Curious Cruiser

[buchsco]

Does anyone know if Holland America charges their gratuity on top of the $18 corkage fee for wine brought on board? And are their wines by the glass 5 or 6 ounce pours? Thanks in advance for any light you can shine on either issue.

[CruiserBruce]

To my knowledge there is no tip on top of the corkage fee. You aren't buying from the ship, you brought it on board, so no number to calculate a tip on.

 

 

The $18 corkage is collected at the gangway, not where ever you open the bottle at.

[kazu]

Does anyone know if Holland America charges their gratuity on top of the $18 corkage fee for wine brought on board? And are their wines by the glass 5 or 6 ounce pours? Thanks in advance for any light you can shine on either issue.

 

The $18 corkage fee covers it for wines brought on board. It shouldn't but it does.

 

Wines are available by the glass - I am unsure of how many ounces they are but I think they are around 5 ounces - the gratuity is added to the cost of those of course along with the other drinks.

[freestyling]

Gratuity is not charged on top of the corkage fee. I believe the oz pour depends on the bartender/server or wine stewart. :)

Edited October 24, 2015 by freestyling

[POA1]

Typically, a glass of wine is 5 oz, or 5 glasses per bottle. Champagne or sparkling wine is usually a 4 oz serving, giving you 6 glasses in a bottle. If it's your own bottle, you can pour as little or as much as you want, however, you don't want to overfill the glasses.

[Topsham]

To my knowledge there is no tip on top of the corkage fee. You aren't buying from the ship, you brought it on board, so no number to calculate a tip on.

 

 

The $18 corkage is collected at the gangway, not where ever you open the bottle at.

 

 

 

Collected at the gangway? Are you sure. If you take it to the dining room... yes I can see corkage... but not if you are taking it to you cabin. I don't think so.

 

Why buy a bottle and then pay basically a 'tip' or 'corkage' of $18... works out at 18% on a $100 dollar bottle! If you bring a special $100 bottle that is fine... but why take a $10 bottle for the supermarket and then put it up to $28... not worth the effort... or money.

[propwash]

Collected at the gangway? Are you sure. If you take it to the dining room... yes I can see corkage... but not if you are taking it to you cabin. I don't think so.

 

Why buy a bottle and then pay basically a 'tip' or 'corkage' of $18... works out at 18% on a $100 dollar bottle! If you bring a special $100 bottle that is fine... but why take a $10 bottle for the supermarket and then put it up to $28... not worth the effort... or money.

 

I do believe that you are allowed to bring a single bottle of wine 750Ml or less per person at no cost. The $18 corkage fee is for any thing larger or more than the standard allowance.

Danny

[CruiserBruce]

Collected at the gangway? Are you sure. If you take it to the dining room... yes I can see corkage... but not if you are taking it to you cabin. I don't think so.

 

 

 

On our last HAL cruise any wine above the allotted 2 was identified at boarding, corkage was collected, and the bottle was identified as corkage paid. Otherwise how would they know on board you had brought on more than your allotted bottles?

[Topsham]

On our last HAL cruise any wine above the allotted 2 was identified at boarding, corkage was collected, and the bottle was identified as corkage paid. Otherwise how would they know on board you had brought on more than your allotted bottles?

 

 

Well, when you board at embarkation you are allowed in your hand baggage, right? Once you board... you can't go back ashore... can you... or than in exceptional circumstance? If you bring more than the allowed two bottles.... it is kept until end of cruise.

 

If you come to the dining room with a bottle then they can take the corkage.

 

Why corkage on a bottle for consumption in your cabin? Again, why bother with bringing on wine.... with $18 makes the wine waste of time and money.

[obriendan]

Corkage, $18 per bottle above the allowed two bottles per stateroom, is charged at embarkation. The bottles charged are stamped and may be consumed in the MDR, other venues where alcoholic beverages are consumed, or in your stateroom.

 

Dan

[POA1]

Collected at the gangway? Are you sure. If you take it to the dining room... yes I can see corkage... but not if you are taking it to you cabin. I don't think so.

 

Why buy a bottle and then pay basically a 'tip' or 'corkage' of $18... works out at 18% on a $100 dollar bottle! If you bring a special $100 bottle that is fine... but why take a $10 bottle for the supermarket and then put it up to $28... not worth the effort... or money.

 

It's recorded at a table in the embarkation area. Real life example: For the sake of the example, you're traveling with another person and you are sharing a stateroom with them. Let's say that you're carrying on a case of wine - which is easy to do if you have the correct wine totes. After the security screening scanner, you report to a table where a member of the beverage staff will check in your wine. Since you get 1 bottle per person, the staff member will sticker 10 of your 12 bottles and give you a hand-written slip for the $18 x 10 = $180 corkage fee. (In our case, we always take our wine to dinner, so we pay corkage on all 12 bottles.)

