cindysu

For those who say they tip--I'm guessing that's an additional tip on top of the 20% automatically added?

I haven't read all the notes, but one thing I haven't seen listed is the price per drink at the end of a cruise. The check out bill with all those pages will only list a drink and where you got it, not what the drink was if you have the cheers package. On our last cruise (6 days to Bermuda in September) it came out to $7.80 p/drink. For water, expensive, sure. A little on the high side for coffees and sodas. But a great price for all the boozy drinks especially when you realize that includes a 20% tip. In fact, each drink more would have only lowered our cost by .10 at that point. Maybe this doesn't help but it's a different way of looking at it. There are places online you can buy Carnival gift cards at a discount so that helps too. Maybe the ship wasn't so busy but we had GREAT service by having the cheers package. Glasses of wine waiting for us at dinner, bottled water handed out at every order, tons of olives in the martinis, refills without asking, etc. When I was looking in September to decide whether to buy the cheers package, unknown to me drink prices had gone up at least .50 per drink from May, our last cruise so that also helped. No beers were ordered, mostly wine, boat drinks and martinis.