13 JUN 2019: Virgin Group Founder Sir Richard Branson and Virgin Voyages president and CEO Tom McAlpin were in Toronto for a couple of days, and between a (disappointing) Raptors game and an exhilarating skywalk outside the CN Tower, they met with local media to talk about the new cruise line, the ships and the new itineraries. But the big reveal was the announcement that the Master of Scarlet Lady is a Canadian woman – Captain Wendy Williams, who when she takes the helm of Scarlet Lady in spring 2020, will become the first Canadian woman to be captain of a ship for a major cruise brand.
Captain Wendy Williams
Introducing her, Branson said, “We’re glad to have you. Wendy was saying that frighteningly there’s only two percent of frontend crew in the whole world that are female. I think that companies have to be proactive and go and try to re-dress the balance, otherwise the status quo will just continue and men will just, take on other men, and so on.”
“Hopefully this is the start of a new trend.”
“Captain Wendy’s extensive maritime background makes her an excellent choice to lead the Scarlet Lady, but it is her spirit and drive to approach life at sea differently that make her the perfect fit to join the Virgin Voyages family,” said McAlpin.
Originally from the coastal city of Sept-Îles, Quebec on the Northeastern coast of Canada, Captain Williams now resides on her hobby farm on Vancouver Island in British Columbia. With more than 28 years of experience working on ships at sea, her background includes more than a decade as a deckhand in commercial fishing off the western coast of Canada as well as working as a ferryboat captain. Although she has spent more than 15 years working on the bridge of mega cruise ships (Royal Caribbean), her role with Virgin Voyages will be her first promotion to Master of a cruise ship.
“I have salt water in my veins and nothing brings me more joy than being at sea,” said Williams. “It’s a dream come true to be working with Virgin Voyages, a company that is focused on creating an incredible experience not only for our Sailors but for our Crew as well; while also taking action to minimize our footprint on our oceans.”
Last year Virgin Voyages announced its Scarlet Squad program, an initiative dedicated to bridging the gender gap in leadership roles across the maritime industry, where women represent less than three percent of the workforce. The program aims to recruit, support and mentor female shipboard talent, and to grow opportunities for leadership roles in marine, technical and hotel management positions on board.
While still in the early stages of the crew for Scarlet Lady, along with Captain Williams the company has recruited nearly a dozen other female officers, including Jill Anderson as hotel director, Christin Wenge as safety officer, Lindsay Kerber as environmental officer, among other talented female engineers as well as second and third officers.
“The gender balance, gender equality is really important to me. The maritime industry has very few women, at all, in any capacity. The makeup is about a little less than two percent actually … and those numbers are potentially dropping, which really saddens me because it’s such a fantastic career.” Said Williams.
“But all women around the world don’t have access to the education, it starts there. Then they are not empowered and they’re not mentored. So, it’s really important, on our ship, on my ship, nobody will have a gender. It doesn’t matter. When you walk in the bridge to work, you’re an officer, you’re not a male officer or a female officer, you’re an officer and you need to conduct yourself that way. If you have the knowledge, then you are more than welcome to work on my bridge. Or any bridge.”
A transformational experience
“We purposefully built our ship to be mid-size, so they’re not behemoth ships, they’re twenty-eight hundred passengers. We want them to be unique with great styling and great design, so we hired a creative collective to help make our ships look unique and different. They’re special and you can recognize these ships anywhere you go in the world, we know that that’s the Virgin ship, ” said McAlpin.
“We want this to be a transformational experience.
“And it’s adult by design.”
“We took a bold step. To differentiate yourself, sometimes you have to be willing to give something up, and we said, ‘To really create that romantic, high-level experience, we need to do it as an adult experience.’ We all love kids, but we know that kids can be unpredictable at times. When we spoke to our sailors (guests) they told us, even moms and dads told us, that they needed a break too. We’re creating and elevated experience, a great experience, for everyone on board.”
Branson interjected, “I left school at fifteen. I think an adult is sixteen-years old, he thinks an adult is eighteen-years old. Why can’t we have sixteen/seventeen-year olds?
“He’s relentless, and he keeps bringing this up,” said McAlpin.
Amidst laughter, Branson said, “I would hate to be told that I couldn’t go on a Virgin Cruise Ship because I was seventeen-years old. Anyway, we’ll keep campaigning. I don’t get my way sometimes, it takes me a while to win.”
Still, he said, “It’s going to be fun. We’ve got ninety Rockstar Suites, every Rockstar Suite has a table that can be danced on. With a stair case going up to the table that you can push in if you don’t want to clamber onto the table and just walk up the steps and entertain your fellow guests. I just love all the little touches that the team have done.”