 

You then take your stickered and unstickered bottles with you as you board. About a day or two later, a charge will show up on your folio to indicate the whole corkage charge. If you're like us, you will say, "What the heck?? How did we get a such an enormous charge from the Explorer's Lounge? (or whatever bar the check in person works at.) You will then remember that it's your corkage, because surely you'd remember drinking hundreds of dollars worth of booze while listening to Adagio. :D

 

We've taken wine with us ranging from $10 per bottle to well north of $400 per bottle. In my mind, it's always worth it because I know what we like and we can't get it on the ship. Bear in mind that we're in Fort Lauderdale and we can pretty much take as much wine as we can carry because we're usually not flying in to catch a cruise. The rules change if we have to fly, say to Alaska for instance. In that case, we might pick up a few bottles at a wine shop in Vancouver, but most of what we drink will come from the ship's stock.

[Vict0riann]

I agree with all POA says!:D One cruise we discovered they were using the little blue stickers that are also used on invitations, etc., on board! :) I don't think they always do that, maybe the blue ones were all they had on hand. One of the two bottles we brought on free of corkage (for consumption in the room), we eventually took to the dining room, and without a sticker, we were charged corkage there - we did it slightly differently from POA in that we originally thought we would drink in our room, but ended up not spending much time in the room at all.

[The-Inside-Cabin]

I did a little analysis on the mark up of a recent HAL wine list. I compared the street price (adding corkage fee) of the exact same bottle with the HAL price (including gratuity)

 

I found one where buying on Hal was cheaper

 

First number is street price INCLUDING $18 CORKAGE

Second number is HAL price including 15% TIP (rounded)

Third number is Savings from bringing the wine yourself and paying the corkage.

 

The first bottle was the only one that was cheaper. I only did the whites. I suspect the pattern holds true for others.

 

Whether saving about $18 (on average) per bottle is worth it is up to you. If you can get discounts from the HAL packages and elite status - these numbers will change.

 

L Kreusch Pieporter Riesling $34 $29 -$5

Beringer Pinot Grigio, California $24 $33 $9

Ruffino Pinot Grigio, California $26 $51 $25

Blackstone Sauvignon Balnc $27 $45 $18

Nobilo sauvignon Balnc $29 $40 $11

Kenwood sauvignon Blanc $29 $48 $19

Villa Maria Sauvignon Blanc $30 $56 $26

Michel Redde Pouilly Fume $45 $74 $29

Hedges CMS white $30 $62 $32

2005 Magnum J Phelps Insignia $216 $615 $399

2002 Chateau Lafite Rothschild $786 $2,645 $1,859

Zonin Moscato $27 $39 $12

Marques de Caceres $30 $39 $9

Chateau Ste Michelle Riesling $27 $37 $10

Robert Mondavi Sauvignon Blanc $27 $45 $18

Caliterra Chardonnay $27 $39 $12

Footprint Chardonnay $27 $39 $12

Rosemount Estate Chardonnay $27 $45 $18

Domaine Laroche Chablis 1ER $35 $62 $27

Edited October 25, 2015 by The-Inside-Cabin

[dakrewser]

Domaine Laroche Chablis 1ER $35 $62 $27

 

Please tell me where I can buy 1ere Cru Chablis for $17/btl!

 

Also, to be fair, you should add something to transport those bottles. Not everyone is able to purchase at the embarkation port.

[Topsham]

I'm not disputing your calculations... I just don't see why HAL have to play around with this nonsense. You are allowed one bottle free... or two for a couple. Everything else you pay the corkage. Anything purchased in another port you pay the corkage. You pay when you bring it the gangway. Does it really worth the hassle to show all silly blue stickers. Does it really matter that two unmarked bottle come into the dining room? You get two in the dining room and you pay corkage for other wines used in your cabin... for NOTHING! Big brother watching!

[The-Inside-Cabin]

Please tell me where I can buy 1ere Cru Chablis for $17/btl!

 

Also, to be fair, you should add something to transport those bottles. Not everyone is able to purchase at the embarkation port.

 

 

I used wine-searcher.com for my prices. For the one you mentioned, there are a lot of variations with big price differences. I may have picked the wrong version ....I yield to the experts....the HAL price is accurate

 

The cost or transporting is too different to figure in. When I drive to a port...not a big deal. If I fly a little more work and usually don't. Paying FedEx to ship wine would probably not be worth it.

