Cruises - drinks packages

[Septemberbeginnings]

I'm about to book a 7 day cruise and they've offered a drinks package costing £200 extra. I imagine the price of drinks on board will be a lot more expensive than my local but is it worth it? Is there a limit on how many drinks I could order? Not that I'm planning on getting pissed every day, but maybe some soft drinks during the day, cocktail before dinner, one or two glasses of wine with food.

£200 works out at just under £30/day. My best estimate of what you've said would be:

2 x wines - £12
Cocktail - £8
3 x soft drinks - £9

So if you are likely to have even one extra drink a day the package is probably worth it.

If you Google the cruise line and drinks menu lots of people post them online so you can see the prices.

We were all inclusive and it was wonderful. No worries about whether we could have ‘another’ drink. In fact the staff seemed to encourage us by coming round taking orders.

We don't pay for a package because we don't drink much. Our friends always buy a package but they do drink regularly. It really depends on you (and the prices on your cruise line).

Thanks for the replies. The ship I'm looking at doesn't do all inclusive. I'm sure if they had given me the total price of the cruise plus drinks package and called it all inclusive I wouldn't have batted an eyelid and would have happily paid it without a second thought.

I've done a quick search of the drinks menu but can't find a price list, but reviews have all been positive about the value of it, so I'm going to go ahead and pay for it.

£200 is a very good price.
what cruise line are you sailing with, I know the approximate price of drinks on most cruise lines.

Thats a good price. We paid £260 each, for 2 people on p and o. Prices were reasonable but the full selection wernt included. We were told 15 drinks a day max, with 15 mins between orders, but one of the waiters told us that was to stop people abusing it. A couple of days we went over 15 drinks, which included softs and hots, and we weren't charged extra. Over the week it definitely worked out in our favour. The max price of a drink that was included was £7, and there were a few cocktails and enough spirits and mixers that made it worth it.

Pints and spirits and mixers were comparable prices to a reasonable pub, about £4.50-£6 each.

If it's a cruise liner that stops all over the place though then you'll be off the cruise most days so you would only be having a drink in the evening.

Check to see if there's a limit on the drinks you can have, we're going on the Iona next year and need to look into it, also be aware if one of you wants the package you will all have to have it.

We thought that, but we tended to be back early afternoon, so a couple of drinks to relax after walking about, a couple of pre-dinner cocktails, glass or two of wine with dinner and some post dinner drinks, and it soon adds up. We worked out that if we had six drinks a day, we were worth having that, and as it included costa coffees as well, we had those with breakfast, so it was easily doable.

See my first post above, we were on Iona 😁

Check the details.
We had a drinks package on a Riviera cruise, & it was only wine/beer with lunch & dinner - no bar drinks. It was still marginally better.

We've done with and without. We aren't big drinkers so didn't bother on our earlier cruises but last time it was thrown in as a freebie so we took it. It was nice knowing that the drinks weren't all being added to our bill, took away that "maybe we shouldn't" feeling and you could try different cocktails without worrying about the waste if you didn't like them. Just made the whole thing more relaxing.

I always get a drinks package - we cruise with Princess semi-regularly as my partner is a locum medical officer. We 100% think it's worth it! It's lovely to be able to have the flexibility and not have to worry about if we are overspending on each round. It also means you have flexibility to try different cocktails - if you don't like one, you can just order another! As others have said there are a few drinks that aren't included in the package, but the majority are.

Completely depends if you are drinkers or not. We've just come back from a P&O cruise. They charge £40 a day per person for the alcohol drink package! As we spent Port days off ship exploring and as we don't drink much we didn't bother. Tea and coffee are included anyway, as is water. We bought a bottle of wine some nights at £25-£30 a bottle. Soft drinks were about £3. Unless you are having 8 pints or 5 cocktails each day I wouldn't bother.

I think that’s a good price. I paid for the all inclusive package on my most recent trip for £40ppd & kept track of all my drinks for a comparison. My drinks totalled between £60 & £80 pd - so I was quids in. It’s amazing how quickly the prices rack up!!

I would have a hot chocolate in the morning, soft drink or non-alcoholic drink by the pool, wine with dinner, a few cocktails at a show - so nothing outrageous but soon mounted up. Especially if you meet other people onboard & get chatting over some drinks!!

We’ve just been on a cruise where drink package was included. Loved it. I could try a cocktail & if I didn’t like it order another. Also made it less stressful worrying about any extras & we didn’t have to keep an eye on our onboard spend. Those drinks quickly mount up.

Go onto cruise critic & search for your cruise line & there will be heaps of advice.

We sail Royal Caribbean. We buy the drinks package and get the following included.

Ground coffee first thing in the morning. Other coffee available but this ground and made for you from the coffee shop. If not on a drinks package it’s a chargeable extra.

Bottled water. We all drink a a lot of water so bottles are ideal. Other water out of dispensers in restaurants available when open or can be bought from the coffee shop.

Freshly squeezed orange juice at breakfast. Stuff made from syrup available at breakfast too.

Another coffee to go. May be one in the afternoon with cake.

Depending on where we are depends on what’s next but say a beer or wine with lunch if not in port. If in port and coming back late afternoon then a cocktail or 2 by the pool. A cocktail before dinner and a glass of wine at dinner or a cocktail after dinner all adds up.

When on a cruise, the costs add up. It does depend on what you like. The drinks package for us is worth is weight in gold jus to have coffee, water, orange juice and 2 alcoholic drinks a day.

We're going on our first cruise in Feb (also Iona!) and umm'd and ahhh'd over the drinks package at first but are definitely going to. We drink a fair bit on holiday, and if you count the soft drinks, and a costa coffee to take off the ship when we go exploring I can see we'd easily reach £40 each per day.

A tip I read was that can buy the package on the first or second day (unless you pay for it before you go but we've got on board credit to use so need to do it when we're there) and someone said depending what time you board for that first day you might not spend the £40 so maybe do it the morning of the second day.

We'll be travelling with our teens, and they'll get a free non alcoholic package with our package although DS17 will be keen to have a pint or 2

I believe the 15 drink limit is 15 alcoholic drinks and they only enforce it if you're drunk/disorderly and abusing it.

Cruise Mummy is a really useful website, she has a drinks calculator which can help you decide based on what you think you'll drink

www.cruisemummy.co.uk/the-ultimate-guide-to-cruise-drink-packages/

Which cruise are you booking, have a great time :-)

Depends on the cruise line. For example Princess has an excellent package which also includes wifi and gratuities in the price. You can pick from a huge selection of drinks up to quite a high cost (I think about £12-13 but that might be a bit out of date) and have up to 15 alcoholic drinks per 24 hours. It’s a no brainier if you drink alcohol, I loved trying lots of different cocktails that I wouldn’t usually drink.
P&O have a reputation as having the worst drinks package, £40 per day and very restrictive about what drinks you can pick from, up to £6.50 in value which only includes cheapest wine etc, so better to pay per drink. Plus each guest can take. Litre of drink onboard for their cabin.

I went on the Iona in August. The queue to pay for the drinks package on day one was horrendous it took at least an hour and we were near the front. I would purchase before you go.
On reflection we wouldn't pay for it again. Firstly You can only use for drinks up to 6.50 so only the cheap cocktails and no big glasses of wine, Secondly I dont think we drank the value of it and we drank in the evenings and got a Costa every day. Only bonus was we got the free kids package so the little one also got drinks