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Our opinion on recent all inclusive package

petlady7

By petlady7,
in Princess Cruises

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petlady7

petlady7

Posted
Posted

Hi fellow cruisers

 

We have just returned from the Emerald Princess and took the AI drinks package , we consider ourselves moderate to " liking a drink a lot " kinda people but still found it hard to get our monies worth on the package , we found ourselves drinking for the sake of it so as to get our monies worth . If your cruise is port intensive you would only have the evenings to take advantage of the package , we did also have coffees /teas that we would not normally of had and only still just broke even so unless you really enjoy a drink I would advise to buy as you go , but this is just my opinion so feel free to buy it if you want (don't want any backlash here from the people that feel they got a good deal but are free to express their thoughts too)

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RetiredNTraveling

RetiredNTraveling

Posted
Posted

Thanks for you take on the AI Package. :)

 

I do have one question though, did your AI Package include the Wine package for Princess? :confused: If not, then the AIP would be a waste of our time.

 

We seem to be like you and enjoy a few drinks now and then. ;) We enjoy a bottle of wine in the evenings with dinner and a couple of drinks during the afternoon and evening. So I guess that I will continue to work on the cost comparison before accepting or declining the AI Package. :D

 

Again Thanks for posting!

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JimmyVWine Great Review Rare

JimmyVWine

Posted
Posted
Hi fellow cruisers

 

We ...found it hard to get our monies worth on the package , we found ourselves drinking for the sake of it so as to get our monies worth .

 

Over the past several years, people have often complained about changes to the Princess product that seem to be designed to squeeze more money out of passengers. (And one can debate if this is good or bad. That is not the point here). In this environment of increasing per passenger spending, (while slashing base fares more frequently), does anyone honestly think that a bunch of corporate "suits" sat around a conference room table thinking up ways to allow passengers to save money and drink the ships dry? Would Princess roll out a new program that was designed to decrease spending? Of course the All Inclusive package is geared toward having the passengers "lose money" on the deal. Some people will figure out ways to "come out ahead". It certainly is possible. But on average, the house always wins. You trade cost for convenience, or cost for an up-front understanding of what your total expenditure is going to be. Some people would rather pay a bit more, but know that their costs are capped and that their final bill will not be 7 pages long. Nothing wrong with that choice. But know that "coming out ahead" with your bar bill is like coming out ahead in the casino. It can happen. But not often.

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Pam in CA

Pam in CA

Posted
Posted

Thanks for the input. The drink package will work for someone who drinks a lot (not just alcohol) with lots of sea days. As I've said, Princess, and other lines, are offering the package to make money. Not because they're good guys. :)

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Nan_Sea

Nan_Sea

Posted
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Is it still possible to buy just the coffee card or has that been eliminated with the new package deal? For the amount of liquor we consume the package would be a waste for us but we do enjoy good coffee.

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IECalCruiser

IECalCruiser

Posted
Posted
Thanks for you take on the AI Package. :)

 

I do have one question though, did your AI Package include the Wine package for Princess? :confused: If not, then the AIP would be a waste of our time.

 

We seem to be like you and enjoy a few drinks now and then. ;) We enjoy a bottle of wine in the evenings with dinner and a couple of drinks during the afternoon and evening. So I guess that I will continue to work on the cost comparison before accepting or declining the AI Package. :D

 

Again Thanks for posting!

As someone else posted, wine by the glass up to $10 is included but there is only a 40% discount for the purchase of any wine bottle. The Wine Bottle Package is still available on longer cruises. Not always offered on 10 day cruises, but usually on longer cruises.
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mmckm

mmckm

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We were on the Emerald a few weeks ago. We had already ordered our beer and rye for our room before the beverage package came out. We like having a few drinks on our balcony during the day, before dinner ect. We decided to keep track of all of our drinks and see if this package was worth it for us. The part we don't like is we would have to go to a bar and get a drink and bring it back to the room each time we wanted something. At the end of the cruise we were better off without the package as we were nowhere near the $115 per day it would have cost us. That included a gold wine package, all alcohol bought from beverage services before the cruise for our room, the pop and water we brought on board and 2 bottles of wine, all drinks on the ship, a few coffees. We figure we drink a fair bit on vacation but have never kept track. I also like the ability to get a bucket of beers and take some back to the room for later when supplies were getting low. That's what we came up with for our solution, drink package not for us.

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vplsh

vplsh

Posted
Posted

We have sailed on Celebrity with their drink package. The "classic" package is the same price as Princess' package, and includes drinks up to $8. Most people are taking this as their free "perk" but we chose to take a different one this time. On our port intensive cruise, we found we spent an average of $50/day for the two of us, which is half the cost of the package. And we had wine every night at dinner, a few martinis throughout the week, some margaritas and beers, and water at each port. So we decided that we had made out better taking the $400 credit this time.