McAlpin said that when they set out to launch Virgin Voyages and create the business, the mission was “to create the most irresistible travel brand.”
In order to do that, they had to create the right culture and to do that they needed to bring in the right people and develop a brand purpose which is, “An epic sea change for all”.
He paid tribute to travel agents, “we call them first mates, and (we are) creating a fantastic product and experience for them, so they can sell us… it’s about creating great partnerships with other partners, and our vendors. It’s about working closely with communities that we go to, to create a sustainable environment with them. We want to be the ship that they want to be coming to port. So, they’re happy when they see the Scarlet Lady coming in.”
Branson said, “the other thing that Virgin Voyages is doing, is working with one of our foundations and trying to push governments to have, by 2030, thirty percent of the oceans protected. Another great thing that we just heard about in Canada is a massive marine protected area credited in the last three years, with taking the amount of sea protected from two percent to nearly nine percent. If we can get that up to thirty percent on a global basis then the wildlife in the oceans can replenish and we can keep the world for thousands of years. At the moment, sadly, it’s only about three, three and a half percent.”
“Last but not least, it’s about our oceans,” added McAlpin. “Richard has instilled in us (that) part of our DNA is about the conservation and the environment, and focus on sustainability.
“Last year we announced that we are going to ban single use plastics on board, so we have no straws, no plastic stirrers, no plastic water bottles on board. It’s a big change, a big commitment. We’re really happy that it looks like others are doing the same thing. It’s a fantastic step forward.
New itineraries
While they are optimistic that this will be a temporary setback, Virgin Voyages’ itineraries have clearly been impacted by the US government’s new restrictions on travel to Cuba from the United States. The Scarlet Lady, was set to be the largest and newest ship to ever sail into Havana. And Branson, clearly not thrilled by the situation, gave the decision a decided thumbs down and asked the media to follow suit – which they did.
The new itineraries which seem somewhat abbreviated, will feature multiple late-night sailaways, including a midnight departure on all new sailings.
Virgin Voyages will offer five-night Riviera Maya sailings to Cozumel/Playa Del Carmen, Mexico. Cozumel and Playa del Carmen, giving guests an opportunity to experience some of the world’s best diving, to explore ecological and archeological treasures, including Mayan ruins, or even opt to explore neighboring Tulum.
The four-night sailings will now become Fire and Sunset Soirées including a sunset departure from Key West and a midnight departure from Bimini. Guests (or ‘Sailors’ as Virgin Voyages terms them) can enjoy Key West, paired with a day in Bimini, topped off by an exclusive late-night beach bonfire soiree. This celebration under the stars is exclusive to these sailings, and the artistic fire installations draw inspiration from the fireball sculptures on Branson’s Necker Island.
For longer voyages aboard Scarlet Lady, Virgin Voyages has developed special seven-night sailings for the 2020 festive holiday season. Those looking to get a jump start on their holiday planning can opt for the all-new Holidaze and Nights and New Year’s Ahoy voyages, which fall over the Christmas and New Year’s holidays respectively, and feature stops in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic and late-night sail aways in both Bimini and San Juan.
All voyages feature a stop in Bimini, Bahamas, home to The Beach Club, a private club for Virgin Voyages passengers while Scarlet Lady is on the island.
Plans for the future
Virgin will have four ships and we asked whether they intended any itineraries other than the Caribbean and Mexico, were they perhaps looking to the Med?
“What I would say is, the world is our playground, because our ships can go anywhere,” said McAlpine.
“We have not announced any other itineraries, but we think that the Med has a lot to offer. There’s certainly a lot of exciting ports of call there. We’ve committed the first ship to sailing out of Miami, so our first ship will not be going to the Med because it’s a long haul, it’s quite a long journey to do on a cruise. We’re looking at the Med and other itineraries for a second ship.”
McAlpin also told us that, “Miami is the cruise capital of the world, people want warm water destinations … so it makes sense to go to the Caribbean. But there are a lot of fantastic places around the world, there’s so much to do in Europe, not just the Med. But all of Europe, Northern Europe, Australia, New Zealand.
“We’re amazed at the amount of bookings that we’re getting from places all over the world. We’ve seen surprising numbers of bookings where we have a very high awareness for the Virgin brand, and New Zealand, Australia, all of Europe as well, and the US, and Canada as well.
“It’s a different type of an experience, it’s a different type of – not only cruise experience – but a different type of travel experience. That was my little, shameless sales plug at the end,” chuckled McAlpin.
Earlier, Branson whose humour and pranks have been well publicized throughout his storied career, had tossed off a line, “Sometimes ship happens”, but then noted quite seriously, “I think humor is the key to life. And we’ve had a lot of fun with humor over the years. Just trying to do things to make people smile always helps. People like to smile.”