Virgin Voyages' entertainment is now the best on any cruise

Oct 23, 2023

Editor's note: TPG's Ashley Kosciolek accepted a free trip from Virgin Voyages to attend the maiden voyage of Resilient Lady. The opinions expressed below are entirely hers and weren't subject to review by the line.

"What the f*cking f*ck just happened?" flashed across a series of screens, uncensored, shortly after Persephone decided she was in love with Hades. Demeter, Persephone's mother, was not happy about the new underworld coupling.

No, it wasn't a confusing dream I had after a particularly stressful day. It was just another night in the Red Room theater on Virgin Voyages' new Resilient Lady. The performance, dubbed "Persephone," convinced me that the line's shows are now the absolute best at sea — partly because they push boundaries with their adult language and themes and partly because they feature some of the best singers, dancers, acrobats and aerialists I've ever seen on a ship.

Resilient Lady debuted with an inaugural season of Greek Isles cruises from Athens (hence, the show's name), complete with shiny, new nighttime entertainment options. They rely as much on racy sexual references, forbidden love stories and notes of S&M and burlesque as they do the incredible talent of the cast. The show concepts are modern and captivating, and most were designed from scratch through partnerships with big-name production companies.

Here, I explore how Virgin Voyages has created, tweaked and darn near perfected its entertainment offerings.

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A high-energy dance and acrobatics show, an immersive nightclub activation that features three hours of burlesque in a library, and S&M-heavy dinner theater (complete with a metaphorical threesome) are just a few of the new entertainment options cruisers can experience on Resilient Lady.

The line's latest vessel is largely the same as sister ships Scarlet Lady and Valiant Lady in terms of layout, food and quirkiness. However, each ship has its own entertainment, drawing tons of repeat cruisers to the new cruise line backed by business mogul Richard Branson.

Learnings from the first two ships have influenced the types of shows created for Resilient Lady, as well as how they were created. Virgin is notorious for pushing hard against the boundaries of standard cruise-ship productions. Sometimes it works; sometimes, it doesn't.

One show, "Never Sleep Alone" — a one-woman performance where a "sex therapist" asks attendees to share bits of their sexual history with strangers (no, thank you) — has been removed from the original two ships following passenger feedback. (Cruise line officials tell me it might return eventually.)

"'Never Sleep Alone' was us pushing, pushing, pushing the limits, and a lot of people loved the show," said Richard Kilman, Virgin Voyages' vice president of entertainment, during an interview with TPG. "But some people weren't sure. I think there was a perception created that wasn't really what it was. It's a comedy cabaret show."

"It also tied up a band of ours because we had a live band every time we did the show ... Now we have these five musicians — we have a trio and a duo — so we've essentially doubled the opportunity to have live music in different areas of the ship. People love live music, and it gives us more variety with live music."

On the other hand, "Duel Reality" — a modern take on "Romeo and Juliet" that's punctuated by rival "gangs" and jaw-dropping stunts like aerial acrobatics, hula-hooping and juggling — is so well-liked that it will tour on land. This marks the first time a show created specifically for a cruise vessel has gone from ship to shore.

Ultimately, all of Resilient Lady's new main shows feel like winners to me. It helps that they were created alongside well-known entities like famed Brooklyn nightclub House of Yes and the Weiner Entertainment Group, whose owner worked on New York's version of "Sleep No More" — an interactive "choose your own adventure" performance that splits you off from your group and allows you to wander through several floors of the old warehouse where it takes place.

In addition, a rotating roster of musicians, comedians and magicians perform on board for a few weeks at a time before switching out. Every one of them was spectacular.

"Our intention when we started this was to create entertainment experiences that people would happily pay money for if they were on land," Kilman said.

I'd say the endeavor was a success. Here's a breakdown of what you can expect from each new title on Resilient Lady's proverbial marquee.

When Virgin Voyages tapped Weiner Entertainment Group to create a new show that's a partnership between the ship's entertainment and food and beverage teams, the result was "Another Rose."

"The original launch of Scarlet Lady was intended to have 'Another Rose' on it," Kilman explained. "And so, it's been like three years in the wings waiting for that right moment ... The world changed, and it really hadn't been the right time to bring that kind of show back."

Now it's here in full force.

