The Roundabout – Virgin Voyages – Valiant Lady
Submitted by: Erin Barton
Lead Designer: JVirgin Voyages Internal Design Team – Erin Barton
Studio: Virgin Voyages Internal Design Team
Outfitter: MJM Marine
Shipyard: FINCANTIERI S.p.A.
Completion Date: 24/05/2026
With the success of Brilliant Lady’s Roundabout refresh, Virgin Voyages brought that same intent to Valiant Lady’s May 2026 dry dock, with a twist of her own. The Roundabout has always been the atrium at the centre of life aboard ship, where Sailors first meet the ship’s personality and a spiral staircase connects decks. The dry dock let the team ask a question that guides every Virgin Voyages refresh: how do you create more joyful moments in a Sailor’s day? It’s a fitting question for a brand built on Sir Richard Branson’s philosophy of “be the reason someone smiles today,” and on Valiant Lady, the answer started with colour.
The twist was Valiant Lady’s spirit colour: purple. Rather than repeating Brilliant Lady’s palette outright, the team riffed on that identity across hard surfaces such as bar cladding and bespoke marbles, and into textiles on feature seating. The spread is subtle but intentional, leaning into jammy reds, plums and lavenders that read as distinctly Valiant Lady rather than a repeat of her sister ship. Dichroic fins and oversized furniture that once broke the atrium into disconnected zones have been removed, replaced by sculpted banquette seating in warm woods and brass, opening sightlines from the staircase clear through to the sea.
New architectural moments give that openness purpose. A video wall anchors one side of the room as a backdrop for activations and live performances, with cozy nooks built alongside it. Elsewhere, the Roundabout’s signature portholes create their own small rituals: a spot to peer out and daydream, a toast with a best friend, or a seat to pull up for a game.
Draught Haus, once positioned narrowly as a beer bar, is now the Roundabout’s all-day anchor. Reframed in warm wood and brass with illuminated glass shelving, it activates the same footprint in different registers across a single day: coffee in the morning, a casual afternoon lounge, and a cocktail bar as the room fills before dinner. Rather than building separate venues for separate moods, the redesign lets one space flex to hold all of them.
The result is a refurbishment that improves circulation, increases seating comfort, and multiplies the functional life of the ship’s most central space, while sustaining the sculptural, playful identity Sailors already recognize. On Valiant Lady, The Roundabout is no longer just a space to pass through. It is a place to linger, made possible by opening sightlines to the sea and letting one room work as hard as 3.