We also noted that this cruise (our 4th on the same ship) there were fewer venues to purchase drinks and fewer bartenders at each venue or walking around the pool to get you to buy them. Guess Celebrity is trying to limit the amount people are drinking.

 

It will be interesting to see if Princess goes with the AI package as a "perk" option as Celebrity did. We spoke to several people who said they booked Celebrity because of the free beverage package. Guess we'll have to see.

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msmoger

msmoger

Posted
Posted

We were on the same sailing as the OP and pretty much have the same opinion. We purchased the package thinking a Caribbean cruise would be the type of cruise to get the most benefit. We're pretty good drinkers but unless you have a substantial capacity to hold your liquor, it's an "effort" to get your money's worth.

 

I suppose if you drink a lot of the specialty coffees and/or soft drinks in addition to liquor it might be more cost effective. We did go to the IC for coffee drinks for the first time and really enjoyed them. However, not enough to offset the price of the package.

 

One other point I'd like to bring up. Although there is a fairly large wine by the glass selection, there are generally only 2 or 3 options in each varietal. For someone like myself that tends to favor certain varietals over others it makes for a limited menu.

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Bogof1

Bogof1

Posted
Posted

The drinks package is included if you book a cruise out of Southampton in 2015, and yes the prices are high so maybe it's not really a "free inclusion." If like us you really want to do the itinerary and as we wish to choose our cabin we have booked over a year out. The drinks package offer ends June 30th so am sure then the price will drop. Then we do the maths to see if we rebook and lose the package but pay less and still end up in profit paying as we go.

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newport dave

newport dave

Posted
Posted
We have sailed on Celebrity with their drink package. The "classic" package is the same price as Princess' package, and includes drinks up to $8. Most people are taking this as their free "perk" but we chose to take a different one this time. On our port intensive cruise, we found we spent an average of $50/day for the two of us, which is half the cost of the package. And we had wine every night at dinner, a few martinis throughout the week, some margaritas and beers, and water at each port. So we decided that we had made out better taking the $400 credit this time.

We also noted that this cruise (our 4th on the same ship) there were fewer venues to purchase drinks and fewer bartenders at each venue or walking around the pool to get you to buy them. Guess Celebrity is trying to limit the amount people are drinking.

 

It will be interesting to see if Princess goes with the AI package as a "perk" option as Celebrity did. We spoke to several people who said they booked Celebrity because of the free beverage package. Guess we'll have to see.

 

They're already offering it as a 'Perk' on all Caribbean Princess sailings from Southampton next summer 2015.

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petlady7

petlady7

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Hi Michael & Anthony , hope you enjoyed the cruise , we didn't see much of you after the first day , we loved it although it passed much too quickly .

 

As said in an earlier post the cruise lines don't introduce anything where they are going to lose money although Costa only charge $26-27 , 19.50 euros a day so I feel that we get our monies worth with them so will take out their drinks package in October but will not be doing it again with Princess due to the cost.

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Spender Nui

Spender Nui

Posted
Posted
We have sailed on Celebrity with their drink package. The "classic" package is the same price as Princess' package, and includes drinks up to $8. Most people are taking this as their free "perk" but we chose to take a different one this time. On our port intensive cruise, we found we spent an average of $50/day for the two of us, which is half the cost of the package. And we had wine every night at dinner, a few martinis throughout the week, some margaritas and beers, and water at each port. So we decided that we had made out better taking the $400 credit this time.

We also noted that this cruise (our 4th on the same ship) there were fewer venues to purchase drinks and fewer bartenders at each venue or walking around the pool to get you to buy them. Guess Celebrity is trying to limit the amount people are drinking.

 

It will be interesting to see if Princess goes with the AI package as a "perk" option as Celebrity did. We spoke to several people who said they booked Celebrity because of the free beverage package. Guess we'll have to see.

 

 

Interesting observation. Offer drink packages (free?) and then stop the drink hawking they usually do to make it more difficult for you to get one.

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Thrak

Thrak

Posted
Posted
At my drunkest I don't think I drank $50/day...

 

I never get my money worth from the soda card either, but it's easier to say it's worth $5/day to not have a bunch of $2 charges and receipts... But that's a lot of cash...

 

I couldn't get my monies worth from the soda package and don't want to drink enough alcohol to get my monies worth from the alcohol package but I'm going to try the Ultimate Soda and More package. It's $8 per day and I figure that's probably not much more than the cost of a single Moctail. I can have virgin Bloody Marys at breakfast, Tonic & Lime in the afternoon, and "virgin whatever I want" while watching a show. Many cocktails taste pretty much the same without the alcohol.

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hockeygal54

hockeygal54

Posted
Posted
Question, if you have this package do you still have to pay tips?

 

You pay the mandatory 15% gratuity on top of the daily charge. Same with coffee card cost and I assume soda card too.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums mobile app

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