Grills, free drinks again!

After our wonderful cruise in a P2 on QE earlier this month, we finally decided to book again for next year.

After a lot of debate came up with a cruise that would suit us with length, port and dates, and decided QE again for November next year. As we had been on a ship visit in August, and a cruise since, we had a couple of OBC vouchers.

As there was also a 'book now' offer as well on the website, I doubted that we would be able to combine all 3, and asked my TA to see what she could do. After a couple of phone calls it was sorted, we were offered substantial OBC, free parking and free drinks, Free drinks?? Yes, free drinks under $12 for grills passengers on some cruises at the moment on UK website. We had not seen the free drinks mentioned, and it would been rude not to accept the offer, so we are off again!

Fortunately, my favorite wine is $11.50 a glass, and the $12 ceiling will cover most of the wines by the glass!

Yes we are considering the 26 nighter on QM2 in November next year. A reasonable amount of OBC, plus we have a FCD so $800 from that, plus plus Shareholder OBC, PLUS the drinks package.

A no brainer really.

Hardly "free" drinks we booked a Q6 on QE for October 2017 when brochure was first released in April and price was £2999 before Cunard early booking/past passenger discount. Price of same suite now is £3599. So you are paying an extra £600 for the so called "free" drinks.

We had booked a PG suite with free drinks promotion for this fall. Then there was a big price drop, but no free drinks. The huge price drop more than made up for the free drinks, so we were happy and will use OBC for drinks. I have also been cautioned that free drinks at dinner are a bit tricky if you want a second glass of wine. A bit hard to get the wine steward's attention as he scurries around to serve the paying customers. Still we will soon book a crossing for June, 2017 and there is a free drink offer on the web for PG. We'll see how that works out.

The free drinks are indeed tricky, we acquired this perk this past July somehow but it took repeated trips to the purser to get the drinks off the bill. The system seems to have trouble when more than 1 drink is on the bill at a time. Had to stand in line at 6AM disembarkation to get the last nights bill settled off but indeed all the drinks were free and perhaps the system works better now. My suggestion is get a bill for each transaction and check with the purser well before disembarkation to see if your tab is really clear.

Soundsto me better to pay the lower fare price and buy your own drinks than pay a higher cruise fare to get the "free" drinks. Like is said in life nothing is free. Its plainly obvious in my booking that Cunard have increased the price of cruise by £600pp to cover the cost of "free" drinks sorry but £1200 per couple for a 12nt cruise is a lot of drinks.

In our case, we are very happy with the deal!

When the brochure came out in March, we were not even considering a cruise. Come May we decided to try cruising again, and for many reasons Cunard was our first choice. It was to be a short trial cruise, to see what we thought of cruising now, and quite expected it could be our final cruise, choosing a P2 on the recent QE 7 night cruise to Iberia,

Yes, the one we have booked now is £770 pp more, but with all the extra OBC and free drinks, and based on our spending on our recent cruise, don’t believe we will be more than £200-£300 more out of pocket than if we had booked in April.

I was happy to book without free drinks that came as a wonderful surprise!

Soundsto me better to pay the lower fare price and buy your own drinks than pay a higher cruise fare to get the "free" drinks. Like is said in life nothing is free. Its plainly obvious in my booking that Cunard have increased the price of cruise by £600pp to cover the cost of "free" drinks sorry but £1200 per couple for a 12nt cruise is a lot of drinks.

A £100/day per couple can be done. On our last TA we were knocking on the door of that amount.

A £100/day per couple can be done. On our last TA we were knocking on the door of that amount.

Sorry but even with the excessive prices of drinks on Cunard even if you had a bottle of wine with dinner every night that is a lot of alcohol.

Sorry but even with the excessive prices of drinks on Cunard even if you had a bottle of wine with dinner every night that is a lot of alcohol.

Wine at lunchtime, a pre-dinner drink or two, wine with dinner, maybe port with cheese and drinks after dinner. It's easily done, especially if you venture into the slightly higher priced parts of the wine list.

Prices will raise and fall, promotions will come and go, as long as you are happy with what you have booked, it's all good.

Sorry but even with the excessive prices of drinks on Cunard even if you had a bottle of wine with dinner every night that is a lot of alcohol.

You don't have to be sorry.

£25 for a bottle of wine.

2 cocktails each before dinner (4x£8).

2 glasses of port after dinner (2x£5)

Another cocktail each after dinner (2x£8)

Then maybe 4 bottles of beer (lunchtime/afternoon) (4x£5)

That's £103.

It's not hard for a couple of spend £100 a day on drinks.

And the prices are in line with the prices I pay in pubs and restaurants when I'm in London for work.

and don't forget all the non alcoholic drinks as well!

and don't forget all the non alcoholic drinks as well!

Indeed yes.

