Princess Beverage Package Evaluator

[avd79]

Does anyone know what the new "chocolate specialty drinks" that are available for the 50th anniversary celebration cost? Are they $10 or under therefore included in the beverage package? We will be on the Regal in March and will purchase the beverage package as it makes accounting so much simpler! No need to keep tons of receipts for comparison with our on board account.

[coops14]

The cards can be purchased by calling or faxing Princess using the product code that you find on the Gifts & Services page of the Princess website. Or, if you booked through a TA, they can order them for you. A voucher will be left in your cabin when you board, which you can exchange for the card at the first venue you approach for a drink.

 

Thank you, we have phoned Princess and bought the drinks package.

 

Thanks for your help

[CruisinFinsUp]

Thanks so much for doing this! Its an awesome tool!

 

Can anyone tell me what canned sodas are available on board?

 

Thanks!

[Sox Fan Cruiser]

Does anyone know what the new "chocolate specialty drinks" that are available for the 50th anniversary celebration cost? Are they $10 or under therefore included in the beverage package? We will be on the Regal in March and will purchase the beverage package as it makes accounting so much simpler! No need to keep tons of receipts for comparison with our on board account.

 

Just got off the Regal. The chocolate celebration drinks are $12 and NOT part of the package. They can make a couple of them with cheaper booze to be under the $10 limit but they weren't as good. Splurge and pay full price for those. I so got my money's worth with the card that this one cost didn't matter.

Edited November 18, 2014 by Sox Fan Cruiser

[Sox Fan Cruiser]

Thanks so much for doing this! Its an awesome tool!

 

Can anyone tell me what canned sodas are available on board?

 

Thanks!

 

The canned sodas are the Coke line. So Coke, Diet Coke , Sprite etc. They also have ginger ale and soda water.

[rocky1]

The cards can be purchased by calling or faxing Princess using the product code that you find on the Gifts & Services page of the Princess website. Or, if you booked through a TA, they can order them for you. A voucher will be left in your cabin when you board, which you can exchange for the card at the first venue you approach for a drink.

 

I assume the package would be charged to my credit card at the time of purchase, rather than being added to my final payment? Also, does anyone know if I buy the package ahead of time am I protected against any possible price increases before the cruise date?

 

Interesting thread. Many thanks to kelly94942 for working up the evaluator.

[omynameistaken]

I assume the package would be charged to my credit card at the time of purchase, rather than being added to my final payment? Also, does anyone know if I buy the package ahead of time am I protected against any possible price increases before the cruise date?

 

Interesting thread. Many thanks to kelly94942 for working up the evaluator.

 

We purchased the card ahead of time via the phone from Princess. For some reason our TA (Costco) was unable to get it for us. I asked for an e-mail w/a receipt which you will not get unless asked for. Our card had a sticker on it already when we did our embarkment. That little sticker was one of the best investments we ever made.... My husband & I had a blast & the bartenders were the best!! Not sure if this pic will be visible

[Grumpy69]

Great spreadsheet! We love it!

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

[hokiefans]

 

Dear kelly94942,

 

What a terrific tool! Thank you very much for taking the time to put this together! And a tip of the hat to all those who have provided feedback to make it even better.

[candigirl41]

Great document. Does anyone know what sodas they have I know it is coke products, but do they have any other diet flavor other than diet coke?

 

Candi

[candigirl41]

Actually found the answer. They have diet Sprite. Thanks anyway.

 

Candi

[Kmkub]

I appreciate all the work that went into this spreadsheet.

 

For us, there is the convenience factor that is difficult to calculate. We'd come out ahead (some) with the card, but our time is valuable as well.

 

We absolutely love spending time on our balcony and having someone bring a bucket of beer to our room is priceless! With the card, we were only able to get one at a time each.

 

On our last cruise, we spent a lot of time hoarding beers during the day so we could enjoy our balcony in the evening.

 

My personal view is this card is great for wine lovers but less great for bucket-o-beer lovers. :-)

 

Thanks for doing this, though - it confirmed that it's not worth it for us.

