Quality of Drinks on A1 are they watered down?

[Dorettadees]

Hi my first post so hope its ok..

First time on Marella Discovery off to the Far East currently run a group for said cruises, its an all inclusive cruise a lot of members for some reason are having a discussion about the drinks onboard being 'watered down' I don't for second that they would do this but they seem adamant that this is the case, kinda want to know if this does happen ? thank you x

[Max011]

Hi my first post so hope its ok..

First time on Marella Discovery off to the Far East currently run a group for said cruises, its an all inclusive cruise a lot of members for some reason are having a discussion about the drinks onboard being 'watered down' I don't for second that they would do this but they seem adamant that this is the case, kinda want to know if this does happen ? thank you x

How do they water down the bottle beer down? Marella / tui have too much to lose if caught watering beer down.

 

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[Bill1954]

While on the spirit I twice watched as the barman opened a new bottle. If the drinks are watered down they are being bought in that way, I saw no tampering at all.

[Pensioncruiser]

Hi my first post so hope its ok..

First time on Marella Discovery off to the Far East currently run a group for said cruises, its an all inclusive cruise a lot of members for some reason are having a discussion about the drinks onboard being 'watered down' I don't for second that they would do this but they seem adamant that this is the case, kinda want to know if this does happen ? thank you x

Don't know how you could water down any bottled beer's or draft from sealed keg's, and spirits arrive in cases directly to the bars as does the wine [emoji15] have your group actually experienced this happening? I certainly haven't.

 

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[John Bull]

I suspect that the comments are about cocktails - and of course it's easy enough to have a light hand with the spirits and a heavy hand with the juices.

And sad to say I think it happens on Thomson, their cocktails do seem very weak.

 

Reminds me of a Caribbean cruise.

On catamaran trips & such, the rum punch flows freely, and I handled it well every time.

Took a trip on the Rum Runner boat on Granada and downed their rum punches at the same rate.

Big mistake :eek:

They don't mess with their punch on the Rum Runner. :D

We were both carried back to the ship half-conscious & deposited in our cabin, woke up late evening :o

 

JB :)

[davecttr]

I saw lots of cocktails made on the discovery last june. If anything they were liberal with the measures, gurgle, gurgle, gurgle. I drink captain morgans spiced, they ran out so broke the seal and opened a new bottle. Why bother cheating when a bottle of spirits costs them less than a fiver?

 

Or maybe they think those cocktails are weak because they stick a quarter of a pint of spirit in the ones they make at home!

 

Funny that you don'e get such discussions on P&O forums.!

[dronnygirl]

We were on Discovery recently and never had any problems - we did notice at dinner if anyone ordered prosecco the waiter brought 2 glasses as he said the prosecco glasses were smaller than wine glasses:D

[campolady]

We did notice at dinner if anyone ordered prosecco the waiter brought 2 glasses as he said the prosecco glasses were smaller than wine glasses:D

 

We had the same with our glasses of Cava on Discovery in May - always 2 bought but the second one was usually a little warm by the time we were ready to drink it.

 

I stuck to Vodka Martinis and Cosmopollitans apart from dinner and they certainly were not watered down!

[nancyneptune]

Hi my first post so hope its ok..

First time on Marella Discovery off to the Far East currently run a group for said cruises, its an all inclusive cruise a lot of members for some reason are having a discussion about the drinks onboard being 'watered down' I don't for second that they would do this but they seem adamant that this is the case, kinda want to know if this does happen ? thank you x

 

 

We are not big drinkers so don't bother with the drinks package but on few a occasions when we have a few drinks of an evening we have had some very suspect spirits and cocktails in some of the bars. We usually just have wine with dinner now and a cocktail during the show, sometimes a nightcap. Never ever even felt tipsy on a Tui cruise and it doesn't take much to make me tipsy.

 

Don't agree with all the ships becoming AI from next year. This has pushed the prices of the cruises up considerably. When you think of the retail price of litre bottles of spirits on board.....two for £20 and Tui buying in bulk at wholesale prices for sale in the bars.....they are making a fortune out of the drinks in the bars and restaurants and non drinkers and moderate drinkers are subsidising those who over indulge. Feeling miffed.

[okavango]

I saw lots of cocktails made on the discovery last june. If anything they were liberal with the measures, gurgle, gurgle, gurgle. I drink captain morgans spiced, they ran out so broke the seal and opened a new bottle. Why bother cheating when a bottle of spirits costs them less than a fiver?

 

Or maybe they think those cocktails are weak because they stick a quarter of a pint of spirit in the ones they make at home!

 

Funny that you don'e get such discussions on P&O forums.!