If I was paying £100/day for the two of us I would not be down on the deal (okay, maybe not hugely up). But I'd get my money's worth !

You don't have to be sorry.

 

£25 for a bottle of wine.

 

2 cocktails each before dinner (4x£8).

 

2 glasses of port after dinner (2x£5)

 

Another cocktail each after dinner (2x£8)

 

Then maybe 4 bottles of beer (lunchtime/afternoon) (4x£5)

 

That's £103.

 

It's not hard for a couple of spend £100 a day on drinks.

 

And the prices are in line with the prices I pay in pubs and restaurants when I'm in London for work.

Am I right in thinking bottles of wine are not included in the "free drinks" package if so you lose a lot of value there straight away unless you order 3-4 individual glasses.

Wine at lunchtime, a pre-dinner drink or two, wine with dinner, maybe port with cheese and drinks after dinner. It's easily done, especially if you venture into the slightly higher priced parts of the wine list.

 

Prices will raise and fall, promotions will come and go, as long as you are happy with what you have booked, it's all good.

If you drink that amount of alcohol on a normal cruise and usually pay for it but that,s fine but to me that is an excessive amount to drink every day. You might break even on the deal but that then blows "free drinks" because you are just paying in advance for what you would pay anyway but at the end of the cruise. Anyone who "gains" on the deal by a significant amount has a drink problem. Not being a big drinker I prefer to pay £2999pp instead of £3599 and include "free drinks" as I would be worse off. But at the end of the day whether you drink that amount anyway its very naughty of Cunard to market "free drinks" when you are getting nothing free except for a few heavy drinkers and is not responsible of Cunard to encourage people to drink more than they usually do who will do so just to get value for money.

Am I right in thinking bottles of wine are not included in the "free drinks" package if so you lose a lot of value there straight away unless you order 3-4 individual glasses.

I suspect a bottle isn't. Okay, so remove the bottle and replace it with 2 glasses for 2 people. And 2 glasses is hardly excessive.

So that's even higher than my first estimate.

Well, at home I only drink one bottle of wine a week, 'special' weekends perhaps two, plus the very occasional G&T. Incidentally my wife is more or less teetotal, and only had one G&T on our cruise!

We have had the drinks package on Celebrity several times, and we seemed to break even, we just found it convenient more than anything.

In the end it’s a gamble, the price might go down and not include drinks. The suites tend to sell out first, so may be if we waited we would not be able to get a suite we preferred, our first choice had already been sold.

....but to me that is an excessive amount to drink every day.....has a drink problem..Not being a big drinker..

You have hit the nail on the head with those comments. It's a lot for you but it's not for others.

..anyway its very naughty of Cunard to market "free drinks" when you are getting nothing free except..

I agree entirely with that. But it's all over the world of marketing. Hotels now offer "bed and free breakfast"; i.e. what we used to called bed and breakfast.

And the pub round the corner does a curry and a free pint for £whatever. Again, no, it's a curry and a pint for £whatever.

Shops put their prices up and then reduce them and claim they are offering you a special discount.

It's total nonsense and it drives me mad. But these companies do it because people are greedy and they like to think they are getting something for nothing (when they are not of course). It plays to that greed.

If you drink that amount of alcohol on a normal cruise and usually pay for it but that,s fine but to me that is an excessive amount to drink every day.

And to me it's not, I have never had the drinks included offer and the only time I have travelled on a "more inclusive" line we didn't drink any more just because we had already paid for the drinks.

I think we all understand the marketing games being played.

Everyone chooses to spend their holidays in their own way and if this offer works for them, great.

It will be interesting to see what happens on December 6th, when the promotion has ended!

This year I have been on two Celebrity cruises where we had 'free' drinks packages. (On the first one we had to pay an extra £300 between us for a better grade of cabin to get the 'free' drinks and in the second it was included at the price that was offered at the time - and the price didn't get much better in the next 6 months even when the drinks were dropped.)

Both times I drank more than I usually would, but then I normally only have 1-2 glasses a week. My aim was to find what type of wine I actually enjoy and to explore cocktails. I never did find a wine that made me look forward to another glass. On the first cruise I discovered Mojitos and rediscovered Baileys. On the second cruise I spent a lot of time drinking non-alcoholic daiquiris by the pool and mojitos with low alcohol content. I had one lovely Cosmopolitan but the next one (made by a different bartender) was not worth drinking. I was left thinking that cocktails can be very hit and miss, depending on the mood of the bartender. Sometimes they just pour the alcohol without measuring, and get the blended flavour wrong.

I think I am just as happy on a cruise to drink iced water. Alcohol does not seem to add much to my enjoyment unless the drink is superb, and there seems to be no way to make sure it will be right.

The friend I travelled with made full use of the 'free' drinks and it was worth the £300 for the upgrade.