Something a little bit different for these blogs…
As you probably know (okay, possibly know (okay, quite likely didn’t have a clue about because you’ve never visited this site before)), we were travel-hungry enough to recently spend a short weekend aboard the second cruise ship built for and operated by Virgin Voyages, Valiant Lady. At the time of writing this very paragraph your eyeballs are whizzing over right now, the write-ups from that cruise which sailed from Portsmouth to Zeebrugge and back are yet to be completed, but I thought I’d grab a few of the pictures taken from our final sea day aboard the vessel and publish them separately, giving you a chance to test your code-breaking skills or, alternatively, if you’ve spent a lifetime at sea, dredge up and make use of your knowledge of international maritime signal flags. You would be amazed at just how many pirates visit this site leaving comments like “Yarr! Buy these knock-off drugs for a stronger erection!” and “Shiver me timbers! Wenches in your area are looking for hook-ups!” and “Can you wear your bathrobe to formal night, me hearties?”
On each deck of Valiant Lady, at the elevator banks, there is a colourful array of flags. This compares well with Scarlet Lady, a ship on which we’d cruised the year before (and which you can read about on this site if only you knew how to work the miraculous menu system in place), which opted for plain, white, modern art, that was, to be frank, a little uninspiring. The bright colours and patterns on Valiant Lady was a noticeable improvement over her sister ship.
The flags on the ship spelled out a message, and each deck had its own message, and if you were inclined to do so, and were able to avoid any other passengers looking at you like you’d grown tentacles as you stood outside the elevator doors, staring at the wall, and moving your lips, then you could give your brain a small work-out translating the flags.
Below, you’ll find pictures of the flags on each deck at one elevator shaft array (this was the one closest to our suite so they may have been different at the other end of the ship; there’s only so much exploring I was prepared to do). Can you work out what the messages are? Can you actually be bothered? Will you smile at some and shake your head disappointedly at others?
