Scarlet Lady is worth booking in 2026, and she is a different ship from the one people rave about from 2022. She has had two glow ups, she has the best restaurant in the fleet, and she now sails at near capacity almost every week.
I have sailed Scarlet Lady more times than I can count. She was the first Virgin Voyages ship I ever sailed, back in February 2022, and I was on her again in January 2026.
That gap is the whole point of this review. I can tell you what genuinely changed rather than what a press release says changed.
So here is the honest version: what the two refits actually did, what is worth eating, what the entertainment overhaul added, and who this lady ship is and is not for now.
What Actually Changed on Scarlet Lady
Scarlet Lady was the first of the four lady ships, and she has now had two separate refreshes rather than one.
The first was a proper dry dock in November 2024. The headline from it is Lucky Lotus by Razzle Dazzle, a Chinese-inspired restaurant you cannot get on any other ship, and it gets its own section below.
The rest of that refit was quieter. The Wake gained a back area that was described to me as a wine bar and is really just extra seating, which turns out to be genuinely useful if you did not get a reservation.
Grounds Club Too on deck 15 was tidied up, the pool deck gained extra cabanas, and there was a general cosmetic refresh throughout.
The second glow-up came at the end of 2025, while she crossed the Atlantic, and it was entertainment rather than construction. That one changed the ship more than the paint did, and it has its own section further down.
She Is Busier Than She Has Ever Been
This is the change nobody puts in a brochure, and it is the one that will most affect your week.
When I started sailing Scarlet Lady in 2022, there was almost nobody on board. Fewer than a thousand sailors on a ship built for 2,770.
Across my last two dozen sailings, she has run at something like 95% to 99% capacity, basically every time. You can feel the difference, and it is the single biggest shift since she launched.
The honest consequence is wear. Even with the refresh, a ship carrying that many sailors that consistently starts to show her years, and Scarlet Lady is starting to show hers.
Step onto Brilliant Lady and you notice immediately, because she still has the new ship smell. That is not a knock on Scarlet, it is just what four more years of full sailings looks like.
What it means practically: book your dining early, expect the pool deck to be busy on sea days, and do not assume you will walk into anything at 7pm.
Is Scarlet Lady Different From the Other Lady Ships?
Structurally, no, and a lot of sailors get this wrong before they book.
Scarlet Lady, Valiant Lady, Resilient Lady, and Brilliant Lady share the same layout and the same capacity of 2,770 sailors. If you learn your way around one of them, you know your way around all four.
What is genuinely Scarlet Lady only is the interesting part, and it comes down to four things: Lucky Lotus, a handful of Extra Virgin dishes you cannot order anywhere else, her own drag show, and her own entertainment lineup.
That is deliberate. Virgin Voyages is deliberately making each ship carry something the others do not, because they know you are coming back and they want the second sailing to feel different.
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Lucky Lotus Is the Best Reason to Pick Scarlet Lady
I am going to say something I have not said about any other restaurant in this fleet. My favorite dish across all four lady ships is at Lucky Lotus.
It is the wonton soup, and I am not being cute about it. I will sit down, eat two bowls, and order nothing else for dinner.
Lucky Lotus replaced Razzle Dazzle at dinner on Scarlet Lady only. The room got a new look, and the dinner menu is entirely different from what Razzle Dazzle used to serve.
Brunch is the part people worry about unnecessarily. Razzle Dazzle brunch still exists, with a couple of the items swapped for Chinese inspired ones. The rest of the brunch menu is exactly what you remember.
My honest read on the change: it is Virgin Voyages listening. Sailors complained for years about the loud black and white stripes, and the new room is more modern, more elevated, and more adult. I think it is a genuine improvement.
What Else Changed on the Food
Extra Virgin now has Scarlet Lady-only dishes. Every lady ship carries a few menu items you cannot order on the others, and Scarlet Lady’s are worth planning around.
My pick is the corn tortellini, with the caveat that you have to actually like corn. It is not a large portion, and you can still order half portions, so it works as a second pasta rather than a whole course.
I know a lot of sailors are annoyed about dishes that were removed, and I feel it too. The one I am relieved survived is the sea bass, which I think is genuinely delicious.
Gunbae had a full menu refresh, and it is on every lady ship rather than just this one. I ate the entire new menu in a single sitting. It took four and a half hours, and I had the meat sweats for three days. The new dishes are worth it.
Test Kitchen has more than two menus now. It used to be menu A and menu B, and that was the whole rotation.
Here is the tip almost nobody knows. On longer sailings, the menu gets flipped partway through, and when it does, there is an event called Flip and Delicious, created by Jake the Foodie, where one of the Happenings Cast walks you through what changed. It is a genuinely good way to meet other sailors.
Pink Agave After Dark turns the Mexican restaurant into a Latin music night with a DJ. Come for dinner and stay, or just come for the drinks.
Ship Eats is smaller than it was, and it now carries a delivery fee. The fee is $10, and it is waived once your order goes past $10, which any bottle of Moet or a couple of premium coffees will do on its own.
I use Ship Eats far more than I used to, specifically to dodge the crowds on a busy ship and have a quieter evening in the room.
You Do Not Need Dinner Reservations
This is the message I get most often, and it genuinely worries me, because people are asking whether they should cancel their cruise over it.
They book a sailing, go to reserve dinners, find nothing available, and panic. You are going to be fine. You do not need a reservation to eat at these restaurants.
You have two ways in. The first is simply walking up. It is harder now that the ships are full, so 7pm on a prime night is a stretch, but go right when a restaurant opens or close to when it closes and you will usually get seated.
A hot port day is the other window. Plenty of sailors wear themselves out ashore and sleep through dinner, and the restaurants are noticeably easier that evening.
The second way is the one almost nobody uses. A lot of reservations are deliberately held back for once sailors are on board, and there is a reservations team on the ship to help you book them.
They are not only there on embarkation day. They are available every single day of the sailing, and where to find them is in your app schedule. You do not have to use the app yourself if you would rather talk to a person.
Don’t forget to pack THIS!
Virgin Voyages has reimagined sailing and what you need to pack on for this trip is DIFFERENT than a normal cruise line. There are many items I wish I knew to bring (that I didn’t have with me on my first sailing).
Get a free printable pack list and save yourself the headache!
OR if you’re just looking for some inspo! See the curated list of Amazon items I’ve put together (and use!) for Virgin Voyages.
The Entertainment Got Its Own Glow Up
This is the change I am most excited about, and it is the reason to sail Scarlet Lady rather than a newer ship.
At the end of 2025, she picked up an entirely new entertainment package. Virgin Voyages themselves rate it as arguably the strongest lineup across the fleet, with Brilliant Lady and Resilient Lady close behind.
Booked is the headline show, and it is a prequel to Lola’s Library. It tells the story of how Lola became Lola, and the original Lola who launched Lola’s Library on Resilient Lady plays the part.
It is songs, dance, and the screens in the Red Room, and it genuinely moves people. I have watched sailors cry during it.
Rockshowke is the one that surprised me. I am not a rock person, and I do not like karaoke, so I had two good reasons to skip it. I love it.
It is a real rock show that you sing along to, with the lyrics on the screen and a band that pulls the room in. They run different versions across a sailing, so go to every one of them rather than just the first.
Persephone moved over from Resilient Lady, which I did not expect, because I assumed shows would stay tied to their ship. The costuming is the best on board and it works whether you watch from beside the stage or from up on deck 7.
Lights Camera Drag is Scarlet Lady’s own drag show. New for 2026, every lady ship has a different one, and sailors sometimes get pulled into this one. You do not have to go up there.
The parties are where the rest of the new lineup sits. Club Caliente is Latin night and opens with a class before the salsa starts. Club Rubik’s is an 80s party with real costuming. Y2K runs in the Red Room and counts you down to the year 2000.
Scarlet Night and the pajama party under the stars are both unchanged, and the Festival Stage keeps rotating outside acts through every sailing, so no two weeks have quite the same bill.
How Booking Entertainment Works Now
This changed, and it trips up returning sailors more than first timers.
In the old days, everything had to be booked in advance. Now almost all of it is first come, first served. You do not book, you just show up.
There is one real exception, and it is worth knowing: LOL’s Supper Club. It runs in The Manor with a rotating lineup of comedians performing short sets while you eat, and the food is specific to that supper club, so you cannot get it anywhere else on the ship.
Seats and show times are limited, so this one you do book. Not when you book your sailing: book it once you have boarded and connected to the ship’s Wi-Fi.
Get the cookies. I am extremely serious about the cookies.
One more thing that confuses people. The length of your sailing decides your lineup. Scarlet Lady runs everything from four nights up to sixteen, and a four-night sailing cannot fit the number of parties a sixteen-night one can. Check your app once you are on board.
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The Cabins, and the One Room I Would Not Book Again
Start with the honest part. There are rooms on this ship that are not worth booking, and I recently stayed in one of them.
I was directly underneath the gym. Every morning at 6am I listened to weights smashing into the ceiling above me. I did not sleep well once.
That is the kind of thing a deck plan will never tell you, and it is worth asking somebody before you lock in a cabin number.
On the rooms themselves: Scarlet Lady and Valiant Lady kept the loud, proud colors, while Brilliant Lady and Resilient Lady run more muted. People still complain about it. The rooms are comfortable and modern either way.
Every cabin has the tablet, and it does more than people realize. It turns on the TV, opens the blinds, sets the temperature and orders Ship Eats. I keep mine on the bedside table so I can sleep cold and then open the blinds without getting up.
There is also far more storage than it looks like, in cubby holes and hiding places all over the room. And the luggage policy has not changed: bring as much as you want, though your airline may have opinions.
