2914 - Implementation of the New Wine Policy

[donaldsc]

[quote name='nana51']Not being a drinker I'm trying to understand some of the kerfuffle.:confused: All wine pretty much tastes the same to me. I can't imagine paying $15.00 to drink my own wine that I already bought once. Is really fine wine that important to the enjoyment of your cruise? To me what you drink should be a small factor of being on vacation. I have a ton of friends, we are considered upper middle class, and I can't imagine any of them being this upset over wine. I think HAL knows this and knows most of it's passengers won't care. Which is probably why they enacted this policy. Let's face it, cruising has become something middle class and upper middle class can now afford. Remember when traveling by plane was fun! Cruising isn't quite there but it is beginning the slide. Guess I'm part of the great unwashed that is beginning to cruise now.;)[/QUOTE]

Trader Joes sells "Two Buck Chuck" wine which by the way is now "three buck chuck". It is drinkable if you like three dollar wine in the same way that Kraft singles are cheese to lots of people or Chef Boyardee is great pasta to people who have never had real pasta.

Nobody says that you have to drink expensive wines or even wines at all. However, if some of us can taste the difference between 2 buck chuck and a drinkable wine and are willing to pay the $15 corkage fee, we should not be ripped off by the cruise lines who have decided that they want to rip us off at $8 a bottle for 2-buck-chuck.

DON Edited January 27, 2014 by donaldsc

[Thebes]

[quote name='kazu']actually, if I may - why not take a different approach? bring 2 (TWO) bottles per person and see what happens and feign shock. At the very least they have to return the bottles on the last night so you can always either (a) take them to the MDR or (b) enjoy them in your cabin and invite fellow cruisers if need be.

Why not put them to work and make them store it?[/QUOTE]

Kazu,
I like your idea and your thinking. . I might consider it on my upcoming cruise. Really , why not. Got nothing to lose IMO.

[sail7seas]

[quote name='Wakepatrol']Many cruisers are rather limited in their cruising experiences and even more limited in their understanding of cruise industry finances.
It is very easy to say," Reduce the selling price by 50% and you will sell twice as many and make far more money".
Anyone with basic math skills can demonstrate why that doesn't work.
If it did work, you can bet that General Motors, Coca-Cola, and McDonalds would have started doing it many years ago.

McDonalds sells you a quart of Coca-Cola, badly made from syrup, in a paper cup half filled with ice, that costs them just a few pennies to make. You pay more than a dollar for it. That's quite a substantial mark-up. One might even claim it is downright theft. Is anyone complaining?

Starbucks makes you stand in line - twice - to get a paper cup of coffee that costs just a few pennies to produce. You are quite happily paying $32.00 per gallon for it. Does that seem like some kind of total ripoff to you? I don't hear anyone screaming..............

Have you visited an American movie theater lately? Try to buy a chocolate bar or a box of popcorn in the lobby. You may need to get a 2nd mortgage to afford them. People do complain, but they keep on buying..................

Last year, Americans paid over $14 BILLION for bottled drinking water. Most of that water came from city taps in Atlanta and Dallas. Chances are that the tap water in your home is better quality - and costs you basically nothing. Nobody seems to care. They keep on sucking on those trendy bottles - and throwing them in land-fills all over America..

By the way, Americans paid just $12 BILLION for gasoline that same year (something you cannot make or get at home for a few pennies) and screamed bloody murder at the high prices.

I stayed at the Hilton Hawaiian Village recently. A 12 oz can of coke from a vending machine there is now $3.25. Hilton pays less than 50 cents for that coke. A 650% markup. The machines are often empty because so many people are using them. Are people really that dumb?

The cruise line execs ARE paying attention - and learning a great deal about you, from the points listed above.

Let's look at costs and profits. Many people do not understand them.

A land-based Bar in North America hopes to have an average beverage cost of 8% to 12% in order to stay profitable.
Simply put, if the drink costs them 8 cents to make, they charge you a dollar for it. It's actually a bit more complicated than that, but you get the picture.