As Resilient Lady's only added-fee show and dining venue, "Another Rose" is dinner theater at its finest. You can sit in one of three locations: balcony, floor or premium near the stage. All tickets cost $50. When you enter The Manor — the ship's nightclub area, where the event is held — a crew member will hand you a wearable magnetic flower in a color that corresponds to your seating section.

From there, you'll walk down a mirrored hallway set aglow with thousands of white lights — the most Instagrammed location on the ship, I'm told — where servers offer you an alcoholic welcome drink. (It's the first of three adult beverages included in the price.)

After servers direct you to your section, members of the cast hand out real roses. They may also select you to move to another location in the club to partake in one of your courses — a very "Sleep No More" touch.

Dinner is a four-course set menu that offers cruisers two appetizers (sweet potato chaat with tamarind, cilantro-mint chutney, yogurt and pomegranate seeds; and a tuna bomb with avocado green goddess dressing, spicy soy and semolina puri), a main course (choice of pan-roasted sea bass with moilee sauce, basmati rice grit and roasted okra; or braised short rib with Kashmir chili-coconut sauce, basmati rice grit and scallions) and a dessert.

I left feeling just the right amount of full, although I only took one bite of the dessert — the world's tiniest piece of cheesecake — which fittingly tasted like a rose. There's also a vegetarian menu available. (I don't eat raw tuna, so I ordered the vegetarian celery apple bomb for my second appetizer, and it was fantastic.)

Alcoholic drinks are served throughout the meal. Tipples include Love Potion (gin, Cointreau, citrus and lavender), Elixir of the Poppy (Amaro Averna, jasmine tea and silver shimmer) and a glass of Champagne, which shows up in between the other two.

The show, which happens around you as you eat, is a blend of dancing, aerial acrobatics and small-group interaction with the cast. The storyline follows a princess forced to choose between two men she loves. Ultimately, she chooses and marries one of them. Her husband then falls in love with the discarded suitor, and the trio ends up in a steamy throuple by the end of the performance.

Despite the wonkiness of it all, the show was captivating to watch, and the food was, hands down, the best I ate on the entire cruise. It was seasoned to perfection — not too bland, not too spicy and with just the right amount of flavor. The timing of the service was also impeccable, coinciding flawlessly with the show. There wasn't too much time between courses; instead, there was just enough for attendees to watch a bit of the performance without constantly being distracted by food.

In terms of both the show itself and the delectable cuisine, Virgin's entry into dinner theater succeeds where other lines have failed. In particular, I'm thinking of Norwegian Cruise Line, which had fantastic entertainment but terrible food when it offered a similar concept years ago.

Hold on to your favorite titles because there's a book bandit on the loose.

Three-hour-long "Lola's Library" is a series of performances — a "nightclub activation," as Kilman calls it — divided into three one-hour chapters that run consecutively from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. a couple of times per voyage. The experience was created in partnership with No Ceilings Entertainment, which runs the Mayfair Supper Club at the Bellagio in Las Vegas.

Passengers can dip in and out as they please, taking in one or two parts on one night and returning again for the rest or staying for the entire performance from start to finish. Kilman said the concept was born out of a need to make the same nightclub appealing to cruisers for more than one night on a weeklong voyage.

"When people go to Vegas or New York, if you're going to go for a long weekend or a week, you're going to go to a nightclub on a night; you're not going to go to the same nightclub four nights in a row," Kilman said. "That's just not a thing. Here, we have people sailing with us for a full week, so how do we make the nightclub more appealing, where people will want to come back [and not] feel like they're doing the same thing?"

When you arrive at The Manor, you can sit wherever you'd like and settle in to meet Lola, a librarian who keeps the library open for some after-hours hanky panky.

One night, after everything shuts down, a book bandit steals several tomes, and Lola wonders how she's going to explain their absence to her boss, Mr. Dick. (Of course, that's his name.)

What begins as a burlesque-style show in the first chapter eventually takes a more S&M route, featuring a few amusing sexual tropes: The sexy librarian (Lola); the ugly-duckling nerd-turned-heartthrob, who's secretly sporting six-pack abs (Lola's assistant, Dewey); and the French maid (Mary, the cleaning lady, who isn't French and who we find out later in the show is actually an engineer).

There's also a completely random character called Jack the Stripper, a serial flasher who's a play on Jack the Ripper. He was my absolute favorite, simply for the shock value.