The dry dock added more Seriously Suites, which is the entry price point RockStar room. More of them on the ship means they are easier to actually get.
If the standard shower is the thing you complain about, and plenty of sailors do, the RockStar shower is an enormous upgrade. I will say something that surprises people: I preferred the Seriously Suite to the Massive Suite.
What Changed About Pricing in 2026
Virgin Voyages changed how it prices a sailing on 7 October 2025, and it has confused more sailors than any other change on this list.
The short version is that you now get more choice. Think of how airlines went from economy and first class to basic economy, economy, premium economy, business, and first. Virgin Voyages did the same thing to cruise fares.
Gratuities were broken out separately at the same time, and there are now charges that did not exist before, including a towel fee if you lose one.
Here is my honest take on whether that makes it worse value. Most cruise lines do not show you the real total until the end of the sailing when it is time to settle up. Virgin Voyages still tells you more up front than most.
They are not priced against the cheapest ship in a very large fleet, and they were never trying to be. For a cruise line this new, against comparable ships, I still think the pricing holds up.
What I will say plainly is that the new tiers are where sailors make expensive mistakes. Booking the wrong fare and then needing to change a name or cancel is the single most common thing we have helped people untangle since that change landed.
Who Scarlet Lady Is For in 2026
She is more mainstream than she has ever been, and that cuts both ways.
When I first sailed her in early 2022, the ship was full of people who did not think cruising was for them. I was one of them. Virgin Voyages offered something different, and that is exactly who turned up.
Now Virgin Voyages is genuinely popular, and a lot of experienced cruisers are trying it. That is good, because they know how to cruise. It also means more sailors arrive expecting Virgin Voyages to behave like the lines they already know, and then go looking for the buffet.
She is also less risque than she was in 2021, though honestly she was never that risque to start with. It is an adults-only ship, so the jokes land differently, and nobody is serving chicken nuggets. That is the whole difference.
Now the part that actually decides whether a sailing suits you, and it is not the ship. It is four things: the itinerary, the length, the price, and the time of year.
Take a sixteen-night transatlantic trip. Very few people working a normal job can take sixteen days off, so that sailing skews older and more retired, and it runs toward hammocks and the Social Club rather than sixteen consecutive nights in The Manor.
Now take four nights out of Miami. One or two days off work, a long weekend, six dinner restaurants, and only four nights to fit them in. The energy is high, and everybody is going hard.
Same ship. Completely different week. When somebody tells me a sailing was too young, too old, too quiet, or too much of a party, it is almost always those four factors rather than Scarlet Lady herself.
Virgin Voyages Scarlet Lady FAQ
Is Scarlet Lady worth it in 2026?
Yes, particularly for the food and the new entertainment lineup. Lucky Lotus is on Scarlet Lady only and holds my favorite dish in the whole fleet, and her 2025 entertainment package is arguably the strongest across the ships.
Is Scarlet Lady different from the other Virgin Voyages ships?
The layout and capacity are the same across all four lady ships. What is unique to Scarlet Lady is Lucky Lotus, some Extra Virgin dishes, her own drag show and her own entertainment lineup.
How old is Scarlet Lady?
She is the oldest of the four lady ships and the first Virgin Voyages ship to sail. She has been through two refreshes, a dry dock in November 2024 and an entertainment overhaul at the end of 2025.
What restaurant is only on Scarlet Lady?
Lucky Lotus by Razzle Dazzle, which is Chinese inspired and replaced Razzle Dazzle at dinner. Brunch is still the Razzle Dazzle brunch with a couple of items swapped.
Do I need dinner reservations on Scarlet Lady?
No. Walk in right at opening or near closing, or use the reservations team on board, who are available every day of the sailing and not just on embarkation day.
Do I have to book the shows on Scarlet Lady?
Almost everything is first come, first served now. The exception is LOLz Supper Club, which you book in the app once you are on board and connected to the ship’s Wi-Fi.
Is Scarlet Lady always in the same part of the world?
No, and this is a common misperception. Her itineraries move through the year depending on the season, so she is not tied to one region.
Is Scarlet Lady crowded?
Yes, far more than she used to be. She now sails at roughly 95% to 99% capacity most weeks, compared with under a thousand sailors on board when I first sailed her in 2022.
So, Should You Book Scarlet Lady in 2026?
Yes, and I say that as somebody who has watched her go from a nearly empty ship in 2022 to a full one in 2026. She is busier and she is showing some wear, and she also has the best restaurant in the fleet and the entertainment lineup I would most want to sail.
Book her if you want Lucky Lotus, if the new shows appeal, or if you have already done one of the other lady ships and want a second sailing that genuinely feels different. Pick a newer ship instead if what you want most is that new ship feeling.
And whichever way you lean, the sailing matters more than the ship. Getting the length, the itinerary, and the fare tier right is where people go wrong, and it is exactly what we sort out with sailors every day. It costs you nothing to ask.
