Sale on drink Packages

[2Xtraveler]

Does anyone know if the drink packages on RCI ever go below 20%?

[tOSUSteve]

The deluxe was $18 about a week ago 😂 

Edited July 11, 2019 by tOSUSteve

[2Xtraveler]

I know! I saw that! I sure wish I would have booked it then! Lol! It's nice RCI is honoring it!

 

[tOSUSteve]

Book now and if it goes lower, cancel and rebook.  The prices are unpredictable 

[Clarea]

11 minutes ago, 2Xtraveler said:

Does anyone know if the drink packages on RCI ever go below 20%?

 

Ignore the "percent off" numbers, they are meaningless.  Just go by the cost.

[Brandis]

Do the prices for the drink packages change for the entire fleet at the same time or is each cruise priced individually and has lower prices at different times?

 

Last year, on our Caribbean cruise on Allure, the prices moved quite a bit and I was able to get the Refreshment package for $14 per night. Our friends were able to get the Deluxe Beverage package with a "Buy 1, second is half price", which wasn't bad either since you have to get this package for all adults in the same stateroom.

 

For our upcoming Japan cruise on Spectrum in October, I have been watching the drink package prices regularly but haven't seen much changes yet. Maybe only closer to the cruise? We are now about 108 days out.

 

Maybe there is a website or Twitter account which sends out alerts when prices go down? 

[tOSUSteve]

12 hours ago, Brandis said:

Do the prices for the drink packages change for the entire fleet at the same time or is each cruise priced individually and has lower prices at different times?

 

Last year, on our Caribbean cruise on Allure, the prices moved quite a bit and I was able to get the Refreshment package for $14 per night. Our friends were able to get the Deluxe Beverage package with a "Buy 1, second is half price", which wasn't bad either since you have to get this package for all adults in the same stateroom.

 

For our upcoming Japan cruise on Spectrum in October, I have been watching the drink package prices regularly but haven't seen much changes yet. Maybe only closer to the cruise? We are now about 108 days out.

 

Maybe there is a website or Twitter account which sends out alerts when prices go down? 

 

There is no logic that can be applied to the sales, at least not that has ever been deciphered.

[dpostman]

12 hours ago, Brandis said:

Do the prices for the drink packages change for the entire fleet at the same time or is each cruise priced individually and has lower prices at different times?

 

Last year, on our Caribbean cruise on Allure, the prices moved quite a bit and I was able to get the Refreshment package for $14 per night. Our friends were able to get the Deluxe Beverage package with a "Buy 1, second is half price", which wasn't bad either since you have to get this package for all adults in the same stateroom.

 

For our upcoming Japan cruise on Spectrum in October, I have been watching the drink package prices regularly but haven't seen much changes yet. Maybe only closer to the cruise? We are now about 108 days out.

 

Maybe there is a website or Twitter account which sends out alerts when prices go down? 

 

Q: Do the prices for the drink packages change for the entire fleet at the same time or is each cruise priced individually and has lower prices at different times?

A: Short answer is: All of the above 😉

 

Q: Maybe there is a website or Twitter account which sends out alerts when prices go down? 

A: Royal does send out emails to advise you that there is a sale.  One week they will tell you that drink packages are 25% Off, then when that sale is over, they will say there is an even better sale of Buy one get one Half off...😵

 

The pricing is somewhat unpredictable but their sales rhetoric is TOTALLY predictable 😉

 

dp

[Milwaukee Eight]

Just remember, discounts offered online are almost always off the current onboard pricing and not the previous or current online pricing. 

[Clarea]

37 minutes ago, Milwaukee Eight said:

Just remember, discounts offered online are almost always off the current onboard pricing and not the previous or current online pricing. 

 

At least, that is the company line.

[dswallow]

Every sailing has an "onboard price" set for the drink package. It varies by ship and by sail date.

 

Online, they sell that drink package at one of 3 discounted prices:

 

20% off

25% off (RCCL always calls this buy one get 50% off the second, etc, but it's just 25% off)

30% off

 

For 2019 the official onboard drink packages are priced between $63 and $70 per day. You'll generally see $63, $67 or $70. But I suppose they could occasionally price it elsewhere in that range.

