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Background: I've been on 20+ cruises over 30 years, across all major cruise lines. First time on VV, thought I would share what we liked and what was less successful:

LIKES

• Food: very creative, tasty, upscale presentations. Liked the Galley as most food is served to you, take away options great, room service was some of the best. Really liked Test Kitchen, Razzle Dazzle (both for dinner). Wine pairing at Test Kitchen was quite good, decently priced. Wake was a little more challenging due to an allergy and waitstaff not knowing what menu items could be an issue, and we thought the tables were too close together for comfort. I did find many vegan, gluten free and other options available on most menus.
• Water service: great feature, not to have to order cans or bottles of water, very smart, and every time we needed our cabin water refilled it happened promptly.
• Cabin: we had a standard Sea Terrace. Loved the hammock and many power outlets. Storage was just fine (might not appear so from videos and photos if you've never sailed VV). The in room tablet works well for ordering food, requesting service, towels, water, etc.
• Cabin service: attendants were super helpful, friendly, and enhanced our trip.
• Entertainment: very creative, engaging, fun overall.
• Wrist band tech: generally positive experience, paperless with no receipts for anything and quick updates to our onboard account in the app were useful and convenient.
• Dress code: come as you are... no suits/ties, gowns, etc. Easy and modern. We did dress up a bit for Scarlet Night.
• Priority boarding - good if you can get it. We didn't have all of our dining set up prior to embarkation, and I was pleasantly surprised to see dining reservations offered in the embarkation area just before boarding the ship. We were able to book our remaining dinners which were sold out in the app.
• Late disembarkation: a first on any cruise, this was quite nice as we had use of our room until after 10 a.m. With a later flight, it meant we had a relaxing final day before heading to the airport.

LESS-THAN-LIKES (none of these are complaints)

• Food: regarding the allergy noted, the waitstaff stated the one item I wanted to order could potentially be cross-contaminated. That turned out not to be the case after we switched tables and had a more experienced server. All fine in the end.
• Cabin: walls between cabins seem quite thin, and I could hear coughing/sneezing from our neighbors, along with much door slamming and thundering footsteps. Maybe the ships are designed with less sound insulation. Bathrooms in standard cabins a little on the smaller side but good for us, if you need a lot of bathroom space you may want to upgrade to something larger.
• Entertainment: I'm unusual in that I like nearly every genre of music. I was craving something different by the end of the trip, as most of the performances and DJ sounds skew high energy/pop/electronic, etc. I just wanted to sit in a quiet bar with classical or jazz, not happening on VV so just be aware of that.
• Wrist band: a few glitches - at embarkation, couldn't board the ship and had to go back a few steps because something didn't sync at the initial checkin step. It got worked out in the end, maybe a 5 minute delay. Sailing VV again soon so will see if this was just a one off error. Also, the cord on my band broke, had it replaced, then my cabin mate's device quit working so had to go get that one replaced. All worked out in the end.
• Wifi: purchased the work from Sea option. Not a good value - very slow speed for working... although this option lets you use VPN. SS staff wasn't sure who the provider was. They did offer me a 50% discount and I thought that was fair. By slow, I'm talking about download speeds of under 10 mbps, and upload of less than that. My advice, just take your holiday and forget work lol.

Back aboard another ship in a few months and will post some updated reflections. Happy cruising!