I thought Virgin Voyages 'adults-only' cruise would be tame. Then the ropes and leather masks came out

A waiter whisks away my dinner and warns me to hold my champagne up high. A couple is soon making out in front of me, horizontal on my table. Welcome to The Manor, a place full of risque outfits, acrobats, poisoned chalices, bondage, and - in my case - regret...

"You only live once. Wear that amazing frock. That’s what we say... wear that, be that person, come as you are." 

That's the advice I'm given by Jake Harrison, a member of Virgin Voyages' Happenings team, on day three of my five night Virgin Voyages 'Mermaiden' cruise from Melbourne to Tasmania. Unfortunately, it's too late. A mistake I made the previous night is now set to haunt me for the rest of the trip.

The faux pas is made in The Manor - a room that looks like a cross between a 50 Shades of Grey "play" room, a Moulin Rouge cabaret show and a Cirque du Soleil tent.

At The Manor, I made a decision I came to regret...

The Manor functions as a moodily lit bar, a restaurant, a nightclub, a circus and a theatre. Sometimes all at once, with performers running up and down your tables (and pretending to make out on them) between courses. This is my first ever cruise, and I have no idea what I'm in for.

I thought Another Rose was wild. But compared to Scarlet Night, it was just a warm up...

I'm there for Another Rose. A performance that - through a mixture of singing, dancing, acrobating, fourth wall breaking, glassware jeopardising, silk curtain twirling and stern-looking-from-a-woman-dressed-as-a-robot-ing - tells the story of a pair of star crossed lovers, who fall for each other, then fall for some other people, then get told off by the robot lady, then decide to solve the sexual tension with a menage a trois (as the sage narrator solemnly tells us: "If you die in a threesome, you come back").

Baz Luhrmann, Tarantino - even Shakespeare - got nothing on this...

Before the show even begins, I'm in a giggly mood, since spotting some people with Pineapple stickers (something which, to us boring monogamous journalists, has a fascinating x-rated meaning behind it) at On The Rocks, the bar where my group had pre-drinks.

Left: guests getting led back into The Manor after the interval. Right: watching the acrobats perform.

Another Rose goes all Romeo and Juliet in the end though, and the pair are on the cusp of drinking from a poisoned chalice (the audience get served the same blood coloured cocktail) when they all break into song and dance and we are given more random philosophical insights like, "we've all been heartbroken in love" and "there will always be dessert."

Dessert is then served, Caroline by Outkast blasts, we applaud, and then we continue the conversation we were prompted into earlier, during the show's interval, when each inner table was led out of the show room and into the bar by Puck-like figures, who told us all to confess our "guilty pleasures" before leaving, coming back five minutes later, tying us all up in a rope, and then marching us back into The Manor.

I played hard to get, and then felt major FOMO when the performers moved on to someone else...

While I was a tad uncomfortable at the beginning of the show, studiously avoiding eye contact with the dancers, and thanking my lucky stars I refused the offer to be led away upon entrance by a sequin covered pixie (I made the feeble, but believable excuse, "I'm not good at dancing") to be a part of the finale, now, at the end of it I have loosened up, and am really enjoying the spectacle.

I'm also overcome by regret and FOMO, as I get to watch another member of my group - who seized upon the opportunity to get involved, while I played hard to get - get swung on a swing at the finale of the performance, and the jealousy was real - I was mortified by my prior boring-ness. 

Another day, I guess. Or maybe, I should say: another rose...

Originally published as I thought Virgin Voyages 'adults-only' cruise would be tame. Then the ropes and leather masks came out