Galveston Princess Plus Drink Question

[sad549s]

I have the Princess Plus and am sailing on the Regal Princess in a couple of weeks.  Can anyone tell me how the drink package is handled on the first day.  I paid for the first day but am seeing that it might not work or is limited and they offer a $25 OBC to compensate for anything that might be purchased before the drink package starts working.  Thank you 

[Shoalwater]

The bars have limited options available for cash until the ship clears Texas boundaries and sails into international water.  This is due to a Texas law requiring the ship to only serve alcohol purchased within Texas or having a Texas ABC stamp.  The ship has a limited inventory of bottles meeting this requirement.  This is one reason why cruise ships tried but abandoned Houston as an embarkation port.  It took almost 3 hrs to navigate down the ship channel and into the Gulf, so the liquor sales at the sail away parties suffered.

Edited November 16, 2023 by Shoalwater

[CC Rider 69]

11 hours ago, sad549s said:

I have the Princess Plus and am sailing on the Regal Princess in a couple of weeks.  Can anyone tell me how the drink package is handled on the first day.  I paid for the first day but am seeing that it might not work or is limited and they offer a $25 OBC to compensate for anything that might be purchased before the drink package starts working.  Thank you 

Last spring on the Ruby, sailing at 1600 hrs, we were drinking on the package by 1830 hrs. Yes, they do give you $25 OBC, plus you can bring two bottles of wine on board. Of course this doesn't help out the beer drinkers in the crowd.

This is better than another line that sails out of GLS where they wait until the next day.

[So_Tweetie]

On 11/16/2023 at 6:48 AM, CC Rider 69 said:

Last spring on the Ruby, sailing at 1600 hrs, we were drinking on the package by 1830 hrs. Yes, they do give you $25 OBC, plus you can bring two bottles of wine on board. Of course this doesn't help out the beer drinkers in the crowd.

This is better than another line that sails out of GLS where they wait until the next day.

The difference is that the other line (Carnival) doesn't charge for the first day and Princess does. In the future for sailings out of Galveston, I will not purchase Plus/Premier until day 2 and we will have our carry on wine for embarkation day. 

[Traveller1212]

We are currently on Regal - we were each given a $25 acct credit - we never asked, it was just applied to our acct 👍🏻

[BlerkOne]

15 minutes ago, So_Tweetie said:

The difference is that the other line (Carnival) doesn't charge for the first day and Princess does. In the future for sailings out of Galveston, I will not purchase Plus/Premier until day 2 and we will have our carry on wine for embarkation day. 

I'm still not sure how that works. Is Princess going to charge you for the first day gratuities?  I assume they won't refund medallion shipping charges (if applicable). Maybe other differences.

[So_Tweetie]

4 minutes ago, BlerkOne said:

I'm still not sure how that works. Is Princess going to charge you for the first day gratuities?  I assume they won't refund medallion shipping charges (if applicable). Maybe other differences.

Unfortunately for us, even though we ordered them several weeks pre-cruise, our medallions were not shipped to us. I definitely think having them when you arrive at port is valuable in Galveston so I am happy to pay the $10 for that, and gratuities for day 1. Cutting $160 off embarkation day (yes, I think Premier is worth it) and adding those expenses in, we'll still come out way ahead. 

Edited December 7, 2023 by So_Tweetie
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