[mom2tcdx2]

Not sure if there is different pricing for different cruises, however we just got off the Emerald Princess and noted many of the prices to be just a little bit higher. At least the first few versions of the spreadsheet I found anyway. For instance I did the Very Berry martinia quite a bit and they were all $8.25. The Glenfiddich my husband drank was also $8.25. From what it looks like most of the drinks listed at 7.95 were 8.25 on our sailing. The signature cocktails were $8.95. Also had a drink under the vodka called the Illusion and the whiskeys also had Cragganmore that we ordered, which I didn't see on the spreadsheet.

 

Though again not sure if the prices and drinks were different for leaving from Houston or if just a recent increase. Or if I missed a spreadsheet with newer pricing.

[DaveinWhales]

On our recent Sapphire Princess cruise from Beijing to Singapore we noticed that very few people were drinking wine at their tables so I guess that not many were actually on the all inclusive package.

We had decided that at $112 per day for two of us for 17 days the bill would be huge so , thanks to having a rough idea as to costs having read the spreadsheet, we decided to just drink what we wanted when we wanted. The exception was the wine package. We chose the Silver package where if you buy 12 bottles you pay $20 (plus15%) each on anything up to $29(plus 15%) on the wine list. For my palette this was more than satisfactory and we tended to drink the same Australian Merlot at every meal which represented a saving of $9 per day. When that ran out we bought another 7 bottle package at the dearer price of $23(plus 15%) per bottle.

We only had 4 nights in which to drink the 7 bottles but we discovered that the bar at the rear deck also served the self service buffet and you could order a bottle to drink at the bar here.

As for other drinks, on the first night we had a couple of pints of Stella each pre dinner ($31 inc 15%) and a couple of G&T's each after dinner ($28 inc 15%) and that was sufficient. Day one total was around $86 including a bottle of wine so $26 less than the all inclusive package.

The pattern continued throughout the cruise. Only on one occasion did we exceed the daily AI pricing and overall saved $800 on what would have been an $1900 bill when I got my final account.

I should point out several things though

1)I like a drink ! However, the temptation to imbibe purely because you have paid for it isn't a good idea ( similarly eating) particularly if you have an early arrival in port the next day.

2) We didn't buy any speciality coffees as we were more than happy with the standard issue ones that were free

3) We didn't buy any sodas during the day. An ice cream soda was $2.50 but my preference would always be an ice cream cone and they were free. Likewise, during the day I mostly avoid alcohol but my thirst quencher on board would be iced water or the iced lemonade which was also free. In fact the lemonade, fresh lemon juice and iced water would have been my preference over a sugar laden soft drink at any price.

4) Wine by the glass was available in the restaurants FOC if you were on an AI package. Service might not have been very quick though. I happily poured from my own bottle on several occasions although the waiter topped me up when passing. Whether they would be pressing you if they had to go and fetch the bottle I don't know.

5) If you do choose to buy a package, be it the wine or the all inclusive, you might consider doing so before you board as they were not available on the second leg of our trip because they were running short of many listed drinks as the container to re supply missed them at a port of call.Two ways of looking at that...if you already had a package you might feel cheated at the reduced choice, on the other hand if you boarded with the intention of drinking lots at a reduced rate you might find it cost more than you anticipated to do so.

 

Anyway, each to our own. We were more than happy with our decision. We did enjoy one cocktail at $8.95 each and could probably have drunk lots of them had we been AI and that might have been a saving on the other hand if you bought a bucket of 330l bottles of beer at around $23 it was buy 4 get one free. We opted for cider which seemed the best buy at $7 per 500ml can.

As for sitting on your balcony, maybe on the second leg but the first was far too cold.

One thing is certain though, the drinks prices aren't cheap !