A cruise ship works a bit differently. Most major cruise lines try to keep their beverage costs under 20% most of the time. Transportation, handling, breakage, and theft push their costs higher. The old urban myth of duty free costs keeping their costs down is just that - an old urban myth. Most cruise lines today find is cheaper to buy alcohol from major distributors (tax included), then pay a fortune to fly it halfway around the planet, and pay some local union another fortune to break/steal part of it and deliver the remainder to the ship. Going "Duty-Free" through a government bonded warehouse is far more expensive, time-consuming, difficult - and just not worth it.

So if a cruise line drink costs them 20 cents to make, they charge you a dollar for it. Pretty simple so far, no?
But so far we are talking only about "drinks" - and not wines.

Suppose a cruise line wants to sell a lot of wine.
They need to maintain their 20% cost (or lower) to remain profitable.
The bottle of wine costs them $5. Selling price needs to be $25 to make the 20% cost.

I haven't seen a bottle of wine with a $5 cost on a ship in quite some time.
The cheapest bottle on my ship today costs us just over $8. It's not very good. Nearly half the cost was flying it from California to Hong Kong to get it onto the ship.
That requires a selling price of just over $40 to maintain a 20% cost.

Let's look back at that bar on land.
His costs are generally lower and he needs a smaller cost percentage to stay profitable.
He doesn't have to pay the interest on a $750 MILLION mortgage, and his monthly fuel bill is substantially below the $2 MILLION (and rapidly climbing) that I pay every month.

Of course, he doesn't get to sell cruises to make a profit.
But guess what - my company also makes no profit selling cruises. We sell them at cost most of the time, and below cost to fill those last 50 cabins every week.

He also does not sell much wine.
Most Americans are not wine drinkers; it is mainly just people living on the California Coast, a few areas in the Northeast, and South Florida. Those are the big three wine markets in America; the ONLY big wine markets in America.

But he is also very lucky. Wine almost always has a higher cost of sales. The more wine he sells, the higher his costs go - and the lower his profits fall.
He can easily sell whiskey, vodka, and even beer with costs below 8%. But not wine.
Does he want to sell wine to you? No.

My onboard beverage manager has the same problem - but even worse. His costs on spirits and beer are a bit higher than the land-based bar, but not by much. That's why my ship can sell you a cocktail for about the same price you pay at a Holiday Inn, and still maintain a reasonable +/- 20% cost of sales.
But his wine costs are much higher than those paid on land - mostly due to transportation and handling costs.
Every time he sells you a glass of wine instead of a whiskey, his costs go up and his onboard revenue and profit goes down.
The bulk of his salary comes in the form of an incentive bonus that is based on cost of sales, and overall revenue.
Does he want to sell wine to you? No.
Would he ever suggest lowering the wine prices so that he can sell more, completely sabotaging his costs, killing his monthly salary, and rather quickly losing his job? Not a chance.

Would his Corporate Beverage VP ever want to lower wine prices? No way.
The result would cost the company millions in additional costs and lost revenues.

Would he ever propose having you pay a $20 corkage fee to bring your own wine onboard?
No way. That gives you 4 or 5 drinks for $20 revenue and no cost.
But selling you a bottle of wine - or even better - 4 or 5 cocktails, would get him more revenue and more profit despite the costs.

So now we know the REAL reason why ALL the cruise lines cannot manage to sell even one bottle of wine per passenger per cruise.
We really don't want to. We simply cannot afford it.
The passengers who drink other beverages are subsidizing your cruise.

So, all you wine mavens out there (myself proudly included), how much do you think the cruise lines really value your business?[/quote]



[B] I remember Bruce Muzz's post along the same lines and thank you both for the clear explanation.

I am a wine drinker and aside from a courvasier/cointreau (cognac) after dinner, that is mostly all I drink. Lucky for us DH likes a glass of scotch so maybe HAL doesn't mind too much when we sail. :o I'd hate to think they wish we'd stay away because we both like wine with our dinner.

What you write is clearly understandable and I get it. I'm from the northeast in one of those pocket areas where there are those of us who enjoy our wine.