It ends up being more funny than raunchy when he poses as other characters before stripping down to almost nothing. It happens several times throughout the show, but imagine my utter surprise when he, with his borderline dad bod, pulls off an entire aerial routine wearing nothing but boxers with little red hearts on them.

I've never tried acid, but I imagine watching this show is similar to what would be going on in my brain if I did. Take all of the above, and swirl it around with singing, dancing, acrobatics and pole dancing to music from Blondie, Michael Jackson, Tina Turner and The Police. Sprinkle in some nods to "Star Wars," appearances by the Seven Dwarfs (who, of course, are gay) and dirty references to polishing Harry Potter's wand, and that about sums it up.

This show receives high marks from me because it kept my attention — and kept me laughing — for three hours. The unexpected twists were impressive (Jack the Stripper) and boundary-pushing (gay Seven Dwarfs).

It's also interesting to note that Celebrity Cruises once tried a similar approach to entertainment, featuring a somewhat disturbing and hard-to-follow three-hour show in the Eden lounge on its newest cruise ships. Ultimately, the show had to be pared down to 90 minutes and was eventually replaced by a series of shorter unrelated performances. Virgin's idea of splitting "Lola's Library" into three easily digestible segments makes the concept more audience-friendly.

The Mind Mangler is no ordinary magician. The concept was born from a character created by Mischief Comedy, the company responsible for "The Play That Goes Wrong" and "Magic Goes Wrong." It's one of the few shows Virgin Voyages has licensed rather than creating something new, according to Kilman.

You won't find tired illusions; instead, you'll witness a comedy routine blended with mind-reading and other unexpected twists, including an obvious audience plant who's part of the show and wears an "audience member" T-shirt. He frequently shows up to volunteer throughout the performance and pokes fun at accusations that magicians collude with people before their shows and then plant them in the audience to help them with their tricks later.

As Kilman noted, it's more about the comedy than the magic, but cruisers will receive plenty of both.

Virgin has a next-level tie-in with House of Yes, the famed Brooklyn art space and nightclub that draws crowds for its bizarre shows and themed costume events. The brand helped Virgin to conceptualize a new show, which is produced by Kaleidoscope Immersive.

To mesh with Resilient Lady's Greece itineraries, Virgin's entertainment executives worked with House of Yes and Kaleidoscope to create "Persephone," a dance showcase that also uses singing, aerialists, acrobats and pole dancers to tell the story of the goddess Persephone.

Persephone falls in love and runs away with Hades, the Greek god of the underworld. When her mother — Demeter, the Greek goddess of the harvest — discovers she's missing, she flies into a rage, and perpetual winter ensues, killing the crops.

Demons wearing horns and muzzles climb the walls, and dancers covered head to toe in mirrors pop and lock to a robotic-looking number that, in my completely unprofessional dance opinion, is the best on the entire ship.

Between dances, the singer who plays Demeter belts out popular songs with impressive vocal range, the cast members who play Persephone and Hades enter into a couple of amazing acrobatic routines, and a dance battle between the gods and goddesses lends a bit of competition to the whole experience.

The tale is a classic story most of us learned in grade school, but the level of energy, the intricate costumes and the fact that the audience feels like a part of the show are what make it a standout performance. Attendees stand the entire time, right up against the performance spaces, with cast members moving through the crowd at various intervals.

"The ability to have an event where people can stand and move around the space and be close to performers is a different experience in and of itself, but then you have all the recognizable music ... and we really went over the top production value-wise," Kilman said, referring to "Persephone" as the ship's big-spectacle show.

He also noted that it's the first time the versatile Red Room has been used to its full potential, offering three different vantage points for passengers — beside the stage, out on the floor's perimeter or one deck above on the second level, where seating is available.

To add to the intrigue, a Greek chorus of prerecorded actors appears on the stage's LED screens behind the cast. They rap about the situation to round out the plot line, even tossing out a couple of F-bombs. "F*cking teenagers," they say after Persephone makes her escape.

Rather than a specific show, Festival Stage is a new Virgin Voyages concept that brings a rotating list of carefully selected talent on board to perform for a few weeks. The roster changes out to keep the entertainment fresh.

Kilman said he consistently heard from passengers who sailed the first two Virgin vessels that they wanted more comedy. The cruise line delivered.

"Now we have that element of rotating entertainment where, if you come back, there's something you're going to see that's new," Kilman said.

On my sailing, I saw:

Abandoman: Through audience participation, this Irish comedian turns cruisers' lives into hit songs through freestyle rap — right on the spot. During the hourlong show, he created several songs about a passenger who was sailing for her 80th birthday, a woman who held a grudge for decades because her mother wouldn't let her get braces and a couple arguing over whether or not to get a dog. In the end, he tied it all together flawlessly by rapping about another couple who, coincidentally, owns a pet shop.

Flute Loops: Through a combination of flute, guitar and beatbox, this talented Irish musician played well-known songs on select evenings. The music was light but caught passengers' attention because of the musician's ability to remix popular songs in ways that changed their tempo. This created a guessing game, eliciting "Oh, what is this one? It's on the tip of my tongue!" reactions from cruisers.

As for what's next, in a few weeks, Tape Face — an "America's Got Talent" finalist who does an entire comedy routine with his mouth taped shut — will join the repertoire of onboard entertainment. Additional comedy-magic hybrid shows and acapella singing group acts are also coming soon.

Several favorite shows from Virgin's first two ships have returned to Resilient Lady. They include:

Miss Titty Kaka: Drag queen sensation and resident diva Miss Titty Kaka graces stages on all of Virgin's ships in a rotation. Replete with singing, dancing, fabulous costume changes and high kicks galore, her performances and witty sexual references will leave you equal parts amused and blushing. Plus, who doesn't love a good drag queen-hosted game of bingo?

Miss Behave: Land-based show "Miss Behave" was first brought to the high seas by Virgin Voyages on Valiant Lady. Led by a host dressed in a glittering gold outfit and a nerdy-looking assistant, it focuses on the idea that nothing really matters, including the points that the audience earns. Divided into two teams, attendees participate through singalongs, shout-outs and activities like standing up, sitting down, rushing the stage and texting selfies or answers to questions to a dedicated number via WhatsApp. It's all a bit chaotic, and that's just the way passengers like it.

Theme parties: One of Virgin Voyages' biggest strengths is the ability to throw incredible theme parties. Take Klub Rubiks and We Fancy, for example. The former is an '80s-themed dance party complete with a DJ spinning '80s music. Passengers are extremely zealous about dressing up. The latter is a nightclub dance party where members of the entertainment cast mingle with passengers on the dance floor. If you have anything gold, that's the time to wear it.

Scarlet Night: Absolutely no after-hours bash in the history of cruise ships can outdo Scarlet Night. The pinnacle of parties, it encourages everyone to dress in red to hear the legend of Scarlet Night. Told both in the ship's Roundabout atrium area — which is decorated with giant, inflatable octopus tentacles — by members of the crew and by a lounge singer-style performance that runs every 15 minutes in the Red Room theater, it involves a hapless sailor who falls in love with an octopus princess. Weird? Yes, but it's totally Virgin.

Cracking on with the bizarre series of Scarlet Night events, the crew in the atrium choose two passengers to "marry" one another after partaking in a live, improvised game of mad libs that describes how the two first met. Ultimately, the officiant pretend-marries everyone within earshot of the ceremony — but just for the night.

From there, members of the ship's dance crew begin popping up, flashmob style, to perform throughout the public areas as everyone makes their way to the pool deck, where the real party begins.

A giant inflatable octopus looms over the space, welcoming passengers as dancers invite everyone to jump into the pool. A DJ cranks music until midnight, when the festivities move indoors to The Manor, the ship's nightclub. In all my cruises, I have never seen a party so well attended or one that simultaneously uses so many public spaces so effectively.

Through stellar talent, high production value and big-name partnerships, Virgin Voyages' entertainment continues to push boundaries. Its new shows firmly cement the line's spot at the top of the cruise ship entertainment leaderboard. The cruise line has taken concepts that failed on other cruise lines, such as dinner theater and three-hour-long performances, and made them work exceptionally well.

What's great about the line is that it leans heavily into passenger feedback, tweaking some of its offerings to provide more variety and to retain all of the quirk, charm and innuendo in a less obvious (and, perhaps, less offensive) way. Plus, all but one of its brand-new shows are free.

What you can expect from the performances on any Virgin vessel — but especially Resilient Lady — are some of the most awe-inspiring singing, dancing and feats of strength you'll see anywhere, including on land.

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