Marella Celebration - Drinks included without All Inclusive ?

We are cruise first timers.......:cool:

Debating whether to take the drinks package on our Marella Celebration cruise in March 2018.

Cost is £25 per person per day.

Do you get any free drinks with the standard Full Board package like tea & coffee, water, juice at breakfast or meal times ?

How does the drinks package work in practice at the bars ? Can you order a round of drinks or its it one per person per visit ? Do you get a card or are drinks just ordered against your cabin ?

Tea and coffee is freely available in / outside the lido buffet 24/7 (but understandably the coffee is like mud at 4 in the morning:D), and at dinner. You are also provided with the makings in your cabin.

Tap water (in your cabin, in the lido, from bars, and at table at dinner) is fine, no need for bottled. Ice from a bar if you need it. And pop some water in your fridge - it's stored in tanks so its not as cold as from your tap at home.

Fruit juices at breakfast time.

The drinks package is sometimes offered as a freebie or cut-price as an incentive to book a cruise.

Which makes it good value.

But at the full price of around £175 pppw I rate it poor value.

There are supplements to pay - this recently for Dream & Majesty, might not be fleet-wide.................

Only draught beers - just John Smiths & a lager. If Guinness, Newcastle Brown, Pale Ale etc are your thing there's a supplement of £1 to £2 per bottle/can.

Only about half the cocktails - a supplement of £1+ for the others (there's no rhyme or reason for the divide - some cocktails of a given price are included, others t the same price carry a supplement)

Only fountain soft drinks. Cans carry a supplement of £1.

Not all spirits are included. I thought all branded spirits carried a supplement but another CC member said not so, some branded spirits are included. One of us may be wrong, or one of us may be out-of-date, or it may depend on the ship or itinerary.

The included wine (by the glass only) is truly awful. The red at least, I don't know about the white. And that particular brand is only served in the package. To choose any other wine, those with the package pay the full price less the princely discount of £3.:rolleyes:

I don't know if speciality coffees are included.

Thomson's bar prices are very reasonable, about the same as provincial pubs.

For instance cocktails around £4 to £5.

Drinkable wine at under £15 the bottle, just over £14 if you buy a package of wines. A choice of five reds in the wine package - the Chianti was awful, we settled for a Portuguese.

We drank whatever & whenever we wanted, including a shared bottle of wine at dinner, and it cost us about £120 pppw.

That said, it depends on how much you drink. And those with the drinks package make sure they get their money's-worth :D

The practice is pretty lax, depending on the staff. In the main you order from bar staff who are doing the rounds and certainly once they get to know you, you only need to produce one card. We've been "bought" the occasional drink by folk with packages - but you'll not manage to order a dozen drinks in one hit with one card.;)

Celebration is a favourite of mine. :)

A li'l old tub, with none of the glitz & toys of the big new leviathons.

But what she lacks in style she makes up for in spadefuls with a great crew and a friendly atmosphere.

Once you get hooked & try a few other ships you'll see how dated the old girl is, but she's a great choice for a first cruise.

JB :)

Hello John, Thanks for a great reply which has pretty much confirmed our decision not to take the All Inclusive package this time around. Especially since we have 4 on our booking and everyone has to take the package costing over £700. Maybe if the price is reduced when we arrive on board then I might think about it but TUI claim the current £175+ pppw is already discounted :o

One other point, do the cabin power sockets take UK or Euro mains plugs ?

Thanks again........

Are all four of you in the same cabin? If not the AI is per cabin not per booking Every passenger gets a card and those with the drinks package are marked AI The staff are on the watch for people sitting/cruising together getting drinks for those not on AI

 

One other point, do the cabin power sockets take UK or Euro mains plugs ?

 

Thanks again........

Sorry, not my department - 'er-indoors deals with our little power station in the cabin, hotel rooms etc. All the stuff we use - chargers for I-pads, cameras, phones, etc - work on 110 / 220volts.

Wherever we go abroad we take a universal plug adapter (under £10 from Boots, Argos, etc) and a short 4-gang extension lead, and never had a problem.

JB :)

Celebration has European plugs We also only take one conversion plug and a short lead 4 way gang