Wine and Airlines

[munchkin4]

Has anyone had trouble taking wine or bottled water in your checked luggage at the airport? I have read Southwest's policy regarding packing, etc. I plan on putting in 2 gallon zip loc bag, then bubble wrapping and then packing in my Carnival box from last cruise. Do you think that will be enough? Does TSA hassle you too much? It's not the cost of purchasing wine on the ship if I can find one I like. Very picky about my vino!!

Thanks for the help.

[bankerbabe]

When we went on our 10 day Caribbean cruise last year we took 12 bottles of wine and champagne with us (it was a Holland America cruise, and bringing wine onboard was allowed).

 

I bought a special box from U-Haul online that was specifically made to carry wine safely. It had styrofoam inserts, etc. They made the boxes in varying sizes. We could have checked it as an extra piece of luggage, but because of my husband's overpacking we didn't have an extra luggage allowance to spare. We wound up shipping it UPS to the hotel we were staying at pre-cruise. Apparently, though, you have to have a special license to ship wine and we did not. So, we lied and said that it was fancy bottled water. The wine arrived just fine.

 

By the way, 12 bottles of wine and champagne on a ten day cruise was WAY overkill. But, we were able to bring champagne to the table on formal night and share with everyone (we had a table of six), which made for a nice little celebration. In the end we wound up giving five or six of the bottles to one of our tablemates, since they were continuing on the cruise for another 20+ days. I hope they enjoyed the wine as much as we enjoyed their company :)