Deluxe beverage package-worth it?

I am a water and coffee drinker. I purchased the Cafe Select Coffee card, and was pricing the deluxe beverage package, which adds almost $800 to the total cruise price! My husband and I will probably drink a couple alcoholic beverages a day, and my husband might get a soft drink with lunch or something, but I cannot see us drinking anywhere near $800 worth of anything on the whole cruise. Is there something that I'm missing? Exactly how expensive are drinks? We didn't get any beverage package on our last cruise and I don't recall putting much on our on board account as far as that goes.

With what you listed as drinking every day, the beverage package would not save you money. Better to buy as you go.

It's hideous what they charge. We always do a pay as we go, and have never paid anywhere close to what the packages charge.

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Expect about $4 for sodas, alcoholic drinks can range from about $6 for some beers to around $13 for premium cocktails. Basic cocktails and the "Drink of the Day" are usually around $8-$10

We do the drink package if we are cruising with a group of friends, or if we are on a cruise without many port stops. The deluxe package is about $35 more per day than the basic soda package, so I always figure that I'll need to drink that many non-sodas to make it worth it. That's about 4 basic cocktails or 3 premium cocktails, which we do easily on sea days. Port days it's hit or miss for us, depending on how much time we spend off the ship, but we still almost always do at least two drinks.

I personally always keep tabs on all the drinks we order and compare what it would have cost without the package. On our last three cruises that we got the package, 2 of them we saved money with the package, the third we would have been better off doing ala carte.

Expect about $4 for sodas, alcoholic drinks can range from about $6 for some beers to around $13 for premium cocktails. Basic cocktails and the "Drink of the Day" are usually around $8-$10.

Don't forget the 18% grat on top of those prices mentioned.

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One other thing to keep in mind is that your drinking habits may change if you get the package vs. if you don't.

At home, we don't drink much at all, and there are a lot of drinks I just really don't care for. If we are on a ship and we don't have the package, I'm super cautious with what I order; always sticking with drinks I'm familiar with and know for a fact I like. When we have the package, however, I'm a lot more at ease. I've actually found several of my favorite drinks just because I had the package.

"Pimms Cup? Hey, there was a character in Archer that drank those. I wonder if I'll like it?" Without Package - "Eh, maybe some other time, not worth $12 to see." With Package - "Let's go for it. If I hate it, no harm to my wallet."

Schooner's Bar has 6 different versions of the Tom Collins? Without package, let's stick with just the original. With package, hey one of each!

My favorite cruise memory would not have been possible without the drink package. My husband's 28th birthday we were on the Harmony with friends. Midnight on his birthday we were hanging out at the casino and decided to get drinks at the bar. The bartender was AMAZING, we pretty much had drinks and shots flowing non-stop and were having a great time chatting with the bartender and just enjoying ourselves. We've actually planned future cruises around that bartender's contract (which reminds me, I need to figure out if she's on Symphony now, last we saw her on Harmony she said they would move her to Symphony once it launched)

Thanks all. I'm a beer drinker, occasionally a glass of wine or the occasional pina colada if I'm in a sunny locale (this is an Alaska cruise so little chance of that :P). I don't like mixed drinks, so would never order one anyway. I figure with the coffee card, and drinking water otherwise, we'll definitely be better off paying ala carte than getting a drink package. I don't think we've drank $800 worth of alcohol in a year, let alone on a 7 day cruise, even with super inflated prices.

One other thought.... if you get the drink package and you port at Labadee or the other RC port in the Bahamas ,you can use your drink package there also.

My husband got this on our last cruise (booked beforeeveryone in the cabin had to have the same beverage package). We thought it would be fun and relaxing notto worry about buying drinks and figured he would at least break even. Nope. He didn't like the included coffee drinks from Cafe Promenade andeveryday he wanted to go to Starbucks, but he begrudgingly drank his"free" coffee. Fresh squeezedjuices were never convenient for him. Bottledwater wasn’t that easy to get either. And once you add in the sun, the wind andport days he just wasn't up to drinking THAT much. Sure, a day or two he could have had 4drinks...but not 7 days in a row.

... Bottledwater wasn’t that easy to get either. ...

Why was this hard? They seem to give it out very easily at any bar.

we were on the oasis last year and they had a person with a cart of water as we got off the ship on port days. They wrote down our folio number and we took one. So easy

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