Mislead 80’s sailcation on new Virgin ship

Imagine Cruising review

Booked an 11 day ‘luxury’ cruise via Imagine Cruising onboard virgins newest ship, The Valiant Lady. We sailed 21/03/22 to 01/04/22.

From before we sailed there were many issues between Imagine & Virgin about pre-cruise testing requirements, a port came off our itinery altogether but by far THE WORST THING was that this was billed as an 80’s Extravaganza with headline acts and dj’s to keep us entertained and for tapping. Infact the advert said ‘gig out tour spandex and Lycra for the ULTIMATE 80’s experience! Great I thought! Been on 2 80s cruises before and was fantastic so we paid £3,000 for a balcony terrace, promised the likes of Martin Fry, Tony Hadley, Toyah, Carol Decker, Claire Grogan and djs onboard would be Mike Reid & Bruno Brookes!

Also included some pop-up acts and never before seen stage productions! How excited were we! We packed our 80’s gear, Frankie says tee-shirts etc only to find our first day we had to queue for one ticket per person to see each act….hmmm. Can’t be right surely? So 11 nights/12 days we saw exactly 1 hour of Martin Fry (ABC), a WEEK later, one hour of Carol, Clair & Toyah (all just singing a few songs each on on stage together lasting the hour!!!) and 1 hour of Tony Hadley!!! Gary Davies was on ship for 1st 2 days only with a couple of sets - we didn’t see him for queuing and then my friend was seasick the next day.

Towards the end of the first week Bruno Brookes was on again for 2 days just doing a couple of sets (one crammed under the stairs on board and main thoroughfare so we couldn’t dance and all sardines together. So in total we would have seen 3 hours of supposed 80’s headliners and a couple of hours of the djs inside for 90 mins each. 3 hours out of 288 hours aboard ship! On an 80’s cruise! No other bands, no other 80’s parties or anything organised by Imagine Cruising for many many of us who booked. Infact the passengers onboard in a Facebook group for the cruise organised a pool party where we all dressed up and danced to 80’s music. By far the best and only evening that we felt like we were partying so this cruise is MISOLD, MISLEADING, and such a let down that we spent most of our time watching tv, drinking at the bars and generally bored & frustrated as there was nothing else to see and do - we had more days at sea that expected so we really were tearing our hair out! Plus a lot of us contracted Covid from the ship in last few days and since home many many more are now positive. We’d like a refund for the let down please. An apology. Anything. There were never any Imagine Reps making themselves known or helping us. By and far THE most boring and underwhelming 80’s event I have ever attended! The passengers could have and did so much better than Imagine did. I’d say if you’re thinking of booking a cruise or event with Imagine find out exactly what your getting as I could have seen these and more in just one afternoon at 80’s concert for fraction of price. The cruise was not good either for many reasons but we booked to see 80’s bands, dress-up and party but sadly no. I left all my 80s stuff on the ship as never got used apart from once. What a total, absolute let down (wouldn’t have been hard to have music playing around the ship or events organised, singers, tribute bands…we didn’t care but you can’t dance to no music and you can’t watch shows or bands that’s simply not there, or blink and you’ve missed them!