purchasing wine on board vs. from "gifts and gear"

[39august]

On our Dec. Mariner cruise, I wanted a wine on the list in our GS. None of the wines I inquired about were available. The bars only had about 6 different wines for sale by the bottle.(except Vintages and Champagne bar..with much more expensive wines) So, this time I decided to buy a bottle to be in our Indy suite on embarkation day this Sunday. The price on Gifts and Gear was the same as on board with the gratuity already added in. So, I won't have to buy whatever is available at the bar, maybe paying more than I wanted. We did tell the Mariner beverage manager at the officers' cocktail party for suites that we were very disappointed that very few, if any, of the wines on the suite wine list were available. He told us several changes are being made on wines...I'm sure this means prices going up! We will be back on Mariner in March and will pre-purchase a bottle again. But it will be interesting to see if the wines on the suite list are actually available.

[IBookHePays]

You can now bring two bottles of wine onboard RC ships. Purchase them prior to arriving at the port and just walk on with your wine of choice!:)

[39august]

Yes, I have done that. But we wanted more than two bottles!

[critterchick]

It won't help on the first day of the cruise, but you can purchase a bottle of any wine on the full wine list from the dining room or from the Windjammer (when the dining room is open), at least that has been our experience. We just ordered them during dinner and told them not to open them, then brought them back to the cabin.

 

Jewel had a new wine list in January that I forgot to take pictures of.:o. But they were the same wines, just presented differently, and our faves were the same price.

 

Also, if the wines aren't available onboard, then ordering through Gifts and Gear won't help - they'll just substitute something else, at least that's what they did to us, saying that what we wanted wasn't onboard. Had they picked a comparable wine we would have lived with it, but it was $15 less expensive, so we escalated with the Concierge and they miraculously found a bottle of what we had ordered.:rolleyes: