Premium Beverage Package - Does it make sense?

[rburzanko]

Going on Royal Princess cruise in early January and this is only the third cruise I have ever been on.  Wondering if the premium beverage package makes any sense or not.  I certainly like to indulge in some adult beverages when on vacation but nothing over the top.  Wonder if the $60+ per day per person makes any sense or if you are better off just paying as you go.  Are sodas, coffee etc included in the meals you have or do you have to pay for those separately as well?

 

Appreciate any feedback you can offer my question and wish everyone a happy holiday.

[neverbeenhere]

Sodas are not included with meals.  

 

It really comes down to how many "drinks" you are going to consume on ship. Not withstanding the non-alcoholic drinks that are included in the package, you need to drink around 6 drinks per day to make it "worth it". 

 

 

 

 

[neverbeenhere]

Breakfast (free) - tap water,coffee, tea, iced tea, lemonade, a variety of juices, milk, maybe hot chocolate

 

Lunch and dinner (free) -  tap water, coffee, tea, iced tea, lemonade, milk

[neverbeenhere]

You are allowed to bring one bottle of wine (up to 2 total) per passenger per stateroom for consumption in the stateroom.  You can bring as many other bottles of wine that you want but will be paying a $ 15 corkage fee per bottle so that you can consume them any place on the ship.

 

You can purchase 375 ml (1/2 fifths) bottles of various liquors for in stateroom consumption for around $ 18. 

Edited December 12, 2018 by neverbeenhere

[eagletwo]

We have had the package with the Sip n Sail promotions.  Did not come with our upcoming cruise on the CB in January.  At $68.99 per day with gratuity, for the wife and I, the cost for the 10 day cruise would be $1,379.80.  Little too steep on this trip. 

[paul929207]

It is a great deal for some and a waste of money for others. As neverbeenthere  said, it depends on your consumption. 

[franktown]

I thought at best I would break even but ended up coming out way ahead by buying the package.  I would have a specialty coffee before breakfast a bloody mary with breakfast.  Glass of wine with lunch.  2 or 3 of beers in the afternoon.  A drink before dinner.  A couple glasses of wine with dinner.  A couple of drinks after dinner.  Also would get 2 or 3 bottled waters throughout the day.  The day we were at Princess Cays I lost track of the # of drinks I had.  I drank on a average 10 alcoholic drinks + water and specialty coffee on sea days.  Our cruise only had 3 port days and 1 was the Cays.  It was also nice not worrying about how much the drinks would cost me.  Also nice not having to drive.

Edited December 12, 2018 by franktown
addition

[c-boy]

^ this. 

[BuckGood]

It also includes Specialty coffees and bottled water if you drink lots of water like we do! I Definitely drink $68 worth a day!

[Qcruise]

We've done the math and if we can't get the "sip n sail" package we won't buy it.  Now on RCI the price was $45 per day and we did buy it......on Princess it does include your bottled waters, specialty coffees as well and their drink prices are not as expensive as RCI ( it was average $12 per drink Princess more like $8)......so figure if your going to buy at least six or more drinks per day including waters/coffee it might be worth it.

[geoherb]

It's not worth it to me. I don't drink specialty coffee or soft drinks. I try to limit my alcoholic beverages to no more than three a day. Our total bar bill on our last cruise was equal to four days of the beverage package and that included 10 bottles of wine in the silver package.

[bemis12]

16 minutes ago, geoherb said:

It's not worth it to me. 

 

Then you should not buy it.

[Tak8]

Also consider the percentage off of bottles of wine.  I've been fortunate to have the package as part of a promo twice.  It's great to get a percentage off some nicer bottles of wine.

[Colo Cruiser]

4 hours ago, rburzanko said:

Going on Royal Princess cruise in early January and this is only the third cruise I have ever been on.  Wondering if the premium beverage package makes any sense or not.  I certainly like to indulge in some adult beverages when on vacation but nothing over the top.  Wonder if the $60+ per day per person makes any sense or if you are better off just paying as you go.  Are sodas, coffee etc included in the meals you have or do you have to pay for those separately as well?

 

Appreciate any feedback you can offer my question and wish everyone a happy holiday.

Thats a lot of justify drinking of liquids. At least for us it is.

Pay as you go IMO.

[HleeCruiser]

5 hours ago, rburzanko said:

Going on Royal Princess cruise in early January and this is only the third cruise I have ever been on.  Wondering if the premium beverage package makes any sense or not.  I certainly like to indulge in some adult beverages when on vacation but nothing over the top.  Wonder if the $60+ per day per person makes any sense or if you are better off just paying as you go.  Are sodas, coffee etc included in the meals you have or do you have to pay for those separately as well?

 

Appreciate any feedback you can offer my question and wish everyone a happy holiday.

 

1 hour ago, Colo Cruiser said:

Thats a lot of justify drinking of liquids. At least for us it is.

Pay as you go IMO.

 

 

Only you know how much you are likely to drink.  Do the math.

 

[Pierlesscruisers]

8 hours ago, neverbeenhere said:

You are allowed to bring one bottle of wine (up to 2 total) per passenger per stateroom for consumption in the stateroom.  You can bring as many other bottles of wine that you want but will be paying a $ 15 corkage fee per bottle so that you can consume them any place on the ship.

 

You can purchase 375 ml (1/2 fifths) bottles of various liquors for in stateroom consumption for around $ 18. 

One small change to your post. It's one bottle per adult, a small but important difference.

 

Tom

[wheezedr]

Simply a math problem with the main variable being your drink intake.  Would never work out for my DW and I as she is good for at most one drink and maybe a glass of wine per day.   We do mainly port intensive cruises so not lots of sit around and drink days

[Seadog & Sea Hag]

I love the alcohol package and always get it regardless of port days. It’s all about your consumption. I get the value.

