It’s Friday, May 26, 2023, and as we usually do, we had a very early morning flight to make sure we made our ship’s departure time of 6 p.m., allowing for possible unexpected delays.
Many thanks to our friend Neal for taking us to the airport at such a godawful hour. We appreciate you, Neal.
We caught a Lyft from the Miami Airport to Port of Miami, Terminal V, Virgin Voyages, 718 N Cruise Blvd., where we boarded Virgin Cruise Line’s Scarlet Lady ship at 3 p.m.
Our itinerary
| Friday, May 26: Depart Miami | 7 pm
Saturday, May 27: Sailing fun with Bears at Sea Sunday, May 28: Puerto Plata port call | 9 am – 6 pm Monday, May 29: Sailing fun with another at-sea day Tuesday, May 30: Beach Club at Bimini, Bahamas port call | 8 am – 8 pm Wednesday, May 31: Return in Miami | 6:30 am |
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Home for the next 5 days
On all of our previous cruises, we’ve had balcony suits, but since we bid on this cabin just 4 days ago from a couple of guys who had to drop out of the trip/group at the last minute, they had a “Seaview” cabin—so no balcony, only a porthole—but it was just fine.
BearCruise group activities
3:00 – 5:00 pm: BearCruise Hospitality Desk – On the Rocks, Deck 6. Come check in with us if you did not check in with us on the bus or at the hotel.
We finally boarded at around 3:30 p.m., checked in with the bear group, and since we’d last eaten (breakfast) at 4 a.m., we immediately went for grub at the Pizza Place on deck 7, where I had the White Truffle & Egg pizza and Bob had the Pepperoni Pizza.
6 pm: Sail Away–Aquatic Club Bar, Deck 15 (Pool Deck). Wear a hat and/or a t-shirt with a bear on it it to help us find you in the crowd. Don’t miss sailing out of Miami. It’s one of the most interesting ports to sail from.
7:00 pm: Cocktails at The Dock House Bar, Deck 7.
This is where we will meet for happy hour and dinner each night. From here, we’ll go to the reserved specialty restaurants in groups of 20 or so starting at 8:00 pm, 8:15 pm, 8:30 pm, and 8:45 pm.
Today’s happy hour was very-well attended, and although I didn’t get any pictures of the group, here are a couple of pictures of the bar, including the entranceway which we filled up with bears.
We kept the bartender super busy, and she was amazing remembering our orders and making them as quickly as possible. We warned her that we were going to be coming to this ship’s bar for our happy hours the entire cruise.
As happy hour wound down, our cruise director extraordinaire, Al Parker, broke us into groups of 20 to head down to the restaurant in shifts, where we were generally seated at tables for 6 or 8.
8:00 pm: Dinner—Restaurant of the Night: Pink Agave, Deck 5.
The Pink Agave is one of the specialty restaurants. Unlike on other cruise lines in whose specialty restaurants you have to pay, they were complimentary, the biggest difference being you had to make reservations for them.
We sat with 4 other members of our group, and among the 6 of us, 3 were nurses. Our server was great, and she recommended that we eat “family style” for choices she’d make of the small- and medium-plate selections, and then that each of us make our own choice from the large plate section. It was all delicious.
I regret that I failed to get a group picture of us, but here’s the food. Note: The seared shrimp of the Camarón Amarillo dish was on a separate plate, which I didn’t get a photo of.)
Ship shows and activities
10:45 pm: PJ Party—The Athletic Club, Deck 16
I fell asleep and missed this party, which was a ship’s party and not one of our private group activities. Obviously it was very popular:
