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For the first time in many a year, we chose not to sign up for any drinks' package.

 

We found we drank more water (although not happy with some passengers refilling used bottles at water fountains) and chose to purchase on a 'buy as you go' system.

 

Surprised to find we didn't miss package and saved money !!!

 

This was a trial that we will probably repeat.

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Cruise Drink Package offered by travel agency plus

other perks, Well if you took the drink package guess

what you have to pay the drink gratuity>15%.>18% per

day, per person times cruise days equals more $$$$.

Read the Fine Print.

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Cruise Drink Package offered by travel agency plus

other perks, Well if you took the drink package guess

what you have to pay the drink gratuity>15%.>18% per

day, per person times cruise days equals more $$$$.

Read the Fine Print.

 

This was about not buying a drinks' package.

 

Who mentioned gratuities ?????

 

Fine print is when travel agent offers neither !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Well this is about being offered a drink package along with all the perks on a travel deal. get it ????

 

Please read original Post.

 

It was written to explain we had chosen not to purchase a drinks' package. Nothing to do with perks !!!!!!!!!

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  • 9 months later...

We never get a drink package. Also on NCL, we never take the freebie unlimited drink perk, as the extra taxes would be more than what we would spend. I found that without the package, I usually on in port days bought one soft drink a day and on at sea days bought maybe three soft drinks a day. This meant it is not worth it for me to get a soda package either. // I'm not opposed to drinking or anything like that, but typically for some reason only have maybe six alcoholic drinks a year. Alcohol puts me to sleep and one drink is my limit and I can even feel one drink. With food/meals, I always drink tap water.

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  • 2 weeks later...

My people!

We don’t drink much booze, soda, Starbucks etc., so we declined the “freebie” and got a lower cost. Coffee, tea, milk, etc are fine on the daily. I might buy 1 sail away drink, but that’s it.

We plan to take some refillable water bottles and will fill those up before we head to port.

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  • 2 weeks later...

What if you had to choose between

$150 onboard credit (which can be used in the casino and everywhere else)

OR

Unlimited alcoholic drinks package (including gratuities) for 14 days@$10.71/day (very economical). No extra charge for gratuities.

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What if you had to choose between

$150 onboard credit (which can be used in the casino and everywhere else)

OR

Unlimited alcoholic drinks package (including gratuities) for 14 days@$10.71/day, including bartender/drinks gratuities.

To clarify--

Unlimited Classic alcoholic drinks package for 14 days includes--

a) unlimited drinking water

b) unlimited premium coffee

c) unlimited beer (upto $6 each)

d) unlimited wine (upto $8 each)

e) unlimited spirits and cocktails (upto $9 each)

f) all bartender/drinks gratuities.

 

For 14 days, it works out to $10.71 per person per day, including bartender/drinks gratuities.

In fact, the more drinks you consume, the more the bartender earns in gratuities (paid by the cruise line). They are extremely happy to serve you as many as you wish & boost their income!

Edited by drsel
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  • 3 weeks later...

I would take the onbard credit. We have never spent more than $10 on beverages on a ship; except our first cruise when we bought the soda package and realized that we could have done without it.

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Cruise Drink Package offered by travel agency plus

other perks, Well if you took the drink package guess

what you have to pay the drink gratuity>15%.>18% per

day, per person times cruise days equals more $$$$.

Read the Fine Print.

That depends on the cruise line. Princess does not charge gratuities on the free drink packages.

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We very rarely drink alcohol at home, so not having a pkg is a “no brainer” for us. DH is used to having diet cola most days, but decided the iced tea was fine for him, along with the free water. I have soda only a few times a year, so I brought my own cans of mixed soda and flavoured iced tea in my carry on bag with a large insulated cup that with ice, kept my beverage cold all day. We also brought 2 bottles of wine, which we did mainly as it felt like “the thing to do” on our first cruise, both had just retired, and had a balcony cabin-to sip wine on, but actually we felt that was a waste as we didn’t really enjoy the wine that much.

Big savings for our first cruise.....next time no wine, no drink pkg and bring some cans of beverage from debarking port.

