Case of wine experience - went fine.

[CaliforniaDon]

Before going on our March 2019 back to back Caribbean cruise on the Regal, I had checked out the options for wine management by reading other posts.

 

Here is what we did, and how it worked.  We took a case of 12 assorted 750 ml bottles. We packed them in a Total Wine empty box that had flimsy dividers in it.

I then tied some clothes-line type rope around to make provisions for a handle of sorts. I made sure that the box could not slip out of the rope and fall to the ground - even if being mis-handled a bit by the boarding process.

 

I taped the box shut, and taped a couple of luggage tags on two sides, wrapping them over a corner, so they each could be seen from 2 side of the box.  I took the other sides and Magic Marker-ed my last name and cabin #.  I put a layer of bubble wrap on the bottom of the box before re-inserting the dividers. It made me FEEL like that was safer, anyhow.

 

The box was super-heavy, and wrapping a rag around the "handle" rope helped, but just a little.

 

I gave the box to the baggage handler at the dock, along with our 2 suitcases and $10.  I asked him to guard the box carefully (being  a wine box, he might have guessed what was in it.)

 

What I had not seen on the Cruise Critic message board was -- I put a large sheet of paper in the top of the box, with big writing saying:  2 bottles for Booking XXXX, 2 bottles for Booking YYYY - 8 bottles for Corkage  - and my name and cabin #.

 

RESULT - Our luggage arrived promptly, but no wine.  A few hours later, there was a door knock and we were handed the box - minus the rope, the tape was slit open on 3 sides and my paper was in there, along with 2 other things.  One was a printed card that spoke of the screening that found excess bottles, etc etc.  and the other was a receipt for 8 x $15. All of the wine was still there.

 

TWO CONCLUSIONS:   The system worked.  They allowed my 4 freebies (for the two legs of the BTB) and they stickered 8 bottles and charged my account.

What I failed to do was designate which bottles should have gotten stickers.  I feel like I easily could have done that, so that the dining room staff did not end up swapping stickers so I could keep the odd wines in the cabin.  The stickers do tend to self-destruct when re-assigned which might have been an issue if we had carried a bottle somewhere other than the main dining room.

 

As with all Princess procedures,  the next time might yield different results, but that time it worked as I had hoped.

 

Edited May 20, 2019 by CaliforniaDon
typo

[c-boy]

that's spectacular news.

[Aloha 1]

Glad it worked for you but it's long past time Princess stopped treating adults like children. Stop the search and destroy.

[Mike45LC]

I'm glad it worked out well for you.  That is always good news.

[Colo Cruiser]

Looks good.

[satxdiver]

What I used to do before the imposition of corking fees for bottles of wine.  I never had a problem.  Now we carry them onboard in two six bottle wine carriers stopping at the wine table to ante up.  I may try the OP's procedure next time we do a B2B out of PE.

[scanditaly]

Wonderful news from you; and you didn't even have to carry it on.  As a fellow wine enthusiast, we have yearned for this procedure, as many years ago, on a Celebrity ship, it worked very smoothly for us as well.  Thank you for posting your experience.

 

Scanditaly

 

 

[cnamenek]

We did a California Coastal last year and spent a few days in Napa and Sonoma prior. Wanted to bring wine home (not consume on board) so we brought this on board https://thewinecheck.com/ and let them store it until the end of the cruise and then took it to the airport as checked luggage. Super easy!