Planning On 4 December 2014,
Virgin Group founder
Richard Branson announced Virgin Group would be forming a new cruise line with the backing of
Bain Capital named Virgin Cruises and revealed initial plans to begin with two new cruise ships. On 23 June 2015, Virgin Cruises announced that it signed a letter of intent with Italian shipbuilder
Fincantieri for three cruise ships that could each accommodate approximately 2,800 guests and 1,150 crew for seven-day
Caribbean voyages. The three-ship order reportedly cost
$2.55 billion, with the first ship scheduled to begin operating in 2020. On 20 July 2018, Virgin Voyages revealed the name of the first ship as
Scarlet Lady, in honor of the second plane of sister brand
Virgin Atlantic.
Construction and delivery Temporarily billed as
Virgin I and known in the shipyard as "hull number 6287", Virgin's first ship had her steel-cutting ceremony at Fincantieri's shipyard in
Sestri Ponente on 22 March 2017. On 31 October 2017, construction formally began with the
laying of the ship's keel. Nine months later, the dock was flooded on 20 July 2018 for the first time to allow two hull sections to be connected. On 8 February 2019,
Scarlet Lady was
floated out from the shipyard, after which interior outfitting work commenced. In November 2019,
Scarlet Lady performed her two rounds of
sea trials. She set off from Genoa to
Marseille between 15 November and 18 November and sailed in the opposite direction for her second round between 27 November and 30 November.
Scarlet Lady was completed and presented by Fincantieri on 13 February 2020 and formally delivered on 14 February 2020 in Sestri Ponente. but formal naming festivities were scheduled for 19 March 2020 in her homeport of
Miami, which were later curtailed due to the
COVID-19 pandemic. In March 2022, Virgin announced American singer
Jennifer Lopez would become an investor and the brand's "chief entertainment and lifestyle officer", thus making her the informal godmother to
Scarlet Lady and her fleetmates.
Debut Amid the pandemic and the cruise industry's broader hiatus, the ship's debut schedule and inaugural festivities were significantly impacted. Following her delivery,
Scarlet Lady began by hosting media and travel industry representatives on stops in Dover and
Liverpool before continuing on her re-positioning voyage to the United States. Upon her arrival in Miami,
Scarlet Lady had been scheduled to perform two pre-inaugural voyages in late-March 2020. Her first was scheduled from 26 to 29 March and her second from 29 March to 1 April. Both three-night sailings would embark from Miami and visit Virgin's new private island resort, The Beach Club at Bimini, located on the
Bimini islands in the
Bahamas. On 12 March 2020, Virgin announced an initial postponement of the ship's inaugural season, with the pre-inaugural sailings slated to begin on 15 July 2020, but these were cancelled in May 2020. She had also been scheduled to sail her maiden voyage on 1 April 2020, visiting Key West and Bimini, but this would later be postponed to 7 August 2020. In September 2021,
Scarlet Lady sailed to New York for the ship's travel industry preview events that were initially curtailed in 2020 and on 6 October 2021, 18 months later than planned,
Scarlet Lady set sail on her inaugural voyage from Miami for
Nassau and Bimini.
Deployments On 23 June 2015, Branson initially announced the first three ships in the fleet would be based at
PortMiami for week-long, round-trip
Caribbean itineraries, with the first ship beginning operations in 2020. In January 2019, Virgin released the first details of
Scarlet Lady's itineraries with revisions from earlier plans. She was now scheduled to sail shorter itineraries, ranging from four to five nights round-trip from Miami to the Caribbean and visiting various ports including
Havana,
Puerto Plata, and
Costa Maya, in addition to Bimini. In June 2019, in response to the United States's government re-instituted ban on passengers from entering
Cuba via passenger and recreational vessels, Virgin swapped out all visits to Havana with calls to
Key West, Florida and also added a fourth itinerary option to visit
Cozumel on five-night sailings, along with two seven-night holiday sailings to Puerto Plata and
San Juan, Puerto Rico. == Design and concept ==