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  • 3 weeks later...
For the first time in many a year, we chose not to sign up for any drinks' package.

 

 

 

We found we drank more water (although not happy with some passengers refilling used bottles at water fountains) and chose to purchase on a 'buy as you go' system.

 

 

 

Surprised to find we didn't miss package and saved money !!!

 

 

 

This was a trial that we will probably repeat.

 

 

 

What is the usual cost per drink?

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

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On both our recent Princess and Carnival cruises we also chose a la carte pricing for drinks. We are moderate drinkers and never spent more than $100/day for the two of us, so it is definitely a savings in our case. We would have to consider the net value (after gratuities) if we sailed a line where it was an included perk.

 

Carnival and Princess both offer daily specials too. There were of course some limitations (certain hours, certain drinks), but we were able to have a discount on most of our drinks.

 

We also brought our allotment of wine onboard each of these cruises.

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Good to read this thread. We just tossed this issue around and decided to go a la carte on beverages on our upcoming HAL cruise also. I think we are going to be fine. I think I read that 8 drinks/day is what it takes to "break even" on the drink package. But, honestly, if I drank the limit of 15 beverages/day which is what the package allows, my head would be on the table by 6 p.m., hahaha. And the biggest reason to reject the package is that the wine I like is priced at $9.75/glass and the package only allows beverages up to $9. Why in the world would they do that? That would really make me mad to find out I spent $700 for the week but still was billed because my wine exceeded the allowable charge.

 

So, we are taking 2 bottles of our favorite wine and will just buy drinks as we go...I'm sure it will be less than $700/week!

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  • 2 weeks later...
Good to read this thread. We just tossed this issue around and decided to go a la carte on beverages on our upcoming HAL cruise

I had booked my upcoming HAL cruise with the Explore4 package, which included the drink package. I had the opportunity to re-book a few months later for $300 less per person and get free tips and took it. The new package included a $25 beverage card per person. This was for a 14 day cruise, and given that it's going to Norway, I didn't see us sitting around the pool drinking Pina Coladas and the price difference wasn't worth it.

 

On Celebrity, we always take the drink package as the perk. I would never pay $50 a day for it, but at the relative price of $10-20 a day (compared to taking a different perk) it's worth it. We don't drink a lot of alcoholic beverages but you can also get fresh OJ, and we really like the coffee drinks and iced tea at Cafe al Bacio.

 

People who just think of the drink package as alcoholic beverages aren't fully considering the value especially when you're effectively paying a vastly reduced price for it by getting it as a perk.

 

Note this doesn't apply to NCL where (as mentioned earlier, although not by name) they make you pay 18% gratuities on a vastly inflated price, which clearly changes the equation.

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had to do a quick reply to this... I think the drink pkg from Celeb is usually great value, using your list. plus, it is even better as a free perk. however, Celeb has one sad exception to theirs, as they don't allow martinis included on it at the martini bar. hmmm...

 

To clarify--

Unlimited Classic alcoholic drinks package for 14 days includes--

a) unlimited drinking water

b) unlimited premium coffee

c) unlimited beer (upto $6 each)

d) unlimited wine (upto $8 each)

e) unlimited spirits and cocktails (upto $9 each)

f) all bartender/drinks gratuities.

 

For 14 days, it works out to $10.71 per person per day, including bartender/drinks gratuities.

In fact, the more drinks you consume, the more the bartender earns in gratuities (paid by the cruise line). They are extremely happy to serve you as many as you wish & boost their income!

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We’ve smuggled liquor on board on our first two cruises. On our third, coming up in September, we decided to buy the Deluxe Package on Oasis of the Seas simply because we didn’t like the nervousness, the LONG walks back to our cabin to refill, etc...

But I didn’t want to pay the admittedly high price out of our regular income.

We always save our change just for extras on vacations, so we thought this would be a good use for it. We had $458 in change saved up, plus we had $75 onboard credit, total $533. The package was I think about $750 or so. That was close enough for me so we bit the bullet and bought it.

Believe me, I truly sympathize with everyone about the confiscatory cost of alcohol on cruise ships, but this time I’ll play by the rules.

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