 

I am not advocating a point of view - simply providing some information that others can use or ignore.

Edited October 25, 2015 by The-Inside-Cabin

[The-Inside-Cabin]

I'm not disputing your calculations... I just don't see why HAL have to play around with this nonsense. You are allowed one bottle free... or two for a couple. Everything else you pay the corkage. Anything purchased in another port you pay the corkage. You pay when you bring it the gangway. Does it really worth the hassle to show all silly blue stickers. Does it really matter that two unmarked bottle come into the dining room? You get two in the dining room and you pay corkage for other wines used in your cabin... for NOTHING! Big brother watching!

 

 

Whether the savings is worth the hassle will vary by passenger. I will bring wine when I drive to a port nearby, but don't bother when flying.

 

HAL doesn't "have to play around with this". They choose to "play around" and charge $18 for the service which I find a fair price.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[DaveOKC]

I did a little analysis on the mark up of a recent HAL wine list. I compared the street price (adding corkage fee) of the exact same bottle with the HAL price (including gratuity)

 

I found one where buying on Hal was cheaper

 

First number is street price INCLUDING $18 CORKAGE

Second number is HAL price including 15% TIP (rounded)

Third number is Savings from bringing the wine yourself and paying the corkage.

 

The first bottle was the only one that was cheaper. I only did the whites. I suspect the pattern holds true for others.

 

Whether saving about $18 (on average) per bottle is worth it is up to you. If you can get discounts from the HAL packages and elite status - these numbers will change.

 

L Kreusch Pieporter Riesling $34 $29 -$5

Beringer Pinot Grigio, California $24 $33 $9

Ruffino Pinot Grigio, California $26 $51 $25

Blackstone Sauvignon Balnc $27 $45 $18

Nobilo sauvignon Balnc $29 $40 $11

Kenwood sauvignon Blanc $29 $48 $19

Villa Maria Sauvignon Blanc $30 $56 $26

Michel Redde Pouilly Fume $45 $74 $29

Hedges CMS white $30 $62 $32

2005 Magnum J Phelps Insignia $216 $615 $399

2002 Chateau Lafite Rothschild $786 $2,645 $1,859

Zonin Moscato $27 $39 $12

Marques de Caceres $30 $39 $9

Chateau Ste Michelle Riesling $27 $37 $10

Robert Mondavi Sauvignon Blanc $27 $45 $18

Caliterra Chardonnay $27 $39 $12

Footprint Chardonnay $27 $39 $12

Rosemount Estate Chardonnay $27 $45 $18

Domaine Laroche Chablis 1ER $35 $62 $27

 

Very interesting information - thanks for posting it.

 

I would love to see the same type of comparison versus HAL's Navigator and Admiral wine packages, especially with the 25 and 50% off pricing for 3-5 star Mariners.

[Boytjie]

Also, to be fair, you should add something to transport those bottles. Not everyone is able to purchase at the embarkation port.

 

No good deed goes unpunished! ;)

 

The-Inside-cabin spent time and effort to provide some data for comparison - which I found interesting.

[Boytjie]

I'm not disputing your calculations... I just don't see why HAL have to play around with this nonsense. You are allowed one bottle free... or two for a couple. Everything else you pay the corkage. Anything purchased in another port you pay the corkage. You pay when you bring it the gangway. Does it really worth the hassle to show all silly blue stickers. Does it really matter that two unmarked bottle come into the dining room? You get two in the dining room and you pay corkage for other wines used in your cabin... for NOTHING! Big brother watching!

 

Well, HAL could just as easily say: NO WINE FOR YOU! and make you buy everything from them. ;)

[Topsham]

Well, HAL could just as easily say: NO WINE FOR YOU! and make you buy everything from them. ;)

 

 

 

I always bought wine on board. Years of cruising on HAL, three years ...as in Mariner Days, buying wine on board at every dinner and bringing an occasional bottle of wine or bottle of spirit from a port.

 

In the old days there was nothing broke with the system until people starting to bring cartloads of beer and crates of wine. People trying to smuggle booze on board in Evian bottles and filling suitcases... that is real reason why everyone is forced with the corkage.

[POA1]

Very interesting information - thanks for posting it.

 

I would love to see the same type of comparison versus HAL's Navigator and Admiral wine packages, especially with the 25 and 50% off pricing for 3-5 star Mariners.

Here's the Cliff's notes version. At 50% off, you're still paying a markup over retail, albeit a very, very reasonable one - less than you'd find at most restaurants. At a 25% discount, you're just about at typical restaurant markup. If you are 4* or 5*, and you like what's on the lists, they're a very good deal.