Drinks on Valiant Lady

[curlstravel]

We didn’t have much luck finding good drinks on Valiant Lady especially the Martinis. You can get frozen drinks by the pool but if you try to get a decent drink at night while watching one of the shows you were out of luck.  I don’t think any of the bartenders know how to make a good martini. The only one I had that was decent was in Wake and it was not a flavored martini a regular martini with olives.  We did have a good margarita in Pink Agave.  We tried every bar throughout the week for a martini, such as lemon drop, appletini, cosmo etc and most of them were undrinkable.  My husband is a whiskey drinker and he ended up drinking whiskey on the rocks because his drinks were bad too.  We usually cruise on NCL and get some really good drinks but they were nowhere to be found on the valiant lady.  If you had a good martini on the ship, I would love to know where, because we are cruising again in October.

[tjohnston87]

The trick is finding that one bartender. Ive never had a problem with NCL. This will be my first upcoming valiant lady cruise with VV. SO this post scares the ***** out of me. 

 

I did a princess cruise in January and they struggled to just make an espresso martini. it was not a good experience. 

[jon81uk]

I found the espresso martini in Sip was fine. But I don’t have the most sophisticated drink tastes, most of the time I was drinking Absolut and Sprite. 
 

I think bartenders in black shirts are more skilled than the general staff in striped t-shirts. 

[TYCruise]

I'm a bartender for 17 years now and am always on the lookout for properly made cocktails.  While I didn't order any martinis, I found the best cocktails to be made at On the Rocks.  It was last month and there was a medium build Asian male bartender who made excellent Manhattans (stirred of course). 

[curlstravel]

We had no luck at on the rocks. We were there almost every night listening to music and was so disappointed.  One night I asked the bartender if he had St. Germain or elderflower, and he took a bottle off the shelf and turned it upside down to show me it was empty. He didn’t even answer me.

our favorite cruise line is NCL and we have been able to get great drinks on that ship.  On our cruise in January, we ordered espresso martinis almost every morning. at dinner  My go to drink was a  Lemmoncello martini and at night time listening to music I would order an appletini or a Cosmo. I was never disappointed.  They even made drinks like raspberry martinis with St. Germain, etc.. We were really hoping to get some good drinks on the virgin voyage. We ended up drinking vodka tonics most of the time.

Edited April 13, 2023 by curlstravel

[_tacocat_]

2 hours ago, tjohnston87 said:

The trick is finding that one bartender. Ive never had a problem with NCL. This will be my first upcoming valiant lady cruise with VV. SO this post scares the ***** out of me. 

check out on the rocks.  the bartenders with black aprons that have silver grommets are the "mixologists" onboard, and one of them usually calls OTR their home bar on the ship.  they're pretty talented and most are award/competition-winning mixologists that have actual land-side upscale bar/cocktail lounge experience.  i can't remember if manny is on scarlet or valiant, but we've had him a few times.  the last time, it was like a race to have the most ridiculous cocktails on the last night because we had so much bar tab leftover.  we got creative with him to come up with some tasty beverages.

 

a lot of the bartenders i've run into at OTR are able to make whatever - i've seen a few of them with guests that don't love anything on the menu, and they just ask what kind of liquor and what attributes they want (fruity, tart, sweet, refreshing, whatever) and do a kind of dealer's choice within those parameters.

 

otherwise, if you want a cocktail and are particular about how it's made (i.e., not having a sicky sweet abomination with pineapple juice, grenadine and a float of myers's masquerading as a "mai tai" 🤮), you can pull up a recipe on your phone or just dictate it to them.  we've gone totally off book with some of the bartenders based on what they have at their particular bar -- chartreuse swizzles and other offbeat things, and they get another drink to put in their repertoire!

[neverendingcruising]

Our experience has been mixed, and seems heavily dependent on the crew (like there's not a standard recipe guide or something). 

 

On our most recent voyage (on Scarlet in March) the espresso martinis across the ship were undrinkable but Sip made a pretty stellar lemon drop martini. 

 

We've had really good luck at the casino bar of all places, it's so small and out of the way but so far have never gotten a bad drink there. 

 

I'm pretty big into Manhattans and cherries are everything to me so I've found that I have to ask at every bar what kind of cherry they use because there was no rhyme or reason which locations had quality cherries. It seems to even change between ship/voyages at the same bar. 

[zackarykeef]

Does anyone have links to menus or drink prices? I'm not a fan of the bar tab and paying for drinks, as I don't like to think about it on vacation; I, too, sail NCL mostly, and they make great drinks. However, we are considering testing VV, so would like to have an idea on drink prices. Thanks!

[cantgetin]

We got off Valiant in May, 2023.  The cocktails we ordered were  generally either $11 or $13, although I did see one at $17 on the menu. A glass of wine was usually $10 or under; again a few were more.   THere are some menus posted on line, but do check the dates on them--some prices have increased slightly.  Remember that on VV, the gratuity is already included, so the price posted on the menu is the price you are charged unless you are in territorial waters or in port where taxes must be charged.

For moderate drinkers, we found the bar tab to cost far less than any beverage plan on other lines.  THe last I knew, the bar tab on NCL was over $100 per day, and a gratuity of 18 or 20% was added on top of that.  And it had to be purchased by each person in the cabin.  You could spend that much per day on VV, but you'd be drinking all day long.

[jon81uk]

1 hour ago, zackarykeef said:

Does anyone have links to menus or drink prices? I'm not a fan of the bar tab and paying for drinks, as I don't like to think about it on vacation; I, too, sail NCL mostly, and they make great drinks. However, we are considering testing VV, so would like to have an idea on drink prices. Thanks!

This should give an idea https://profcruise.com/virgin-voyages-bar-menus-and-drink-prices/

 

It’s been reported a few prices have gone up  though. Standard spirit and mixer is about $9.

[sid_9169]

I had a little trouble finding a great margarita on Scarlet Lady this past week, but after trying at several different bars, I found "my guys" at Extra Virgin on the first evening, and then followed them to the bars they worked during the day... Once I found them, I would only get my drinks from those two guys, unless I was just drinking straight tequila, which doesn't require any special skills to master...