If in this report you see any typos, misspellings, factual errors or other types of errors, please let me know.
Please include the web address (URL) of the report in which you found the error. Thank you! Send your email to:
Click on each photo below for a larger image,
or
CLICK HERE
for a slideshow of all the below photos.
Years ago my wife and I were in a liquor store when we noticed this "peanut butter" whiskey. We thought it was something pretty unusual so we purchased a bottle of it. We figured it was a novelty item that we might never again run across. Little did we know at that time that just about every bar has this whiskey available! Looks like they are really promoting the purchase of this in the ship's duty free shop. If you purchase any bottles of liquor on the ship, they will deliver it to your cabin on the last day of the cruise. Bottles of liquor purchased on the cruise are not intended to be consumed while on the cruise. I did not notice individual Screwball drinks by the shot for sale on the ship, but I just might not have noticed it as I wasn't looking for it.
We have never found buying a "Drinks Package" to be worth the cost, unless it is bundled in with some other comprehensive package or sale. Thus we did not buy a drinks package on this cruise. On the final day of the cruise, I always do an analysis to see how much we saved, or how much we missed out on saving, by not buying the drinks package.
First, let me start out by saying that I don't think my wife and I drink excessively, but we don't know of any relatives or friends that drink as much as we do. We are mostly wine drinks and love wine so much we used to own a vineyard and winery and have an inventory of almost 1,000 bottles of wine. We are not cocktail drinkers at all. When we do drink hard liquor, we will usually order a whiskey straight or on the rocks.
If we had purchased the "Drinks Package" on this cruise it would have cost us AUD $999 (USD $712) X 2 = AUD $1998 (USD $1,424) for this 9 day cruise. Instead, the total we spent on alcohol on this cruise for the two of us only came to AUD $461.56 (USD $328.99), a savings of AUD $1,536.44 (USD $1,095), and that includes the cost of 2 bottles of wine that we were allowed to bring onboard. So how much did we drink during the cruise? We drank the 2 bottles we brought on board, we purchased 3 additional bottles of wine onboard, we went to the Whisky Tasting event that served each of us at least 4 shots of whisky, we did the Martini Tasting in the Alchemy Bar where we each drank 4 smaller sized Martinis, we each had double Wild Turkey burbons, we each had a Margarita on Mexican Night, we had an Espresso Mariniti & Chocotini. On top of that we went to The Chef's Table where they just kept pouring us wine endlessly, and attended the Platinum & Diamond Reunion event where we got free Wild Turkey Burbons. So, over 9 days that was 5 bottles of wine plus many cocktails and shots of straight spirits. We don't feel we were deprived on any lack of alcohol on this cruise and we would not consider ourselves "light" drinkers. But all that for less than $1,000 had we purchased the drinks package. A big factor in that is we rarely ever buy cocktails. We find there is too little alcohol and too much sugar in cocktails. I've heard if you average at least 6 cocktails per day, the drinks package is worth the cost. But that is not us.
That $1,000 in savings was actually enough to cover ALL the other food and drinking events we attended on this cruise including The Chef's Table, the steakhouse, Italian night in the steakhouse, dinner in Masala Tiger, and all the other drinking events we attended.
The Carnival Splendor used to be my favorite cruise ship when it was based out of Los Angeles, California. But Carnival realized they needed a much bigger ship for Los Angeles as they were getting so many bookings, especially for the Mexian Riviera cruises. So they sent the Carnival Splendor to Austalia and replaced it with the Carnival Panorama. The Carnival Panorama is a HUGE ship! My wife and I went on it a couple of times but found it was not our kind of experience. Just too big.
So, we switched to Princess, another Carnival brand. Most of their ships except their newest are about the size of the Carnival Splendor, and some such as the Island Princess and Coral Princess, are smaller. We've done 5 cruises on Princess ships since they took the Carnival Splendor away from Los Angeles and will probably continue to do most of our future cruises on Princess.
Princess has 2 comprehensive packages that include the drinks package. One is called Princess Plus at US $79 (AUD $110.74) per person per day, and the other is Princess Premier at US $129 (AUD $180.83) per person per day. The Princess Plus package includes most drinks while the Princess Premier includes premium more expensive drinks. We always buy at least the Princess Plus package. The reason for this is that it also includes the gratuities, which are pretty much automatic anywhere but Australia. The cost of those would normally be US $18 per person per day. It also includes WiFi which would normally cost US $25 per person per day. We would be paying for the gratuities and WiFi anyway which comes to US $43 per person per day. At US $79 for gratuities, WiFi and the drinks package, that is only US $36 more than paying for the gratuities and WiFi separately. At US $36 per person per day, it becomes a lot easier to justify paying that for the drinks. Averaging more than 2 drinks per day will pretty much justify buying the Princess Plus package. So we always buy at least the Princess Plus package.
But there is more to the Princess Plus package than just the gratuities, WiFi and drinks. You are also entitled to unlimited specialty coffee & tea, up to 12 500ml bottles of water per day, free room service, and $300 shore excursion credit per person per day! You also get 4 upscale restaurant meals at no extra cost, and with the Princess Premier package you get unlimited dining at upscale restaurants at no additional cost! So those benefits really make buying the Princess Plus or Princess Premier package worth it.
Beyond that Princess also often has sales or promotional events where you can buy these upscale packages at reduced cost, or sometimes get the Princess Premier package at the cost of just the Princess Plus package. So, when we cruise on Princess we always have free drinks included because it is worth it for us to buy the package just for the included gratuities, WiFi, and all the other included benefits. But on any other cruises, including Carnival, we never find it is worth buying the drinks package.
Click on each photo above for a larger image,
or
CLICK HERE
for a slideshow of all the above photos.
If in this report you see any typos, misspellings, factual errors or other types of errors, please let me know.
Please include the web address (URL) of the report in which you found the error. Thank you! Send your email to:
