Aurea Experience Easy Drinks package

[Dilori]

We have a Caribbean sailing on the Meraviglia 10/28 from New York.  We’ve booked an Aurea Experience which includes Easy Drink package.  MSC’s website is rather vague on this issue so I’m looking to y’all for clarification. My understandings/Questions:

• No 15% gratuity charged on drinks in the Aurea Experience, correct?
• Many folks have generously posted Easy Drink menus.  One thing I’ve noticed in these examples, aside from the currency differences, is menu choices are not always the same. Somewhere I seem to recall comments to the affect that menu choices differ depending on the cruise’s itinerary.  Is that so? If anyone has the most recent US one to share it would be very much appreciated.
• A glass of wine at dinner or a beer is pretty much all I/we care about but an occasional Bloody Mary would be nice but I don’t see that choice so I suppose that will be a do-it-yourself concoction as some have suggested by ordering the ingredients separately.

 

I am soooo thankful for the very helpful posters on Cruise Critic. We’ve sailed once before on MSC and didn’t feel as confounded on that first cruise (ignorance is bliss😕) as I do now.  Having been through it once before I now have more questions than ever though trying not to be too OCD about the details. 

[CruisingFox27]

There's no gratuity on drinks which are included in your package. 

There's a couple of extra drinks on the pre mixed drinks list for USA sailings and an additional bottled beer, Miller Lite IIRC.

It shouldn't be a problem to order your bloody Mary items separately or a virgin bloody Mary and a shot on the side. 

Your experience won't be any different to your previous sailing, there's just a smaller drinks list included than there was previously with Aurea. 

[Beamafar]

Here's a link to the latest drinks menus (from post #35 on page 2):

 

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2641156-msc-yacht-club-feb-16-23-2019

 

... and a photo of the list of Easy included drinks:

 

 

 

 

[Dilori]

4 hours ago, CruisingFox27 said:

There's no gratuity on drinks which are included in your package. 

There's a couple of extra drinks on the pre mixed drinks list for USA sailings and an additional bottled beer, Miller Lite IIRC.

It shouldn't be a problem to order your bloody Mary items separately or a virgin bloody Mary and a shot on the side. 

Your experience won't be any different to your previous sailing, there's just a smaller drinks list included than there was previously with Aurea. 

 

2 hours ago, Beamafar said:

Here's a link to the latest drinks menus (from post #35 on page 2):

 

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2641156-msc-yacht-club-feb-16-23-2019

 

CruisingFox27 and Beamafar,  thank you so much for your feedback. I notice one of the menus has Heineken 0.0, a fav of mine when I want the taste of a real beer but not the buz. Sorry to see it won't be included with my freebies but what the heck I guess I'll just have to splurge 😉.

[CruisingFox27]

I thought the Heineken 0.0 was included but according to this list it isn't. No bottles are. I'm sure someone else can confirm as I'm not certain now 🤔

[CruisingFox27]

I've just found another list to support my original thoughts. 

[Dilori]

Thank you again CruisingFox27 and Beamafar.

We will be on the Meraviglia 10/28 and it would be so nice to meet fellow Cruise Critic cruisers who have been so helpful if there is a way to get together. I guess a good place to start would be to sign up on the Roll Call. 😎

[Beamafar]

I'll be on that sailing, but CruisingFox is disembarking the day you embark (hope you don't mind me speaking for you, CF).

 

Here's a link to the last page of the relevant roll call (you might like to read thru' the thread to get to know who'll be onboard) :

 

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2480345-msc-meraviglia-10282019-13-night-repositioning-cruise-nyc-to-miami/page/28/?tab=comments#comment-58467470

Edited September 29, 2019 by Beamafar

[Beamafar]

There's also a spreadsheet with a list of CCers names where you can add yours and indicate what activities you want to partake in and share plans for the ports:

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1OGrpz7fVw6rum1Mvz3qpzLbVAXPGFgKDSozJlo5O8Mg/edit#gid=0

[Dilori]

Thanks so much. This is a tremendous help. Trying to navigate the RC was a bit overwhelming😮 Eeeeek, where do I start! We're a bit late in the game as we only just recently booked this and see the RC was started ages ago. Will do as you suggest.