 

Agree ,if anything tastes weak it's down to the far larger quantities of ice and mixer (especially ice) than you would get as standard in a bar at home , your fiver a bottle is probably a bit out (a bit high) , ive seen bar provisioning lists with the cost price on (cant recall the morgans price) ,makes your eyes water a bit ,daftly some of the most expensive stuff to buy in (excluding the premium malt whiskey/brandy type stuff) is things like bailey's and martini/aperitif type drinks.

As for cocktails maybe some people think if it contains two or three spirits you are going to get a measure of each in it not a measure in total ,thats why they often preblend the mix of spirits so its easy to just put a shot in and a lot quicker than picking up multi bottles each time.

[davecttr]

We are not big drinkers so don't bother with the drinks package but on few a occasions when we have a few drinks of an evening we have had some very suspect spirits and cocktails in some of the bars. We usually just have wine with dinner now and a cocktail during the show, sometimes a nightcap. Never ever even felt tipsy on a Tui cruise and it doesn't take much to make me tipsy.

 

Don't agree with all the ships becoming AI from next year. This has pushed the prices of the cruises up considerably. When you think of the retail price of litre bottles of spirits on board.....two for £20 and Tui buying in bulk at wholesale prices for sale in the bars.....they are making a fortune out of the drinks in the bars and restaurants and non drinkers and moderate drinkers are subsidising those who over indulge. Feeling miffed.

It seems inclusive drinks packages are what the market wants so If you want a no AI cruise you will have to try other cruise lines. I don't think there is any evidence that AI is responsible for prices increasing. For example TUI is a german company so I presume accounts in euros. To maintain the same value income stream from its UK operation it would need to increase prices by 25% to get back to 2016 levels. Same for P&O and Carnival corporation, they need a 19 to 27% increase depending on base year 2014 or 2016 to compensate for the falling pound

[Gate54]

AI also includes non alcoholic drinks.

[skioncruises]

AI also includes non alcoholic drinks.

 

I agree with nancyneptune. I don't drink alcohol at all and only drink herbal teas. However, I do, by choice, have soft drinks by the can as I do not like draught/flat drinks, glass filled with ice, or occasional unwanted and unwelcome alcohol included, and have to pay £1 for the pleasure.:mad: DH only drinks beer. Two weeks ago our bill for my drinks for two weeks came to £32! No objection to drinkers but don't see why I should pay the same fare as those who do plus the amount of wastage there is perhaps because the drink "not to their liking".

 

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[Britboys]

When on D2 in January, I certainly didn't feel any of my drinks were watered down - my normal tipple is G&T. What I did notice however is that unless I asked for a spirit by brand - e.g. "Gordon's gin & tonic please", I was given a cheap, nasty brand called Kamel which had very little gin taste. Once I worked that out, all my G&Ts were fine.

 

I think the reason you don't get this sort of discussion no the P&O Forum Davecttr is that apart from the recent experiment on Azura, they don't have AI drinks packages.

[Sally V Lamb]

We were on Discovery in July. All beers are OK but I noticed that all cocktails appeared weak. Some bars had large plastic bottles of the most popular cocktails premixed and simply poured this over ice in the glass. More ice I thought as well. However if you were on the premium drinks package the drinks were much better and made to order rather than simply poured out of the mixed bottle.

 

I agree AI has pushed price of a cruise up but we were happy with the package without paying for drinks additionally. However lots of passengers do not really make use of the AI as presented so TUI earn a lot of money off these drinks.

 

Did not realise at first that there were no straws in the cocktails. Could ask for one but few people did so they save on costs there but will claim environmental responsibility on use of plastic

[gillhalfpint]

Ice gives me migraine so I do have a problem trying to get a cocktail without ice. When I started cruising I used to get a lot of lovely ice free cocktails, but now they either fill the glass with ice before adding any liquid or tell me the cocktails I used to drink are now blended, so I cannot have them without ice. I have sometimes found a bar will give me the cocktail liquids in a smaller glass and I am fine with that.

 

Regarding branded drinks, I find very few actually pour Baileys from a Baileys bottle but from a substitute name (can't remember it now) which makes me feel cheated. Doesn't taste the same.

[Cookiecookie]

Got of Discovery on Saturday. Drinks definitely not watered down. I drink Bacardi and coke it was so strong I had to wait for some of the ice to melt. It tells you in the menu that their measures are 40% bigger than in a uk bar.

[newbiewaves]

bought the drinks package on the Dream couple of years ago and worth every penny. This time AI is thrown in and with loads of sea days watered down drinks might be preferable! However they aren't! as OH rum ration will testify! also wine by the glass didn't exist we were given the bottle :) Before booking checked other companies and simply could not work out the cruise cost due to paying for drinks and tips. TUI caters for us Brits that do not have the USA tipping culture.