Drinks packages coming to P&O

[P-L-B]

43 minutes ago, GolferT said:

Yes I have only ever cruised p&o in the past, changed this year but will be back with p&o now

Thanks for the clarification. 

Welcome back. 🍻

[mkh999]

1 hour ago, Scriv said:

Well, this package is a total no - brainer to avoid for us as lovers of a nice bottle of wine at dinner, G&T's with Fevertree tonic, large glass of Peroni, the odd bottle of Crabbies and a nice cocktail or Prosecco or two.... Not all at once I hasten to add and not covered by this package, so no point.

 

So are you saying that Peroni and Crabbies ginger beer not included in this package ?

[jeanlyon]

Correct and neither are bottles of wine at dinner.  Can't think why not.  at least they could include house wine.

[mkh999]

17 minutes ago, jeanlyon said:

Correct and neither are bottles of wine at dinner.  Can't think why not.  at least they could include house wine.

Well I have read through the full terms and cannot see this exclusion, can you please direct me to where it says that peroni and crabbies are excluded, thank you.

 

Also just read that the loyalty discount will apply, but does not say if this is after OBS is used up, or as a special case and regardless if you have a OBS.

 

Thank you

[majortom10]

Think there is a lot of misinformation being written on here and other forums and P&Os Facebook page and some keep on about not including bottles of wine at dinner in the package but I would like to know which cruise lines allow bottles of wine in their drinks packages very few if any at all I should imagine.

[jeanlyon]

Fred Olsen certainly did in their All Inclusive.

[majortom10]

9 minutes ago, jeanlyon said:

Fred Olsen certainly did in their All Inclusive.

On Fred Olsen's website you are allowed house spirits and you get 50% off premium brands and with reference to wine it states you have a choice of 3 red/white and 2 rose (very poor choice) 175ml glasses and no mention of wine by the bottle.

Edited February 1, 2019 by majortom10

[Slugsta]

2 hours ago, Scriv said:

 Hi Slugsta - doing well thank you. How about you? Next cruise is June. .. how about you?

 

 

Yes, all is well with us thank you. We don't have a cruise booked until September - but that is 24 days to Canada, on Arcadia, so a big one for us 🙂

[jeanlyon]

40 minutes ago, majortom10 said:

On Fred Olsen's website you are allowed house spirits and you get 50% off premium brands and with reference to wine it states you have a choice of 3 red/white and 2 rose (very poor choice) 175ml glasses and no mention of wine by the bottle.

We didn't mind house wine and spirits.  Suited us just fine.

[terrierjohn]

Just off Ventura and they are currently trialing having the food waiters take your wine order and they then only have 2 drinks waiters servicing the entire MDR.  This may well be in preparation for the drinks packages as RCI have their food waiters take orders and in fact serve the drinks package wine, of course its by the glass and restricted to a limited range, so no need for a "sommelier". This did seem to slow down food service and there seemed fewer waiters, but I did not get this confirmed.

However I cannot see that I will be buying a drinks package at nearly £40 each per day,  that would have been £2240 for our recent 28 night cruise, nearly 4 times my entire cruise bill, which was probably less than 50% for drinks.

[woodley]

I received an E mail from P&O detailing the new drinks package.  We considered it as we have purchased on other cruise lines but have decided not to buy it.  Our reasons are that when we have the package we do drink more than we usually would.  We have also found that when we go into the ports we are less inclined to buy a drink in port as the drinks on board are "free".

We waste drinks for example we order a drink in a venue but decide to move on to somewhere else, drinks not finished, we just leave it as we can get another one for "free".

 

What we like about the package's are we can try different drinks that perhaps we may not, we always drink plenty of water as its included and we enjoy the specialty coffees.  Also you know exactly what your bar bill will be.

 

Since the implementation of these packages the biggest change for me has been the lack of care by the bar staff of the cocktails and the quality of the drinks.  A lot of lines have the cocktails pre mixed and they are pored into glasses without the little touches such as twisted orange peel, salted/sugared rim etc..  The staff have no incentive to make the drink any better as the tip has already been included.

 

For a mini cruise I would perhaps buy a package as would be likely to drink more for a mini break but for anything longer 

would not drink enough overall to make it cost effective. 

[jeanlyon]

Don't quite understand how you think the drink is free, youv'e already paid way over the odds for them?

[woodley]

Well obviously I am aware that the drink is not free hence the " ".  However if I bought another one or one in port it would cost me the price of the drink.  

 

[darrencolne]

2 hours ago, jeanlyon said:

Don't quite understand how you think the drink is free, youv'e already paid way over the odds for them?

Why do you say paid over the odds? Some people will find the drinks package financially beneficial and reduce their overall spending on all drinks on a cruise.

Edited February 2, 2019 by darrencolne
Spelling

[jeanlyon]

I believe very few people will benefit from that package.  there are day when you are in port.  There are days when you might not feel well.  Other days when you just don't want to drink that much and you have to drink a lot to find that package good value.  In fact taking the package might just make you feel you need to drink more to get the value.