 

The calculated price after the discount is usually rounded down.

 

Online, the discount percentage is placed over the graphic of the drink package separately, and this often will not happen, even though the price reflects the discount amount properly. Not sure why or if there's a pattern. At least recently it seemed that distant-future sailings that still were within the period to begin booking the package would be most likely to not show the percent-off banner properly. YMMV.

 

Onboard if you're Diamond Plus, you can buy the package for the 30% off price; generally you can find a slightly better price when purchasing in advance when the package is 30% off and bundled with VOOM Surf+Stream (sometimes this will even calculate out to "over 35% off" as the discount banner).

 

Onboard if you're Pinnacle, you can buy the package for 40% off the onboard price; this is almost always a better price than you will ever find in advance.

 

I'm not sure how widespread this may be, but I paid attention on my last sailing and noted the ship sold the drink package at the same discounted price that was offered online for the first day of the sailing. I wouldn't really count on it, but it's worth mentioning.

 

There will be times when RCCL increase the base onboard price on sailings; for instance when they announced 2019 pricing changes suddenly future 2019 cruises may have higher onboard base prices. But otherwise it appears very rare they adjust th onboard price, so you usually can calculate what it is at any time by dividing the sale price by the sale discount (i.e., $50 @ 20% off = $50 / 0.80 or $62.50 (remember rounding, so the onboard price on a sailing with that discounted pricing is most likely $63/day.

 

And as we know, RCCL can make a mistake now and then. But this is, most certainly, the exception and not the rule. 🙂

The main thing to remember, as with all Cruise Planner purchases, you are not locked in to a price. If the price goes down after you purchase you can always cancel your previous purchase for a full refund and make a new purchase at the lower price. Just be very careful to cancel only just what you are going to purchase again.

 

And there may be times RCCL might just drop a price unexpectedly on purpose for some reason. So it does pay to look regularly and pay attention to social media posts from others on your sailing(s). But once you've purchased the drink package online at a 30% discount (or the VOOM combo at similar pricing), it's likely rare, if at all, you'd see the price drop below that.

[Brandis]

1 hour ago, dswallow said:

For 2019 the official onboard drink packages are priced between $63 and $70 per day. You'll generally see $63, $67 or $70.

 

Thanks for the detailed explanation!

 

When I first checked the prices for the drinks packages on our cruise (departing Shanghai on Oct. 27, 2019) on May 22, 2019, the online per day prices were:

 

Classic Soda Package: $8.99

Refreshment Package: $26.00

Deluxe Beverage Package: $50.00

 

I next checked on June 17, 2019 and now the prices were: 

 

Classic Soda Package: $8.99 (no change)

Refreshment Package: $19.00 ($7 cheaper)

Deluxe Beverage Package: $49.00 ($1 cheaper)

 

No more changes since then. Not sure, how much cheaper the Deluxe Beverage Package might get, but I'm hoping for $14 on the Refreshment Package which I was able to score on our last cruise.

[dswallow]

35 minutes ago, Brandis said:

 

Thanks for the detailed explanation!

 

When I first checked the prices for the drinks packages on our cruise (departing Shanghai on Oct. 27, 2019) on May 22, 2019, the online per day prices were:

 

Classic Soda Package: $8.99

Refreshment Package: $26.00

Deluxe Beverage Package: $50.00

 

I next checked on June 17, 2019 and now the prices were: 

 

Classic Soda Package: $8.99 (no change)

Refreshment Package: $19.00 ($7 cheaper)

Deluxe Beverage Package: $49.00 ($1 cheaper)

 

No more changes since then. Not sure, how much cheaper the Deluxe Beverage Package might get, but I'm hoping for $14 on the Refreshment Package which I was able to score on our last cruise.