[kelly94942]

Not sure if there is different pricing for different cruises, however we just got off the Emerald Princess and noted many of the prices to be just a little bit higher. At least the first few versions of the spreadsheet I found anyway. For instance I did the Very Berry martinia quite a bit and they were all $8.25. The Glenfiddich my husband drank was also $8.25. From what it looks like most of the drinks listed at 7.95 were 8.25 on our sailing. The signature cocktails were $8.95. Also had a drink under the vodka called the Illusion and the whiskeys also had Cragganmore that we ordered, which I didn't see on the spreadsheet.

 

Though again not sure if the prices and drinks were different for leaving from Houston or if just a recent increase. Or if I missed a spreadsheet with newer pricing.

 

The newer pricing is all located in post #205.

[Princess Rules]

Thank you for taking the time to do this!

 

Cindy

[glkelly57]

Does everyone in the cabin have to purchase the drink package?

[MSN-Travelers]

Does everyone in the cabin have to purchase the drink package?

 

No. That was a requirement when the program was in its test phase. That requirement was dropped when the package was rolled out across the fleet.

 

Enjoy!

[wishfulone]

We've just returned from a long cruise and it was interesting to see that not many people had an alcoholic drink with lunch. It seemed to indicate most people had not purchased the all inclusive package because of the high cost. We bought a wine package which we could use at lunch or dinner and purchased a 4 sm bottle wine package and a six can beer package for our cabin. We had all the drinks we needed at a fraction of the cost. It appears that the all inclusive is only good if you like spirits and cocktails and if you have your drinks in the bars rather than the restaurants.

 

I found this thread very helpful in helping us make our decision and we were very happy with our choice.

[Bernbun29]

Dear kelly94942,

 

What a terrific tool! Thank you very much for taking the time to put this together! I downloaded and made the two corrections to change the column heading and the formula, but it is not calculating the prices. Any idea what I'm doing wrong?

[crochetcruise]

Here it is - the updated version with all of the additional & updated prices my parents found on their cruise last week! They took a ton of menu pics for me - the list has almost doubled in size. There are a few repeats on the list - for example, if a drink is offered on multiple wine lists, I did show it multiple times on the list. Hopefully that's helpful for folks as they think about what they like to drink at specific venues.

 

The only 2 sections that aren't updated are the iced coffees from the International Cafe and the Flavors of Mexico. I have indicated the update date for each item, so it will be obvious how current each price is.

 

Please let me know if you have any questions, and as always feedback and correction suggestions are appreciated! :D

 

Thanks, this has given me updated pricing. I have read on Cruise Critic that the All-Inclusive Package is not available on my Australian cruise 04/17/2016 so am calculating drink costs and will put money on my cruise account upfront for drinks, and souvenirs to hopefully minimise nasty surprises. I can get the Soda and More package, it's more the Cocktail prices I was concerned about-there's several I want to try out. Yes, I will carefully space out my consumption of alcohol and be very careful to eat something (no hardship finding anything to eat on a Princess ship :) either) so should be reasonably safe.

 

Crochetcruise :cool:

[allways1]

Forgive me if this has been addressed already: Is there any benefit to purchasing a beverage package before the cruise starts? Is the price the same?

[rdsqrl]

Forgive me if this has been addressed already: Is there any benefit to purchasing a beverage package before the cruise starts? Is the price the same?

The price is the same. There's no benefit (some claim convenience, but if you have to go to a bar to get a drink anyway, what's the diff to take a moment to buy the package?).

 

The exception is the coffee card, which is a whole two dollars cheaper if purchased in advance. I would still wait until I board; I believe the bartenders get credit for selling such things and I would rather that than save a whole 200 cents. Plus, like I said, you still have to go to counter to get your coffee anyway . . .

[kelly94942]

Dear kelly94942,

 

What a terrific tool! Thank you very much for taking the time to put this together! I downloaded and made the two corrections to change the column heading and the formula, but it is not calculating the prices. Any idea what I'm doing wrong?

 

Bernbun: What 2 specific corrections did you make? If you are using the version in post #205 you shouldn't have to make any corrections.

[Murray's Pop]

Am I missing something? The original spreadsheet show the cost of the package at $56.35 per day, but the spread in post 206 shows $49 per day. Did the price change?