Edited February 2, 2019 by jeanlyon

[davecttr]

2 hours ago, darrencolne said:

Why do you say paid over the odds? Some people will find the drinks package financially beneficial and reduce their overall spending on all drinks on a cruise.

P&O may eventually include a drinks package in the fare. This good for their revenue as all the passengers are contributing to the cost of providing those drinks, even if they don't drink anything. This means they can provide a good quality package and still increase the revenue and profit from onboard drinks. I think all the main cruise lines will end up doing this.

[AndyMichelle]

1 hour ago, jeanlyon said:

I believe very few people will benefit from that package.  there are day when you are in port.  There are days when you might not feel well.  Other days when you just don't want to drink that much and you have to drink a lot to find that package good value.  In fact taking the package might just make you feel you need to drink more to get the value.

Like you Jean, the package wouldn't work for us, but I know many who could easily get their money's worth without trying too hard...

The only real plus for some passengers will be the children's package included in the adults, many kids could happily drink pop all day.

Andy

[daiB]

8 hours ago, woodley said:

I received an E mail from P&O detailing the new drinks package.  We considered it as we have purchased on other cruise lines but have decided not to buy it.  Our reasons are that when we have the package we do drink more than we usually would.  We have also found that when we go into the ports we are less inclined to buy a drink in port as the drinks on board are "free".

We waste drinks for example we order a drink in a venue but decide to move on to somewhere else, drinks not finished, we just leave it as we can get another one for "free".

 

What we like about the package's are we can try different drinks that perhaps we may not, we always drink plenty of water as its included and we enjoy the specialty coffees.  Also you know exactly what your bar bill will be.

 

Since the implementation of these packages the biggest change for me has been the lack of care by the bar staff of the cocktails and the quality of the drinks.  A lot of lines have the cocktails pre mixed and they are pored into glasses without the little touches such as twisted orange peel, salted/sugared rim etc..  The staff have no incentive to make the drink any better as the tip has already been included.

 

For a mini cruise I would perhaps buy a package as would be likely to drink more for a mini break but for anything longer 

would not drink enough overall to make it cost effective. 

A couple of things which need pointing out. On P&O there is no tips involved for wine waiters  or bar staff. So there will be no difference to them when making up drinks. All cocktails on P&O are mixed, not pre made. The last difference compared to your experience is that the packages are not available on cruises less than 5 days. 

 

He main problem for me are the the restrictions imposed on the drinks you can obtain.

[Vampire Parrot]

Given that the drinks package doesn't include bottles of wine, it means that anyone wanting wine with dinner who has a drinks package will probably order it by the glass.

 

And on some recent cruises it has taken rather a long time to actually get the wine with the dinner, even if pre-ordered - on some occasions, it hadn't arrived by time the main course arrived. At which point I quietly wait for the wine to be served, and then say "and as the food on the table is now cold, we'd like it to be replaced with hot food." After a couple of nights, the staff realise we are used to having wine with the meal rather than after it 😞  and drinks service on our table improves enormously.

 

So if a large number of people did order wine by the glass, the wine waiters in the MDR who are currently overloaded would be totally swamped.

 

Good game, good game.

[Scriv]

On 2/1/2019 at 6:45 PM, mkh999 said:

 

So are you saying that Peroni and Crabbies ginger beer not included in this package ?

 

No  I wasn't saying that .. I was just saying what our drinking pattern was, which overall would not be covered by or worthwhile with this package.

 

I would imagine that both these would be included.

 

Sorry wasn't clear.

Edited February 3, 2019 by Scriv

[jeanlyon]

Yes, we had included drinks on Fred O and the poor waiters had loads of bottles of wine open on their sideboard ttype thing.  So they were constantly running around filling glasses.

 

Our normal way is to phone the Wine Line when we board and have 2 bottles of wine, a red and a white at the table when we arrive.  We like to pour our own wine, so have whichever bottle we are having with dinner on the table and pour our own.  So will continue doing that.

[Sarah1974]

On 1/31/2019 at 6:23 PM, Presto2 said:

PS Can we take bottles of decaf diet Coke on with us at Southampton as well as our spirits?

Can you take spirits onboard? I thought I’d read it was 1 litre of wine each?

[Presto2]

1 hour ago, Sarah1974 said:

Can you take spirits onboard? I thought I’d read it was 1 litre of wine each?

 

Yes 1 litre of spirits per person or one bottle of wine (70cl size I think)

 

:-)

[BrianI]

1 hour ago, Sarah1974 said:

Can you take spirits onboard? I thought I’d read it was 1 litre of wine each?

See P&O website

https://ask.pocruises.com/help/PO/before-you-sail/alcohol

 

Brian

[Sarah1974]

Thank you for the drink info, it will help me prepare and decide what to bring