Adult Drink Package is Back

Just back from the 12/13 sailing on the Brilliance of the Seas. Another fantastic cruise on the Brilliance! On the first day, early....in the Schooner Bar they were setting up the usual tables and giving out raffle tickets for prizes in the assorted facilities. Anyway, the table they used to sell the Wine package also had a sign advertising the Platinum Plus drink program. Just so there is no confusion, the name has nothing to do with Crown & Anchor membership level. Any legal age passenger can purchase it. This cruise was an 11 day itinerary. The price for the package is 50.00 per/person per/day plus 15% gratutity... so, for 2 people the total price was 1,265.00. This package includes unlimited drinks, shipwide. It even includes coffee and cofee drinks at Lattitudes. Wine, beer and hard liquor are included, up to Premium level liquor.... everything but top, top shelf liquor was included....drink of the day is also included. It can be used everywhere on the ship, including the dining room. Soda is also included.

I wouldn't have even noticed the sign at first.. I just glanced at it, and assumed it was the Wine Package details. As soon as we boarded (at 11:30) we headed straight to the Schooner Bar, 10 minutes later, we bumped into 2 friends from our 1st Brilliance cruise (November, 2002) and sat down together to have a drink. It was these friends that actually READ the sign! They give you a list of drinks available. I can tell you that Beefeater gin was allowed, so was Seagrams VO. They apply a yellow sticker to your seapass card, the sticker says Premium Brand Drink Program.. they activate the card and then you only need show it the first time you are in a new bar/venue....and, as most of you experienced cruisers know, the bartenders will remember your face (and, usually, your names, too!) after the very first visit! The only time you will need to show your seapass card is if you buy a drink for someone else, then they will swipe your card in the usual way.

Sooooo, if you are drinkers you'll very much appreciate this! It can be a good deal! :)

I know they lost money on us! LOL! And we've got the past bar bills/folio summarys to prove it!

Any questions about this or anything about the Brilliance, just ask!

Eileen

Wow! What a program...I don't think I even drink $50 worth of drinks a day?! That's a lot of drinking!

$50 a day?? That IS a lot of alcohol.

Eileen was Arvin working the schooner bar?

Tom

Actually at $6-9 a drink, I don't think it's a bad deal. On a cruise (not in real life), I'd have a "pretty drink" in the afternoon. I'd bring a martini to the room and sip it on the balcony before changing for late dining, join DH for a pre-dinner cocktail at one of the piano lounges. Enjoy 1-2 glasses of wine with dinner. Have an after dinner liqueur in the casino, or at the show. Go to a disco and enjoy 1-2 drinks there as well. Yikes, that's 8 drinks a day. It sounds like a lot, but over the course of the day, it happens! Do the math, the card is cheaper! I'll look forward to purchasing on our next cruise - are they offered on AOS 7-nighter?

I wonder if they are just testing it - did it seem like many people were taking advantage of it? I too was thinking that was a bit steep - but then canucks4 walked through a day - especially the wine at dinner and you could see that it might be a deal (unless you had to wait forever at dinner for bar service)

Did this also include wine and frozen drinks? Sounds like a great deal to me, thinking back to our last bar bill!

What do the drinks cost on RCL?Specifically daquiris?beer?vodka tonic?glass of wine?drink of the day?With this package can you bring the drink back to your room?Do you still tip the bartender?

Does it include Grey Goose vodka?

Thanks

Happy New Year!:p

OK, drink card looks fine for us. On another subject, did you refuel in St. Croix? Also, did you go to Labadee? Rumors have it in trouble.

Has anyone confirmed this with RCI?

Going on a 5dayer 2/5 on the EOS

General dumb question: If I order a drink, can I come and go with it as I please

onto the deck or what have you or to another bar?

I called Royal CAribbean. Both the person I spoke too and their supervisor had never heard of this. They say that they did away with it in 2003. My guess is that maybe this was for this specific cruise or done by this specific CD. If it wasn't advertised at all and isn't in the itenerary, then this is probably the case.

What if I got to get drinks for my wife and I, but only have 1 card with a sticker? Do they charge for the other?

Actually at $6-9 a drink, I don't think it's a bad deal. On a cruise (not in real life), I'd have a "pretty drink" in the afternoon. I'd bring a martini to the room and sip it on the balcony before changing for late dining, join DH for a pre-dinner cocktail at one of the piano lounges. Enjoy 1-2 glasses of wine with dinner. Have an after dinner liqueur in the casino, or at the show. Go to a disco and enjoy 1-2 drinks there as well. Yikes, that's 8 drinks a day. It sounds like a lot, but over the course of the day, it happens! Do the math, the card is cheaper! I'll look forward to purchasing on our next cruise - are they offered on AOS 7-nighter?

Hi Debbie! How's the Blackjack Guy doing these days?

I wonder if that unlimited drink thing works with buckets of beer around the pool. :confused: That would have been a pretty good deal for us last time. We actually spent right at $1500 on booze for the 11 days counting the wine package we bought at dinner.

I wonder if Celebrity has anything like that program going on?

Stretch

I can't see them adopting this program fleet wide because it would be a logistical nightmare. They already have people buying one soda card and using it to get soda for others. How could they keep that from happening with this program? What would keep someone from ordering drinks for all of their friends around the pool? You would only be able to get one drink at a time but it would be impossible to know who you were getting the drinks for. Am I missing something here?

It also seems kind of cheap considering they charge $42 for a soda card.

This is a bit different than the old drink card, which BTW I loved in the casino since I didn't need to sign a darn thing while I was busy...in case no one has ever heard me say that before...:p

This is an interesting approach. I am not sure if I can handle mentally the upfront load on my sea pass account. I think I may almost prefer to be suprised by guessing how much my bar tab was at the end. This kinds of takes the fun out of that traditional event. :eek:

Anyhoo...good to know and I like the new option the cruise line has provided. It has got to cut down on all that darn paper and accounting work for them as well.

