Do you have a budget for onboard spending p&o

[terrierjohn]

1 hour ago, Harry Peterson said:

Now Disney IS expensive, and we were only at the Paris one.  There are ways to keep it affordable, but it’s not easy when they stop you taking your own food in. Or try to.

We never experienced problems with taking our food in at Disney, (2010 Orlando) mind you we only took enough for a snack lunch, and then we did use their restaurants for our evening meal.

[Vampiress88]

Just went to look to see if I could find what I spent last year. 

This was our most expensive day. The sun was actually out. 

 

1 tea,3 cocktails,1 beer,1 wine, 5 kids mock tails and 3 adult mock tails for £47.25

 

im now thinking that I probably have a good buffer in my budget. 

[Eglesbrech]

11 minutes ago, Vampiress88 said:

 

Disney definitely can be expensive. 

Harry you can definitely take in pack ups if you want to. We don’t because I don’t like carrying it round and although we are probably a little tight with our money (Yorkshire born and bred says it all) we find that we don’t eat much inside the parks and just try various snacks instead as there’s lots we want to try. 

 

We stay offsite in a villa. Although I love Disney I can’t stay inside the bubble for us it  would be too much. We have cereal in the morning, snacks for lunch and then a dinner out usually on the 192. Some brilliant offers too like free starters or kids eat free etc. 

 

It was a total of $111 a day average last year but I always like to have some spare and the exchange rate isn’t brilliant at the moment. 

You are Yorkshire and I am Scottish so soul mates when it comes to getting good value for money, it’s not being tight it’s just sensible prudence😀.

 

The villa sounds good.

 

If you happen to be in Disney when they have the food festivals around the Lake in Epcot then the food is actually really good, small plates from each “country” for just a few dollars.

 

 

[Harry Peterson]

56 minutes ago, SarahHben said:

We have always taken a packed lunch in with us to Disneyland Paris and never had it taken away, maybe we've just been lucky? We stay in a lovely apartment 10 minute walk away so manage to do it relatively cheaper than a hotel package.

Maybe they've changed their policy since they opened and take a more enlightened approach.  We didn't have a lot of money and had to smuggle in Mars bars for the children and ourselves to avoid the ludicrous onsite food prices - bags were searched for food (but not pockets!).

[Vampiress88]

35 minutes ago, Eglesbrech said:

You are Yorkshire and I am Scottish so soul mates when it comes to getting good value for money, it’s not being tight it’s just sensible prudence😀.

 

The villa sounds good.

 

If you happen to be in Disney when they have the food festivals around the Lake in Epcot then the food is actually really good, small plates from each “country” for just a few dollars.

 

 

 

We are there for flower and garden festival. The food booths not been announced yet. Can’t wait to plan what we’d like. 

[Adawn47]

1 hour ago, jeanlyon said:

OK, we are nowhere near that.  I am beginning to think I don't drink enough!  We don't do soft drinks during the day, just water, but go to the bar at 7pm and have one large glass of wine for me and a whisky/ginger ale for other half, so that's about £11 ish.  We have a bottle of wine at dinner, and usually don't finish it, so it comes back the following day.  So if we did finish it, that's about £17 for the bottle or £18, so let's say £31 a day.  that's for 2 of us.

 

Are we unusual?

Definitely not Jean. I could copy your post word for word. As I was reading through these posts I was practically cringing thinking how mean we must be. We don't budget per se just buy as and when we like, but rarely spend more than £30/£35 a day max for the two of us. We keep a check occasionally  through the holiday. 

[jeanlyon]

1 hour ago, Britboys said:

Totally agree with you about the Costa coffee Jean - its revolting.  I tend to have a small beer or glass of wine with lunch when on-board at lunchtime.  A pre-dinner G&T or sparkly, a glass or two of wine with dinner and a night-cap after the show.  I'd never get anywhere near spending the same amount as the drinks package - especially allowing for port days!

 

It's what my mother would call, hot milk with a dash!  It's the one thing I miss on cruises.  Decent coffee.