[CruisinFinsUp]

 

Post # 205 in this thread has an excel spreadsheet that you can use to calculate your daily consumption.  

 

The prices of the drinks have gone up about $1 per, and the price of the package has gone up as well. 

 

But - the old prices give you an idea if its worth it to you based on what you would drink per day.  Just note that the actual current prices of both the drinks and the package are now higher than they were before.   

 

 

 

[Guinness1000]

On 12/12/2018 at 2:47 PM, rburzanko said:

Going on Royal Princess cruise in early January and this is only the third cruise I have ever been on.  Wondering if the premium beverage package makes any sense or not.  I certainly like to indulge in some adult beverages when on vacation but nothing over the top.  Wonder if the $60+ per day per person makes any sense or if you are better off just paying as you go.  Are sodas, coffee etc included in the meals you have or do you have to pay for those separately as well?

 

Appreciate any feedback you can offer my question and wish everyone a happy holiday.

IMO, no. We've been on many cruises and we usually get the premium drink packages. Mostly because we know we would get stingy if we would have to pay every time we wanted something to drink, wether that's water, soda or alcohol or anything else. Every time I add up what we drank after the cruise, we've never spent anywhere near what we spent on the packages.

[Potstech]

The only time I have used a drink package was on a sip and sale cruise. Even drinking more than I usually do on a cruise it was not worth the price. Princess seems set on pricing these types of packages out of most passengers price range.  Makes no sense.

[hllwdcruiser]

It all depends on what you like to do:

We bring our own bottled water on with us and either buy the Soda and More package or bring a few sodas on board as well. We feel grateful that Princess still allows us to do so. The soda and more costs us less for a week than the alcohol package is for one day. You can also pre purchase a 12 pack of bottled water for only $6.90 if you don't want to bring it onboard with you.

We order fifths of vodka, rum, gin and scotch for our cabin and mix our own drinks to have on our balcony. This comes to about $69, the cost of one alcohol package for one person for one day. (Fortunately, DH likes cheap scotch!)

We bring our allotted two bottles of wine on board to drink on our balcony. We don't like to drink wine with dinner and never order bottles on board. 

On the Royal class ships we find the free brewed coffee drinkable, on all others we buy one coffee card and DH drinks the brewed and I drink the specialty. The coffee card costs us just about half of what the alcohol package is for one day for one person.

We usually will have one drink poolside on sea days and two pre dinner cocktails every night (usually in the Platinum Elite lounge so they are discounted). Sometimes we go to Crooners for martinis. On all of our cruises we have averaged less than $30 per day per person. 

So in doing my own math, and even including a coffee card and the Soda and More for both of us so we don't have to lug anything but water onboard, we spend in total about $650 on beverages for the week. The drink package would cost us $960 - that's over a $300 difference for just one week. 

I only included such a detailed report on what we do to show you how important it is for you to figure out what would work best for you. Everyone is different. To us the $300 is worth the effort to mix some of our own drinks, for others the hassle just isn't worth it when they are on vacation. Some start the day with a Bloody Mary, Mimosa or Bailey's & coffee and drink throughout the day into the wee hours of the morning. For them the drink package is definitely worth it!

Edited December 31, 2018 by hllwdcruiser

[Thrak]

We loved it for free but won't pay for it. For reference, we just got off of Coral Princess very recently. Any "higher end" drink such as a Chairman of the Board or a 24k Margarita was charged at $11.21 with the gratuity. Perhaps that will assist you in your decision.

[memoak]

18 minutes ago, hllwdcruiser said:

It all depends on what you like to do:

We bring our own bottled water on with us and either buy the Soda and More package or bring a few sodas on board as well. We feel grateful that Princess still allows us to do so. The soda and more costs us less for a week than the alcohol package is for one day. You can also pre purchase a 12 pack of bottled water for only $6.90 if you don't want to bring it onboard with you.

We order fifths of vodka, rum, gin and scotch for our cabin and mix our own drinks to have on our balcony. This comes to about $69, the cost of one alcohol package for one person for one day. (Fortunately, DH likes cheap scotch!)

We bring our allotted two bottles of wine on board to drink on our balcony. We don't like to drink wine with dinner and never order bottles on board. 

On the Royal class ships we find the free brewed coffee drinkable, on all others we buy one coffee card and DH drinks the brewed and I drink the specialty. The coffee card costs us just about half of what the alcohol package is for one day for one person.

We usually will have one drink poolside on sea days and two pre dinner cocktails every night (usually in the Platinum Elite lounge so they are discounted). Sometimes we go to Crooners for martinis. On all of our cruises we have averaged less than $30 per day per person. 

So in doing my own math, and even including a coffee card and the Soda and More for both of us so we don't have to lug anything but water onboard, we spend in total about $650 on beverages for the week. The drink package would cost us $960 - that's over a $300 difference for just one week. 

I only included such a detailed report on what we do to show you how important it is for you to figure out what would work best for you. Everyone is different. To us the $300 is worth the effort to mix some of our own drinks, for others the hassle just isn't worth it when they are on vacation. Some start the day with a Bloody Mary, Mimosa or Bailey's & coffee and drink throughout the day into the wee hours of the morning. For them the drink package is definitely worth it!

 

I have no idea how you are ordering fifths of any kind of hard liquor - Princess only lets you order 375 bottles not 750's.  So what you are getting are 1/2 fifth bottles at a very high price

[voljeep]

a 375ml "room service bottle" ( 1/2 5th ) will yield about 6 'bar strength' pours ...

Edited December 31, 2018 by voljeep