that would do me for two or three days.
Speaker: But the the food's good. I think that in the yeah and the the other menu, which I haven't had, it is kind of quite extensive. It does have cheeseburgers and you know ah fish strip bass and chicken and things like that. So you can get a fairly good meal.
Speaker: and But to be honest, it's not going to be as good as the food in the restaurants. ah We did the, we've had the charcuterie for, uh, uh, and that was really nice. And again, it's something that if you're just sat out on your balcony in your hammock, bit charcuterie watching the world go by is really, really nice to do. Um, have the, the pasta from there as well.
Speaker: Um, so it's the, uh, the ragu pasta. I think they also have meatballs separately. Um, uh, as well. So it's it's more of a, you know, if you, um if everyone wants to chill out Mille Lacs, or for example, if a couple of people going over to, know, if you're going over to someone else's cabin to, to chill out at their cabin, it's nice to have a few kind of things, uh, while you're able to, again, you can also get desserts and that kind of stuff. Um, uh,
Speaker: snacks delivered to the room. So just to clarify that um most of the things are free on Ship Eats. It's things like that you would pay around the ship for. So things like Red Bull, for example, the speciality coffee that you'd pay extra around the ship. um the things like the freshest squeeze orange juice, that kind of thing. Those are the things that you pay for. And if you get to the $10, then you basically, you don't pay the the the delivery fee. So it's not that you'll be paying um for every single item. No, so no. And all the food's free. It's just it's just some of the drinks you you pay for.
Speaker: Yeah. So the cans of Coke, for example, are free. you want a Red Bull, I think it's $6 for a Red Bull on board. So, you know, because I drink coffee, I'd probably have a Red Bull and something else to get it up to that $10. So the the trade charge is waived.
Speaker: Yeah. And it's a nice way to chill out and relax. And if you're just thinking, actually, I just want to sit and watch the world go by. Now, you can. Never really kind of got it to work that well, but you can do ship eats anywhere around the ship.
Speaker: Can you really? I didn't know that. yeah So you can, when you go to ship eats, it says, do you want it delivered to your cabin? So you can, for example, if you're at someone else's cabin and you want to get food delivered, you can get food delivered to someone else's cabin. But likewise, you could also get it delivered to somewhere else on the ship. So the idea being that you could potentially get it to deliver up to, if you were sunbathing, for example, at the perch, you get up there.
Speaker: Now it works off of the Bluetooth around the ship and it doesn't always work. doesn't some lot of the time it will say, we can't figure out where you are. Hmm. speaker wow okay fine just send it to the room and carry it to wherever else it's going to go to but most of the time think most people are ordering it to their cabin or another cabin and it is quite easy to change the cabin numbers on there it's if you wanted to for example get it delivered to the perch where you just made in that's a bit more difficult just because it never worked for me now it might just be my phone it might just be the something was wrong at the time whatever but i can get it to work but hopefully you can Right, well, give ah I'll give it a go, although it does sound rather lazy. Well, I'll have a charcuterie ball to deliver to... ever to now It's the same charcuterie ball as what you get in the in the galley, in the grab-and-go section. Yeah.
Speaker: The same as that. um So you can go and do grab-and-go yourself. Yes, it seems a bit, we given that the galley, and we're going to talk about the galley in our next podcast, but given that the galley is so convenient to to to have somebody deliver at that extra 100 feet see your sun lines seems a little lacy.
Speaker: Well, yeah you know, you've got to get up and I can't lay by the pool too long. I kind of get a bit restless after a while. So i would I would be the one saying for the group, does anyone want anything from the galley? I'll go and pick up. Because I like having the tacos around the around the the sun lounging. I'm going to grab a load of tacos and f fries or or whatever. And of course the cookies, yes.
Speaker: And the cookies. You got to get there the the the server to come over with the Coke Zeroes and the hot cookies.
Speaker: Yeah, excellent. So we've covered off quite a lot of different places you can eat today. And of course, in the other two podcasts that are already out, you can hear all about places like the Test Kitchen and the Wake and things that. And on the next podcast, we'll be talking about the galley, which is Virgin Voyages version of the buffet. We don't call it a buffet because it's not buffet. But ah we will be talking all about the galley and all the really cool, amazing places and healthy places that you can eat whilst you're on board.
Speaker: So looking forward to that one. Now, as always, if you want to chat to us about ah going on the Sober Cruise with us, you can go to thesobercruise.co.uk. You'll find tons of information on there. You can get in contact with us by email. you can give us a call all week. You can book in and also request a time chat to one of us as well. We can tell you all about what it can be like sailing on board the Sober Cruise.
Speaker: and answer all of those questions. So ah hopefully we'll be speaking to a lot of you very, very soon. ah For now, thank you very much, Mark, and see you on the next episode. Yep, thanks, Martin. See you soon.