[Adawn47]

1 hour ago, jeanlyon said:

Ha ha, not just me then.   Don't even bother with the coffee very often, as it's insipid for a coffee lover.  Hardly any coffee in it.   We wait until we are ashore in Spain or Italy for a decent coffee.  Never been a soft drink person either, apart from some juice at breakfast. 

Every port we go to we have a coffee or two. We're real coffee addicts and it's the only way to get a decent cuppa until we get home.

[jeanlyon]

We must be twins!!  Just looked at our bill from last cruise £402.83.  19 nights.  £21.20 per night.  We always have a bottle of white and red on the table which goes back for the next night. 

[Vampiress88]

4 minutes ago, jeanlyon said:

We must be twins!!  Just looked at our bill from last cruise £402.83.  19 nights.  £21.20 per night.  We always have a bottle of white and red on the table which goes back for the next night. 

that’s a good price per night. 
 

 

[jeanlyon]

well I guess it's because we don't drink booze or soft drinks during the day.  Just our pre-dinner drinks and wine at the table.   Neither of us want to drink after dinner.  don't fancy it then.  

[peteukmcr]

Well we'll no doubt be the oddballs on our upcoming Britannia TA. I did a rough costing quite a while ago which to me justified the drinks package but my post was removed from the drinks package thread. I've just revisited my spreadsheet and I still stand by it though. By my reckoning and using example prices from various sites (including P&O), and bearing in mind that with the drinks package only single measures of spirits are served and large glasses of wine are not included (only 175ml served) our daily consumption will be more than £39.95 pppd. That includes soft drinks, coffee and bottles of water (which we make sure we have daily). In that costing there are only 7 alcoholic drinks and seeing we have 9 sea days, it'll work for us.

[SeaJane]

We probably average about £40 per day between the two of us. We don’t drink expensive coffees, soft drinks or bottled water. We do however enjoy our wine and will usually have a large glass with lunch (or sometimes a beer for DH) as well as one before dinner then a bottle with our meal. 

[jeanlyon]

We boil our kettle in our cabin, allow it to cool and then fill our water bottles.  Perfectly good water.  I refused to buy bottles of water.  At home, we have a filter inline under our sink and our water is lovely. 

[SeaJane]

6 minutes ago, jeanlyon said:

We boil our kettle in our cabin, allow it to cool and then fill our water bottles.  Perfectly good water.  I refused to buy bottles of water.  At home, we have a filter inline under our sink and our water is lovely. 

We take a couple of reusable plastic bottles with carbon filters attached. We fill those from the tap and keep in the fridge until needed.  We drink a lot of water and it tastes fine. 

[Eglesbrech]

54 minutes ago, peteukmcr said:

Well we'll no doubt be the oddballs on our upcoming Britannia TA. I did a rough costing quite a while ago which to me justified the drinks package but my post was removed from the drinks package thread. I've just revisited my spreadsheet and I still stand by it though. By my reckoning and using example prices from various sites (including P&O), and bearing in mind that with the drinks package only single measures of spirits are served and large glasses of wine are not included (only 175ml served) our daily consumption will be more than £39.95 pppd. That includes soft drinks, coffee and bottles of water (which we make sure we have daily). In that costing there are only 7 alcoholic drinks and seeing we have 9 sea days, it'll work for us.

It doesn’t work for us on P&O but it does on other lines, where the coffee is decent and the martinis at the ice bar tempting.

 

[Vampiress88]

1 hour ago, peteukmcr said:

Well we'll no doubt be the oddballs on our upcoming Britannia TA. I did a rough costing quite a while ago which to me justified the drinks package but my post was removed from the drinks package thread. I've just revisited my spreadsheet and I still stand by it though. By my reckoning and using example prices from various sites (including P&O), and bearing in mind that with the drinks package only single measures of spirits are served and large glasses of wine are not included (only 175ml served) our daily consumption will be more than £39.95 pppd. That includes soft drinks, coffee and bottles of water (which we make sure we have daily). In that costing there are only 7 alcoholic drinks and seeing we have 9 sea days, it'll work for us.

think it depends on how much you drink. I don’t have very many alcoholic drink. I had 2 in a week on my last cruise. The others were all non alcoholic. And hubby can’t have the package without me having it. 
 