Hi,

1st of all, I read these cruise message boards and lots of others, too. I don't post that often, but for any of the usual supersleuths that are sure to post to this thread, you should be able to find some fairly recent posts made right up until the time we left for our cruise, 12/12. I didn't see anything, anywhere, written or posted about this, either. I gotta tell ya, even when it's good new being posted , no complaints or bitchin'... the negative sceptics show up anyway! :)

I'm also a TA, so I'm not in the least bit surprised that the CSR's at RCL don't know a thing about this.

And, I posted this with the recent, "How big is your barbill?" thread, in mind. So, yeah... it can seem like a lot to people who don't drink very much.. most people while cruising do. Plus, the guy who noticed the sign had a calculator with him, he quickly did some math.. all you needed to drink was 16 drinks at 3.50 each... as any experienced cruiser knows, there aren't many drinks that cost that little. We didn't need a calculator.. I know what last years barbill was! :) We knew they would lose money on us.:) 'Course, the cruiseline knows this... they will lose on some, but make a profit on (most) others.

Grey Goose was not allowed...that's considered topshelf... you could get Stoli, Absolute, etc. And, yes, of course, it covered the buckets of beer, BUT, you don't really need to buy the buckets of beer deal.. the whole point of the BOB deal is buy 5 beers, get the 6th beer free (or is it buy 4, get the 5th, can't remember, excatly, right now)...you can, with this card, have unlimited drinks...that's why the gratuity is based on the 1,100 dolar figure (for 2), you never give them your card after the 1st time, it's impossible for them to know how many drinks you've had. although, depending on how friendly you are with your favorite bartender....you may not be able to do the BOB, now that I think of it... they won't let you use the card to "buy" your friends drinks....I do know that at the end of the night, or if we wanted to go back to our cabin early to have a party, the bartender would let us (DH and I, and the other couple) take beers with us, as many as we wanted. It did include wine at dinner, I don't remember all of the details as nither of us are wine drinkers... IIRC, you could get wine by the glass and, even, I think, by the bottle... there might have been certain wines by the bottle that were excluded. You can also use the card in the Seaview Cafe.

Lastly, the barstaff don't seem to have a problem with this particular drink program... unlike the last drink program that RCL DID discontinue.. that program was different.. it was purchase a special card (seperate from your seapass card) pay for 12 get 15...this Platinum Plus DOES include lots more....but neither of them offered topshelf...but, it seems to me, that the liquors allowed on the PL plan are of higher quality and higher grade level... bar drinks are classified as well, call, pemium and topshelf....

For instance, say... you are a rye whiskey drinker.. at the well level you'd get a very cheap house brand, call would get you Seagrams 7, premium would het you Seagrams VO and topshelf would be Crown Royal.. anyone who drinks will know the comparative quality levels (I used to be a bartender)... so, would know that the call level would also include Canadian Club. I hope I've provided a good analogy as a way of explaining this whole thing. Also, I only saw this program being offered the 1st day.. doesn't mean you couldn't sign up for it at a later date, but it seems to me, that you'd have to know about it, in the 1st place. Now, I'm thinking, maybe, the pool bar might have had this advert/sign on the 1st day, too.. I can't confirm this... as we head straight to our favorite bar on the Brilliance, the Schooner Bar, 1st thing.

No, sorry to say, Arvin was not onboard.. he was home, in the Philliphines at the time. We saw many bar/wait staff from last year and even the year before...

I checked email notification for this thread.... it's not working....anyone that needs to anything else can email me, as well. Although I will keep checking the thread... got a feeling this will be a long thread! LOL!

Hhmm. let's see... no... we didn't stop in St. Croix, not even for a fuel stop.

We had a fabulous cruise, had great barstaff... old friends and new! :)

And, lastly.. Stretch... I've read many, many of your posts... you would love this card! :) And, the cruiseline would lose money on ya, too! Geez, I can think of loads of groups who signed up for the meet & mingles... who know have reunion cruises together...give thenselves *official* names... funny names, ie....the Blues cruisers, the Royal jewels, etc... this card has thier name written all over it, baby!

Any more questions, just ask!

Eileen

EileenMcDonald@comcast.net

Eileen,

Have you any news about Labadee? Thanks.

donnaluv - the soda card is $42/week while the alcohol card mentioned here was $50/day. That is the difference. I hope this helps!

Eileen - OUTSTANDING post!

Hope to see this card on Serenade in March!

"Plus, the guy who noticed the sign had a calculator with him, he quickly did some math.. all you needed to drink was 16 drinks at 3.50 each"

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But that would be PER DAY, not per cruise. On a 7 night trip, you'd have to have 101 $3.50 drinks to save a little. That is A LOT of drinking for one person....this is RCI, not Carnival!:eek:

[quote name=stillfrantic

But that would be PER DAY' date=' not per cruise. On a 7 night trip, you'd have to have 101 $3.50 drinks to save a little. That is A LOT of drinking for one person....this is RCI, not Carnival!:eek:[/quote]

ok... but how many drinks on a cruise are actually $3.50? Let's say on average they are $7.00... then you're closer to what...50 drinks over the course of 7 days? I'm not a "drinker" ... but based on daily run-down stated above, I could easily see the sticker being worth its price.

Would love to hear if anyone else has seen this offer on other ships!

A

At 50 drinks...it is looking better.:) If it included wine by the glass at dinner, it could be worth the price....how high do some of their by the glass drinks go?

But that would still be 7 drinks a day to break even if each one cost $7. Not sure we'd drink that much, but it surely would keep me from nagging my husband about getting another drink at cruise prices!:D

Would this card work on the private islands as well?