Virgin Voyages is a cruise line headquartered in Plantation, Florida and a

joint venture A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four reasons: to acce ...

between the

Virgin Group Virgin Group Ltd is a British multinational venture capital conglomerate founded by Richard Branson and Nik Powell in February 1970. Virgin Group's date of incorporation is listed as 1989 by Companies House, who class it as a holding compa ...

and

Bain Capital Bain Capital, LP is an American Investment company, private investment firm based in Boston, Massachusetts, Boston, Massachusetts, with around $185 billion of assets under management. It specializes in private equity, venture capital, credit, p ...

. As of April 2024, Virgin Voyages has three ships in the fleet, with one more on order, all with an expected capacity of approximately 2,700 passengers each. The first ship, '' Scarlet Lady'', began sailing August 6, 2021 from Portsmouth with UK only itineraries. Scarlet Lady began operating from

PortMiami The Port of Miami, styled as PortMiami and formally known as the Dante B. Fascell Port of Miami, is a major seaport located in Biscayne Bay at the mouth of the Miami River in Miami, Florida. It is the largest passenger port in the world and one ...

in October 2021, sailing mainly four-to-five night cruises in the

Caribbean The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...

History

In 2011, Nirmal Saverimuttu, a

executive, and Tom McAlpin, then-CEO of , conceptualized the idea for a cruise line inspired by the Virgin brand housed under the Virgin Group umbrella. Saverimuttu later collaborated with

to begin market research and found that there was potential in the cruise industry for a new line to emerge and also identified a large, young demographic yet to experience cruising that could become the brand's target market. Over the next three years, Saverimuttu and McAlpin raised US$700 million from Bain Capital, which had become lead investor, and other institutional and private investors, and also borrowed an additional US$1–1.5 billion. After the financial backing, on December 4, 2014,

announced the establishment of Virgin Cruises. The cruise line would be led by Tom McAlpin, who was named president and CEO. At time of establishment, Virgin announced the new cruise line's fleet would consist of two ships and its headquarters would be based in the

Miami Miami is a East Coast of the United States, coastal city in the U.S. state of Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County in South Florida. It is the core of the Miami metropolitan area, which, with a populat ...

Fort Lauderdale Fort Lauderdale ( ) is a coastal city located in the U.S. state of Florida, north of Miami along the Atlantic Ocean. It is the county seat of and most populous city in Broward County with a population of 182,760 at the 2020 census, making it ...

area. In July 2015, the Miami-Dade County Commission granted Virgin Voyages approval to berth at PortMiami, and the company's first contract for three cruise ships was finalized on October 18, 2016, the same day that Virgin Cruises rebranded as Virgin Voyages, in an effort to strengthen its marketing aimed at the younger demographic and new cruisers. In February 2018, Virgin Voyages debuted its headquarters in Plantation, Florida. In November 2018, Virgin Voyages expanded its commitment to Miami by announcing it would build Terminal V, a new 100,000 square-foot terminal at PortMiami estimated at US$150 million, with a scheduled completion in November 2021, and also sail the cruise line's first two vessels from Miami through 2022. In February 2019, Virgin Voyages announced it would design a new private destination called The Beach Club, located on the Bahamian island of Bimini. The resort would be developed in partnership with Genting Group's Resorts World Bimini and would feature a variety of local cuisine offerings and scheduled activities for guests. In September 2019, Virgin Voyages had been granted a 30-year berthing rights agreement at PortMiami. Virgin Voyages' official debut had originally been scheduled for April 1, 2020, with the maiden voyage of ''Scarlet Lady'', but the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

had delayed the cruise line's launch, having had to initially postpone the voyage until August 7, 2020, and ultimately, October 16, 2020. The first sailing with paying guests commenced on August 6, 2021, from Portsmouth. In December 2023 Virgin Voyages launched services in Australia with ''Resilient Lady'' arriving in Sydney. Richard Branson was at attendance at the launch. Despite the media interest, Virgin Voyages cancelled the ship's 2024/25 Summer Season because of the Red Sea crisis.

Fleet

On June 23, 2015, Virgin announced that it had signed a binding letter of intent with Italian shipbuilder

Fincantieri Fincantieri S.p.A. () is an Italian shipbuilding company based in Trieste, Italy. Already the largest shipbuilder in Europe, after the acquisition of Vard in 2013, Fincantieri group doubled in size to become the fourth largest in the world (2014 ...

for the construction of three cruise ships to be delivered in 2020, 2021 and 2022—mid-sized vessels of 110,000 GT each with 1,150 crew, and 1,430 guest cabins capable of hosting a total of more than 2,800 passengers. The final contract for the construction of the ships was signed in October 2016, with the total cost expected to be under US$2 billion. McAlpin explained the ships would be designed differently from existing ships in the market, targeting the "young at heart." The fleet uses a stern design which maximizes “billboard value” visibility of the red Virgin logo, visible up to 2 nautical miles away. A fourth ship was ordered in October 2018 for delivery in 2023. In November 2016, Virgin Voyages announced it had partnered with Climeon for its clean energy system to be deployed on its ships to generate energy from the engines' cooling water to reduce

carbon dioxide Carbon dioxide is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . It is made up of molecules that each have one carbon atom covalent bond, covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. It is found in a gas state at room temperature and at norma ...

emissions. In February 2019, Virgin Voyages also revealed it would ban all single-use plastics from its fleet. In February 2024, satellite operator, SES announced that Virgin Voyages will be the first cruise line to deploy its SES Cruise mPOWERED + Starlink PRO satellite internet service that for the first time uses satellites in both

Low Earth Orbit A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an geocentric orbit, orbit around Earth with a orbital period, period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an orbital eccentricity, eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial object ...

and

Medium Earth Orbit A medium Earth orbit (MEO) is an geocentric orbit, Earth-centered orbit with an altitude above a low Earth orbit (LEO) and below a high Earth orbit (HEO) – between above sea level.

to provide passengers with internet, social media and video calls at up to 1.5 Gbit/s per ship anywhere in the World. When launched Brilliant Lady will be the first and only ship in the Virgin Voyages fleet capable of traversing the

Panama Canal The Panama Canal () is an artificial waterway in Panama that connects the Caribbean Sea with the Pacific Ocean. It cuts across the narrowest point of the Isthmus of Panama, and is a Channel (geography), conduit for maritime trade between th ...

, enabling access to the west coast of the USA and notably

Alaska Alaska ( ) is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. Part of the Western United States region, it is one of the two non-contiguous U.S. states, alongside Hawaii. Alaska is also considered to be the north ...

Current fleet

Future fleet

References

External links

* {{Virgin Group, state=collapsed Cruise lines Transport companies established in 2014 Virgin Voyages 2014 establishments in Florida Bain Capital companies