£6.25 was our most expensive drink and this was a cocktail. So that would be about 6-7 alcoholic drinks per day. 
 

£3.05 was the most expensive non alcoholic drink. So that’s again 6-7 mocktails or 10 soft drinks per day. 
 

these are the reasons I can’t do a drinks package is I know on a sea day we will probably have Quite a few drinks but I just wouldn’t drink 7 drinks per person per day. And on port days it would be even less. 
 

it’s all to do with how much you drink. I tend to sit with water when hubby has wine for dinner etc. So just won’t work for us I don’t think. 

[Vampiress88]

Looked at the packages again to see what will work out best. I thought of maybe an average day. 
 

•costa tea and coffee morning 

•again costa coffee And tea mid morning 

•beer,mocktail and kids mocktail lunch
•wine and mocktail in glass house 

•beer,mocktail and kids mocktail on deck. 

•wine and coke with dinner 

•In bar after dinner 2 beers Hubby. 2 mocktails for me. 1 mocktail for kids each

 

thats a total of 4 tea/coffees. 6 wine or beer. 8 mocktails. 4 kids mocktails. 
that would just hit my £70 mark. For four of us. I just couldn’t see me having this many mocktails or coke. I’d get fed up and although I like giving the kids stuff to try they probably don’t need 3 mocktails a day. Only one that probably could have all this is hubby. 
 

after everyone’s advice I think I’m happy with my £70 budget. 

[jeanlyon]

I do also think that other things can make your spend less.  Not feeling well one day, spending whole days ashore.   £80 per day is a helluva lot every single day to make it worthwhile.

[Adawn47]

We wouldn't dare get a drinks package. I don't like waste so I'd feel as if we'd need to use our full amount. We'd end up flat on backs in an alcoholic coma.😵😆

[P&O SUE]

Totally agree with most of you that we just don’t drink enough alcohol to make the drinks package worthwhile. 
We have a glass of wine each at dinner and a couple of cocktails later in the lounges/bars.On a sea day I might have lunch in the glasshouse with wine.

I can’t remember how much my last bill was but I looked it up when the packages came out and our total bill wasn’t enough and it also included odd things in the shops (a pandora charm was one thing) We don’t budget, just have what we fancy. 

[AndyMichelle]

3 hours ago, peteukmcr said:

Well we'll no doubt be the oddballs on our upcoming Britannia TA. I did a rough costing quite a while ago which to me justified the drinks package but my post was removed from the drinks package thread. I've just revisited my spreadsheet and I still stand by it though. By my reckoning and using example prices from various sites (including P&O), and bearing in mind that with the drinks package only single measures of spirits are served and large glasses of wine are not included (only 175ml served) our daily consumption will be more than £39.95 pppd. That includes soft drinks, coffee and bottles of water (which we make sure we have daily). In that costing there are only 7 alcoholic drinks and seeing we have 9 sea days, it'll work for us.

You won't be the odd ones out Pete. 

The queus for the uptake and the amount of passengers we have seen using them (the giveaway is each passenger in a party handing over their card) would tell me that this is not an average response on here. 

I think P&O have pitched it just right where it works for many, but us who can't quite get there don't feel we are missing out. 

Andy 

 

 

[jeanlyon]

Hee hee, for our 19 night cruise, the package would cost £1520 where we spend about £420.   Guess that puts into perspective.

Edited February 22, 2020 by jeanlyon

[NoFlyGuy]

We don't a set budget - after all we are on holiday. However on our last few P&O cruises we've been pretty consistant and have spent about £55 a day between us overall on drinks. Obviously that's a mixture of good and bad days.

So with P&O the drinks package is not for us especially as the spirits are singles only, sometimes we like to order a large spiced rum with a splash of coke.

When we've been on RCI we NEED the drinks package else we would probably have to sell the house.

[philred]

i think it all comes down to peoples personal choice and of course budget if you are big drinkers the package would work for you if not stick to your budget