Thought's About Purchasing a Beverage Package or Not - Explore 4 Thoughts??????

[Shadabu]

Why not buy a HAL card with a cash value on it? Less hassle for the occasional fancy coffee or glass of wine.. controlled spending? I ask because I chose this option :halo:

 

 

I think, in the end, this is what I'm going to do. I certainly don't want the bill at the end. I want most of this trip paid for before we leave!

 

I've asked questions about SBP, too. The deal breaker for us is the wine by the glass options. Since bottles of wine aren't included (which would be nice if HAL made you use say 3 drinks towards your 15 drink daily limit) the wine by the glass options at $9 or under is generally limited. POA1 gave extensive wine descriptions and score in one of my posting (so appreciative) to help me make a decision to purchase the SBP or not.

 

I've crunched numbers based on our projected drinking habits on board and we are close but still just under the "makes it a worthwhile purchase". We would still be purchasing a bottle of wine each night at dinner on top of the SBP.

 

Good luck in your decision. It's all about getting best value for our hard earned money!

[RocketMan275]

I think, in the end, this is what I'm going to do. I certainly don't want the bill at the end. I want most of this trip paid for before we leave!

 

I've asked questions about SBP, too. The deal breaker for us is the wine by the glass options. Since bottles of wine aren't included (which would be nice if HAL made you use say 3 drinks towards your 15 drink daily limit) the wine by the glass options at $9 or under is generally limited. POA1 gave extensive wine descriptions and score in one of my posting (so appreciative) to help me make a decision to purchase the SBP or not.

 

I've crunched numbers based on our projected drinking habits on board and we are close but still just under the "makes it a worthwhile purchase". We would still be purchasing a bottle of wine each night at dinner on top of the SBP.

 

Good luck in your decision. It's all about getting best value for our hard earned money!

 

We've found the best value is to pay for our drinks which are normally under $250 per seven day cruise and bring a bottle of wine aboard for each night. Even with paying the corkage, we find that to be a better value. And, the wines are better too.

[babarage]

last week on the Noordam I noticed they aren't too strict on the one drink at a time rule. Good to be able to take some cans of soda / water back to the stateroom. And since we were traveling after the cruise as well I saved some to take off the ship (hey I wasn't anywhere near the 15 drinks a day limit so I might as well use it that way).

 

we had the sbp as part of the 4ex package, I wouldn't get it if I would have to pay for it I think.

[POA1]

last week on the Noordam I noticed they aren't too strict on the one drink at a time rule. Good to be able to take some cans of soda / water back to the stateroom. And since we were traveling after the cruise as well I saved some to take off the ship (hey I wasn't anywhere near the 15 drinks a day limit so I might as well use it that way).

 

we had the sbp as part of the 4ex package, I wouldn't get it if I would have to pay for it I think.

I'm not sure that the one drink at a time thing is actually an enforced rule anymore. We bought the Signature Beverage Package in early 2014, and I was able to order doubles. They just held onto my card for an extra 5 minutes to ring the second drink. Fast forward to late 2016, and we were able to order all our dinner wine, a glass to pair with each course, all at once. We asked the wine steward and he said that they no longer had the time restriction on ringing up the drinks. That makes perfect sense because no one gains by not allowing a guest to order their full dinner flight at the beginning of the meal. If you were going to start with a glass of Champagne (We had the EBP.) followed by Sauvignon Blanc with your appetizer, then Cabernet with your main course, the wine steward would have to make six trips - three to take wine orders and three to drop them off. You'd be at risk of getting a course and not having your wine. (Not good. Probably ruins Christmas.)

 

The original purpose of the restriction was to keep people from sharing a package. It became apparent that the average HAL passenger is well behaved and the multiple drink thing would be a non-issue. We almost always ordered a bottle of water at the same time as our night cap. Never had a problem.

[msmayor]

There were a number of times in the MDR that the wine steward would only swipe one card for both our drinks, or the bartenders elsewhere would just use one of our cards to 'charge' the drinks for the two of us.

 

Each evening we went for pre-dinner cocktails in the Crow's Nest and we'd often each have two drinks a piece, and much like a traditional bar wouldn't 'close out' our tab until we were ready to leave. They had no issues charging multiple drinks at one time to our package.