Liquor

[dancermom09]

We don't live in CA, but we visit a lot! Our favorites are old vine zinfandels from some smaller winemakers based in Sonoma, but we like other varieties too.

 

We found the "included" wines on board sorely lacking, but they were more than happy to open any bottles you brought to dinner. We had arrived early and visited a couple of wineries/enotecas in Florence, so had several along. Thank goodness!

 

Surely there are some decent wine shops in the city you are embarking from that can make some recommendations. We went as CA wine snobs, but loved some of the wines we had. Of course, can't get them in the US.

[Celiac Cruiser]

We traveled SFO to Budapest for the Grand European Cruise. We stopped by the Duty Free store in the Budapest airport to buy liquor to take on aboard and were denied since we were not departing. They asked for proof by showing a boarding pass. I showed my boarding pass from our flight over but NO GO. Our friends bought liquor in the SFO duty free shop and that is what we should have done.

[Vineyard View]

We also live in Sonoma and generally love wine! 😂🍷. So I tend to agree that the house wine is not what we would generally choose. We bought some in a few ports along the way. That said, there were some that were not bad, and honestly their wine list had some decent prices on several good options in Manifredi's.

 

We generally buy wine in ports (Barcelona is a great one for that!), however on our Amazon cruise next year I am not really counting on finding good wine in San Juan (might have to grab a bottle of rum tho!) - I am thinking that the majority of ports on the itinerary will not be wine centric either....so I am not sure what we will do......

 

Regarding the Vana Talinn, we also discovered it at the port shop and brought a plastic bottle home.....it took me a long time to find it in the states,but just a couple months back I did find some at a wine shop in Reno (we have friends who live there) so purchased a couple bottles. We Just enjoyed a little glass this week!

[Celiac Cruiser]

Be careful Peregrina. We thought the same thing about buying duty free on arrival. Upon arriving in Budapest, we went to the duty free store picked out our favorite beverages and when the cashier asked for our boarding pass, we showed them. We were then told that we had to have DEPARTING boarding passes. So no go! 😞

 

We also got misinformation at the SFO duty free store. We asked about bringing our duty free liquor into Budapest. We explained we would be transiting in Amsterdam. We were told that we would have to go through security screening in Amsterdam (entering the Eurozone) and they would not allow us to bring liquids (in excess of 100 ml). We believed them but they were wrong! No security screening in Amsterdam (just passport check). Our friends brought in their duty free liquors purchased in Seattle airport no problem.

 

Lesson learned.

[Celiac Cruiser]

My bad - sorry for double posting.