 

There's also something going on with prices when at least both embarkation and debarkation occur at non-US ports. For example, I have a Barcelona sailing on 10/25/2020, before the 11/1/2020 transatlantic, and it regularly shows pricing that isn't even dollar amounts, and I'd never seen that happen before. My initial suspicion is that in some way the pricing is kept in the local currency and I'm seeing a conversion to US$. But I really don't have enough experience with non-US sailings to venture much of a guess.

 

You mention a Shanghai departure in your situation.

 

So the best I can really say is it generally works as described, definitely for sailings with US ports as embarkation and/or debarkation. And it probably works similarly in the other cases, but with base prices somehow different than the US$ prices we're accustomed to starting with.

 

Part of me suspects the system RCCL uses behind the scenes is very manual rather than very rule-based, and thus subject to a variety of entry errors or rounding differences depending on how someone configures it in the first place, and possibly edits things as adjustments are made or sales are configured. Considering what we saw with the $18/day drink package mistake, it makes a certain amount of sense.

 

So, obviously you should always compare the actual price you'll pay versus the price you paid previously if you are looking to see if the price went down since you made a purchase, but I think you can also generally count on this being how it works, and once you've made a deluxe beverage package purchase that was a 30% or so discount, you're unlikely to see better.

Edited July 14, 2019 by dswallow

[dswallow]

BTW, the next cruise planner sale is from July 15 to July 22 (http://www.creative.rccl.com/Sales/Royal/Promotions/Snapshot_of_CruisePlanner_Offers.pdf), so look on Sunday night/Monday morning. 🙂

 

Probably should mention I've seen it take RCCL some time to adjust all the prices for a sale, too, so check again and again after a sale starts!

Edited July 14, 2019 by dswallow

[rockon391]

I just paid $380 total for 7 days on symphony.

Don’t be scared to book on whatever sales is going.

When it goes cheaper like mine did a week later. Just cancel and rebook. This will ensure you always get the best deal...unless you miss a sale.

[M-H-B]

5 hours ago, dswallow said:

 

There's also something going on with prices when at least both embarkation and debarkation occur at non-US ports. For example, I have a Barcelona sailing on 10/25/2020, before the 11/1/2020 transatlantic, and it regularly shows pricing that isn't even dollar amounts, and I'd never seen that happen before. My initial suspicion is that in some way the pricing is kept in the local currency and I'm seeing a conversion to US$. But I really don't have enough experience with non-US sailings to venture much of a guess.

 

 

Its currency conversion. Here in Australia I’ve never seen the drinks package (or many other things) at a flat dollar price. For example the Deluxe drinks package right now in my cruise planner is $87.68 per day. I’m holding out and hoping for a significant sale as I only paid $71.62 a day in March this year on Explorer. 

[DISFANS3]

Like to see the $18.00 sale again...

[Brandis]

As our cruise departs from China, I would also expect non-flat prices, but maybe it is more linked with where the cruise was booked?

 

We live in Switzerland, cruise from China, but the cruise was booked through a US travelagent.

 

dswallow might be onto something, I currently get a maintenance alert when I try to access RCLs website.

Edited July 14, 2019 by Brandis

[Bases5]

Just booked Royal   First time Long Time

 The price you see initially in the cruise planner. Is that with or without the 18% gratuity.

I saw $54 yesterday but the web site is down today for me to investigate.  

[Ourusualbeach]

17 minutes ago, Bases5 said:

Just booked Royal   First time Long Time

 The price you see initially in the cruise planner. Is that with or without the 18% gratuity.

I saw $54 yesterday but the web site is down today for me to investigate.  

The price you see is without the gratuity.  It will be added once you add it to your cart.

[Brandis]

Oh, my! This is really bad! But so typically RCL *rofl*

 

Just went back to their website because it is way past 12 here now and the maintenance window should be past. In german, the maintenance message said "Please come back at 12:00. European Summer Time".

 

Now I noticed that the english text above says "12PM EST". I'm sure they mean Eastern Standard Time,  so that would be 18:00 European Summer Time (6:00PM).

 

They seem to use the same translators for English to Germans as on the ships, where I had a lot of chuckles when I read food descriptions in German in the Windjammer for example... 🙂