Bringing Wine on board & Chef's table

[boatman61]

Hello everyone, my wife and I are sailing out of NY on Caribbean Princess on May 27 and I was wondering if was OK to bring a couple of bottles of wine on board? Also if anyone has any info on Chef's table it would be really apriciated. Thanks in advance;)

[Hlitner]

Princess does not mind you bringing wine aboard although it is supposed to be a reasonable amount. As to the Chefs Table (we have done this on two Princess ships) the problem is getting a reservation. It is first come first serve and you need to call the "dine line" as soon as you get aboard and you need to get aboard as early as possible. Even that is always not good enough. Frequent cruisers who are Platinum or Elite (us) and suite passengers get priority embarkation which means they will usually be able to get aboard very early in the process. What can help you is if they do not start answering the dine line until a later time (on one of our cruises we were nearly the first to get aboard but the dine line was not operating until 1 pm).

 

Hank

[cruisemom42]

Hank has covered most of the bases, but if you have a look on the Princess forum here, you'll find lots more information and reviews on the Chef's Table. I did it and can honestly say it was a wonderful experience and well worth the cost.

[paul929207]

Adding to the problems trying to get the Chef's Table are people doing b2b's. They are on even before boarding starts, so get first shot to sign up.

[lhsail]

We did the Caribbean Princess out of San Juan late March. Everything we had read and heard up to sailing was two bottles of wine, so we left it at that. We had sailed on HAL in January and felt the wine prices were horrible, but felt Princess had some nice options at reasonable prices, so only bringing two bottles on board was fine.

 

As for the Chef's Table, we called the "dine line" as soon as we got on the ship and were fortunate enough to be selected. We got on the ship about 12:30 and with the late San Juan departure were among the first on board. We are also Platinum, so not sure what if any influence that had. It was a great experience and we would highly recommend giving it a shot. By the way, when you call to ask for reservations they will be very non-committal. You won't know for a couple of days if you been selected or not.

 

This was our fourth time on the ship. If you enjoy wine, spend some quality time at Vines.