Elite Mini Bar

[Megotoo]

I’ve been reading that the Elite mini bar setup has been really sketchy lately. Does anyone have any information on this?

[VAWCB]

   I was in a suite on Emerald last week.  We got two each of scotch, gin, vodka, and cognac.  In the fridge were Cokes, Diet Cokes, San Pelegríno, beer, and water.  I am not elite but thought that Elites and Suites got the same thing?

[patrickmoran]

On the Majestic in late January, we only got bottles of gin instead of the usual mix liquors. Not a big deal since I always change the liquor bottles for beers.

[rwilk1129]

On Regal in January and got only gin. In February on Regal got Scotch and Gin. Gave them all away. Ugh. Also another note is no Crown Royal in bars still. Shop sells it but not bars. Nearest thing to Crown was VO

 

[Marauder]

Question from a new Elite.  People have said you can exchange the mini bar for two coffee cards.  How do you go about doing that?  Do you just tell your steward on the first day?

[EDDY0827]

4 minutes ago, Marauder said:

Question from a new Elite.  People have said you can exchange the mini bar for two coffee cards.  How do you go about doing that?  Do you just tell your steward on the first day?

Call room service, they will handle it for you.

[cr8tiv1]

4 minutes ago, Marauder said:

Question from a new Elite.  People have said you can exchange the mini bar for two coffee cards.  How do you go about doing that?  Do you just tell your steward on the first day?

 

Call Room Service.  They will come up and collect your mini-bar, charge your account, credit your account, and place on your medallion one each coffee package.  

 

[Steelers36]

I wish Princess would take advance requests for the mini-bar content so we don't all have to call Room Service on Day 1 for the swap requests.

 

[crawford]

40 minutes ago, Steelers36 said:

I wish Princess would take advance requests for the mini-bar content so we don't all have to call Room Service on Day 1 for the swap requests.

 

On the CB last month, out mini-liquor bottles were gin and scotch. The only like-kind alcohol we were able to trade them out for was vodka.

[loge23]

On our recent trip on the Enchanted, there was vodka, scotch, gin, and Canadian Club rye - no more cognacs apparently. Oddly, when we asked to swap out the sugar sodas for our usual request of Perrier waters, we were told that they can only offer San Pellegrino, which is much too salty for us. Perrier was available at virtually every bar onboard, but not through room service! 

[Steelers36]

4 minutes ago, crawford said:

On the CB last month, out mini-liquor bottles were gin and scotch. The only like-kind alcohol we were able to trade them out for was vodka.

We get all beers and then sparkling water to replace all the sodas (non-alcohol group).  

 

[msmoger]

Do Suite passengers who are also elite status receive two setups?

[kywildcatfanone]

So no bourbon at all in small bottles? I was going to swap all out for that.

[skynight]

16 minutes ago, msmoger said:

Do Suite passengers who are also elite status receive two setups?

In the past yes.

[skynight]

4 minutes ago, kywildcatfanone said:

So no bourbon at all in small bottles? I was going to swap all out for that.

Bourbon was never available.

[voljeep]

48 minutes ago, skynight said:

Bourbon was never available.

or Rum ??

[skynight]

No rum.

[eclue]

On the Regal , no sugar free or zero soda .....only regular coke and Sprite with all that sugar in it.

 

[geoherb]

On the Regal last month, I had just six mini bottles of liquor. Apparently they were out of the Courvoisier. When I asked about the missing bottles at passenger services, the purser called room service for me to get two mini bottles of Scotch instead.

 

On the Caribbean in December, I had the correct bottles of liquor, but instead of two cans of tonic water and two small bottles of Perrier, there was a 1-liter bottle of tonic water along with a 1-liter bottle of club soda. 

 

On the Majestic in August, I received eight mini bottles of vodka initially. 

 

 

[windango]

On Enchanted in December they were unable to provide the set up, so we were given a credit for it.  I think there had been supply chain issues and they had a limited number of setups to provide.

[Thrak]

11 hours ago, Steelers36 said:

I wish Princess would take advance requests for the mini-bar content so we don't all have to call Room Service on Day 1 for the swap requests.

 

 

While this would be ideal from the passenger standpoint I sincerely doubt it would ever actually work. There are too many different people involved and the chain of command - or the chain of "instructions" - simply doesn't work that efficiently. Compounding the problem is the fact that, even before the shutdown, supplies weren't fully implemented. Our first (and to date only) cruise as Elite had supply issues and we didn't receive the proper mini bar. Imagine the "super special wowie zowie elite" people (you know every cruise has them) exploding and "having a cow" (my apologies if this doesn't work for non US folks) because their mini bar wasn't prepared to their specifications. Its not that hard for the passenger to submit a request for change as compared to trying to get the crew (many of which may be new) to prepare special setups for a minority of passengers.

 

I'm not trying to denigrate the wishes of the folks who would like a customized setup. i get it and totally understand. I just understand the difficulty of implementing the requested changes. It is realistically much easier for Princess to simply supply every Elite passenger with a "standard' setup and deal with changes as requested.

[Steelers36]

16 minutes ago, Thrak said:

 

While this would be ideal from the passenger standpoint I sincerely doubt it would ever actually work. There are too many different people involved and the chain of command - or the chain of "instructions" - simply doesn't work that efficiently. Compounding the problem is the fact that, even before the shutdown, supplies weren't fully implemented. Our first (and to date only) cruise as Elite had supply issues and we didn't receive the proper mini bar. Imagine the "super special wowie zowie elite" people (you know every cruise has them) exploding and "having a cow" (my apologies if this doesn't work for non US folks) because their mini bar wasn't prepared to their specifications. Its not that hard for the passenger to submit a request for change as compared to trying to get the crew (many of which may be new) to prepare special setups for a minority of passengers.

 

I'm not trying to denigrate the wishes of the folks who would like a customized setup. i get it and totally understand. I just understand the difficulty of implementing the requested changes. It is realistically much easier for Princess to simply supply every Elite passenger with a "standard' setup and deal with changes as requested.

Well it does keep a lot of crew busy that first day.  I did a CC survey a year or so ago and the majority swap out some or all of their mini-bar.  There are more swaps than as-is I would say, not that my survey was scientific and within 2.5% 19 times out of 20.

[caribill]

9 hours ago, eclue said:

On the Regal , no sugar free or zero soda .....only regular coke and Sprite with all that sugar in it.

 

 

Assuming they have it on board, you can swap out the regular Coke and Sprite in the mini-bar setup for Coke Zero and Diet Sprite.

[thisislou]

On the Enchanted now. Very surprised and glade no small bottles but 2 375m one rum one vodka 

[skynight]

4 hours ago, caribill said:

 

Assuming they have it on board, you can swap out the regular Coke and Sprite in the mini-bar setup for Coke Zero and Diet Sprite.

Assuming they have those items in room service, yes. They have not in the past, but over time Coke is changing products.