7 WAYS to get FREE DRINKS on a Virgin Voyages Cruise Ship
If you’re reading this post, there’s a pretty high chance you’re considering cruising with Virgin. If you are, then you’re in the right place - I’ve got lots to share with you about this cruise line! Before we start, if you’d like to see the Virgin experience for yourself, why not check out my YouTube video below? In this video, I board Valiant Lady in Barcelona to begin my Transatlantic voyage to Miami!
In this post today, we’re talking about DRINKS onboard Virgin’s cruise ships. Yes, you know exactly how to buy a drink (that’s not rocket science, at the end of the day), but did you know there’s a number of ways to get totally FREE drinks, or drinks included with some activities onboard? Well, in this post I’m going to share some of these tips with you, to hopefully save you some money when you get onboard for your cruise!
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So, let’s get started…
1. Let’s talk about Bar Tab!
If you’ve never cruised with Virgin before, then the concept of ‘Bar Tab’ might be a bit of a strange one. In short, a ‘Bar Tab’ on a Virgin cruise is pre-paid credit that you apply to your booking in advance of boarding the ship. The key benefit to doing this is that you’ll get a little extra from the cruise line as a bit of a ‘thank you’ for opting to do this before you sail. At the point of writing this post (November 2024), the following additional bonuses were being credited by Virgin to all Bar Tab bookings, giving you more money to spend on drinks onboard:
$200 Bar Tab: an extra $25, giving you $225 to spend onboard
$300 Bar Tab: an extra $50, giving you $225 to spend onboard
$500 Bar Tab: an extra $100, giving you $225 to spend onboard
$750 Bar Tab: an extra $175, giving you $225 to spend onboard
$1,000 Bar Tab: an extra $250, giving you $225 to spend onboard
Sounds good, right? Well, you MUST remember one thing… Bar Tab credit is non-refundable! In other words, at the end of your cruise, you’re not going to receive a refund for any Bar Tab that you haven’t managed to spend - it’ll just be wiped to zero when you disembark the ship for the final time.
My advice here is to try and plan (at least a little) how much you’re planning to spend onboard. As a general rule, I’ve found that drinks are decent value for money, and not too dissimilar to what I’d expect to pay in a decent bar on land. I found wine to be about $11-$15 a glass, cocktails to be between $13 and $20 each, and a beer to start at about $5 or so.
Bar Tab can be spent on anything drink-able. In other words, it’s not just alcoholic drinks! You can use Bar Tab to buy things like Milkshakes at the Social Club (the sports bar) or premium coffees at the Grounds Club (the coffee shop), so remember to account for that in your planning, too!
2. Are you a loyal cruiser? If so, Virgin might give you drinks money when you cruise!
It was only a matter of time before we started talking about loyalty programmes - the cruise industry absolutely LOVES a loyalty ladder… On Virgin, they call theirs the ‘Sailing Club’, and it’s currently got 3 tiers: Red (or Sailing Club), Blue Extras and Deep Blue Extras.
If you’re lucky enough to be a ‘Deep Blue Extras’ cruiser (5+ Virgin Voyages), then you’ll be receiving a lovely $100 Bar Tab credit with ALL of your cruises! A brilliant perk, isn’t it? There are so many cruise lines out there offering you one or two free drinks in exchange for your loyalty, but Virgin are really going for it with this Bar Tab perk.
The best part? It doesn’t take you long to build up 5 cruises - some cruise lines would need you cruising for years to unlock a benefit like this! To learn more about the Virgin Voyages Sailing Club, click here!
3. The Sailaway Party!
This is probably the easiest way for you to score a couple of totally FREE drinks on your virgin cruise: get to the sailaway party, and get ready to enjoy! Following the pre-departure announcement from the Captain, the sailaway party will begin.
If it’s good weather (which hopefully it will be) this usually takes place up on the main pool deck, with various performances from the crew in addition to a pumping DJ. If the weather’s not so good, then you can expect this to take place inside the ship - I’ve seen it happen at the Roundabout (the main atrium space onboard) in poor weather conditions.
As part of this event, there’s usually a whole load of free drinks, and you’re welcome to take as many as you want, and you can also go back for more! I found that the only restriction was time: the free fizz is offered for about 30 minutes - listen to the Captain for the timescale, and make sure you get out there and enjoy!
4. How about Bottomless Brunch?
Is all this talk about drinks making you hungry? Not to worry - let’s talk about food for a sec! Onboard a Virgin cruise ship, there’s the option to add Bottomless Brunch to your schedule. Now, this one isn’t free - it’s been charged at $25 on my cruises - but when you consider the bottomless drinks aspect, this is really good value!
So, what drinks are included at a Virgin Bottomless brunch? Well, you can help yourself to as many of the following drinks:
Rose Wine
Sparkling Wine
Mimosa
Filthy Bloody Mary
Heineken (Lager)
Affligem (Blonde Ale)
Bottomless Brunch is held at the Wake, which is a beautiful restaurant at the back of the ship overlooking the Wake (hence the name). It’s one of my favourites onboard! From a food point of view (I know we’re talking about drinks - don’t worry - this won’t take long), I thought it was EXCELLENT! Here’s some of what I went for to give you some idea of what you can expect…
If you want brunch without the bottomless aspect, not an issue - you can dine in here free of charge - it’s only the drinks that cost $25. The food’s included!
5. Like being arty? Well, Painting and Boozy Bevvies might be for you!
Okay, this one isn’t free - it costs $35, but you can expect a close to limitless amount of fizz/champagne while you paint, or make something crafty. This one isn’t really marketed as a ‘free drinks’ situation, but I have found it to be really good value in the past, so why not spend some time on your Sea Day crafting away, while sipping fizz from a flute? Personally, I can think of worst ways to spend the day…!
6. Keep an eye out for Special Events!
Let’s get back to the topic of FREE drinks, rather than events you need to pay for! Sometimes, you’ll be invited along to a special event, some of which will offer complimentary drinks. One example of such an event would be the Deep Blue Extras (think back to the loyalty programme we discussed earlier) drinks meet up.
On one of the days of your cruise, Virgin will invite everyone with Deep Blue Extras to come to a drinks meet up, where cocktails are usually the drink offered free of charge. When I’ve attended these in the past, you’re welcome to take as many of these as you want, but it’s a very different vibe to the sailaway party.
In other words, you might look a bit odd sitting with a table of 12 cocktails just for you - behave…!!
7. Stick to non-alcoholic…
One of the things I absolutely love about cruising with Virgin is the fact that they offer lots of non-alcoholic drinks totally free of charge - the cost of these is already built into your cruise fare! This means that, if you don’t drink alcohol, you can often spend very little extra onboard when you cruise with this line!
For me, it makes it much easier for me to ‘space’ my drinks. For example, it’s much easier for me to have an alcoholic drink, followed by something non-alcoholic - trust me, this really does eliminate a hangover the following morning (I feel old even typing that…).
On Virgin ships, the following drinks are totally FREE onboard:
Still water
Sparkling water
Non-pressed juices
Sodas
Teas (tea bags are free up at the Galley)
Drip Coffee
Good, right?!
So, there’s a quick summary of SOME of the ways you can avoid spending an absolute fortune on drinks on your Virgin Voyages cruise. I hope you’ve enjoyed this post today. If you have, please support my channels by signing up to my newsletters, and also subscribing to my YouTube channel.
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