Harpo

Does Crystal River Cruises offer any type of referral discount/bonus?  We have booked two different Crystal River Cruises (new for us) in June 2021 and July 2021.  We have not yet paid for them.  Payment is due October 2020.

Two corrections to that:

It's one bottle per person, not two bottles per cabin. There's a difference.

And, the corkage fee is applied if you bring the 'free' bottle to the dining room, or other public venue.

It is two bottles per cabin assuming you have two adults (or more) in the cabin. If you have a third or fourth adult in the cabin, it's still two bottles. But if there is only one adult in the cabin, it is only one bottle, not two.

The corkage fee applies to anything over the one bottle per adult/two per cabin (if two in the cabin), regardless of whether you bring it to the dining room or any public venue. Your first two bottles (again, assuming two adults in the cabin) are free, no corkage, as long as you cork them in your own room. I've never seen any cruise ship object to taking a glass of wine from your room to the dining room or public venue, just don't bring the bottle. But if you bring on let's say four bottles (with two adults in the cabin), you will be charged $18 corkage on two of the bottles, regardless where you have them corked (or even if you do it yourself).

Just checked this today for our upcoming cruise. A bottle of generic "red" and "white" go for $30/bottle. A bottle of Beiringer White Zinfandel ($6 at a local wine store) goes for $36, so 6x the cost. As you go up to the higher priced wines, the multiplier goes down slightly, but is still over 4x for every wine I checked. Example is Ferrari‑Carano Chardonnay, which sells for about $20 at a wine store, is $92.50 onboard. So expect a 4-6x price multiplier on any wine you buy onboard. Most cruise ships are good at listing a lot of relatively unknown labels so that you cannot easily price reference check while reading the wine list. And yes, there is an app for that (Vivino), but most don't have the app or don't want to use Internet time checking wine prices at dinner.

Which makes it worthwhile to pay the $18 corkage fee (and no corkage fee on your first two bottles per cabin), unless you don't want to go through the hassle of selecting exactly what you want in advance and hauling it onboard.

Check to make sure there are no balcony cabins with which you would not be happy.

We had a balcony, then did this, booking a balcony guarantee. We were surprised when we were assigned an obstructed view balcony. We had a lifeboat right in front of our balcony. We didn't know that such a thing (balcony fully obstructed) existed, but it does.

In our case, we wish we would have stayed with the original assigned balcony cabin. We're not picky about where it is on the ship, we just got stuck with a view of a lifeboat for the entire cruise.

So check to see what the very lowest cabin available might be. If that is OK with you, go for it. But beware if there are obstructed view balconies on the ship.

Have opened wine in the cabin to drink and have brought bottles to dinner. Never had a problem. Could depend on the wine steward. We generally buy their bottles in the dining room. Good selection and fair prices. Not like the big ships.

Thanks, good to know. We are doing our first Windstar (on Wind Star) cruise in January. We will try to do a blend of our stuff and their stuff.

When you buy a bottle in the dining room, can you have it corked for the following evening if you do not finish it? Can you take it with you?

Back to the wine question for a moment.... Can you purchase wine in a port and bring it on board, or do they confiscate it like the big cruise ships like to do?

I know the party line on wine in public areas is that there is a corkage fee. But in practice, how does it actually work? If you open the wine in your cabin, is it required to stay in your cabin? Or can you bring a glass of wine with you to a public area (like the deck)? To dinner?

Hi Chris, thanks for posting the reviews and pics.

Question about how guys are dressing for Grande--I have a tux, but I didn't see many tuxes in Grande and I don't want to be the guy who is overdressed. We will be on Quantum in May. Do you recommend bringing a tux or a suit for dining at Grande? Thanks in advance for your input.