I will add the one bottle of wine we ever carried aboard any shiip out of over 800 days sailing was because we received it as a gift during a pre-cruise stay and didn't drink it before we boarded. We never did drink it aboard either and it stayed on the counter in our cabin when we left. :)

I sincerely mean it when I say thank you for your time and effort to share your comments.

[/B]

[Aruba]

[quote name='Wakepatrol']Last year, Americans paid over $14 BILLION for bottled drinking water. ... By the way, [B]Americans paid just $12 BILLION for gasoline that same year[/B] (something you cannot make or get at home for a few pennies) and screamed bloody murder at the high prices.[/QUOTE]
I'm curious about the source of that statistic. I have read that the figure is closer to $500 billion. (I'm talking about gasoline, not bottled water.)

[Wakepatrol]

[quote name='sail7seas'][B] I remember Bruce Muzz's post along the same lines and thank you both for the clear explanation. [/B]

[B]I am a wine drinker and aside from a courvasier/cointreau (cognac) after dinner, that is mostly all I drink. Lucky for us DH likes a glass of scotch so maybe HAL doesn't mind too much when we sail. :o I'd hate to think they wish we'd stay away because we both like wine with our dinner.[/B]

[B]What you write is clearly understandable and I get it. I'm from the northeast in one of those pocket areas where there are those of us who enjoy our wine.[/B]

[B]I will add the one bottle of wine we ever carried aboard any shiip out of over 800 days sailing was because we received it as a gift during a pre-cruise stay and didn't drink it before we boarded. We never did drink it aboard either and it stayed on the counter in our cabin when we left. :)[/B]

[B]I sincerely mean it when I say thank you for your time and effort to share your comments.[/B]

[/quote]


This is Brucemuzz's post NOT mine

[sail7seas]

[quote name='Wakepatrol']This is Brucemuzz's post NOT mine[/quote]


[B] No wonder it sounded so familiar. ;)

Thank you for bringing it forward for us to re-read.
It is definitely worth repeating.

[/B]

[taxmantoo]

[quote name='Wakepatrol']This is Brucemuzz's post NOT mine[/QUOTE]

It was then and still is a total bunch of ... :rolleyes:

[alwaysfrantic]

[quote name='OVgirl'][SIZE="3"]Or we could have a CC M&G in the terminal before boarding and drink all your wine for you. I'm sure we'd find a few volunteers.:)[/SIZE][/QUOTE]

All in here!

[Harry1954]

It is quite disheartening to have read of the new wine policy crafted in the ivory tower in Seattle or wherever.

We too are wine drinkers (DW/me), enjoy better quality wines, and, fortunately for us, can afford them. Generally we will order the wines from our wine steward for dinner on short cruises – 12-16 days. There are enough decent wines that we just repeat after a few days and get by.

However, on longer cruises it is quite a challenge for several reasons. First and foremost, there is a very limited selection of premium wines on HAL’s wine list. This creates a problem as it interferes with our enjoyment of the cruise. Thus, we either buy wines on an excursion where we go to a winery, or we will bring back wines from port purchases – always buying high quality alternatives to the HAL wine list and paying the corkage fee as well as a generous tip to the wine steward.

Secondly, on the longer cruises, HAL runs out of the very good wines … for instance, on World Cruise 2011, they ran out of Silverado Cab 2 ½ weeks into the cruise. They also ran out of several other alternatives as well, leaving the choices for cab-style red wines close to zero. On World Cruise 2013, they repeated this process … and included their top wines .. Heitz Cellar being one I clearly remember. There were no high quality white wines either … out of stock. This was very frustrating to us. Fortunately, we had port calls in Hong Kong and Cape Town where we stocked up on alternatives.

We expect HAL to make a profit as that is what they are in business for .. but .. basic management theory puts service-to-customer ahead of profits as service is the horse that lugs the profit cart along … sadly, I am coming to the conclusion that the HAL ivory tower types are missing this.

Fortunately for us, we have Crystal as an alternative … sad to say, we will be forced to limit our bookings on HAL .. being five star doesn’t seem to matter in this type of situation. We want to book cruises where we have a high probability of enjoyment throughout the whole experience.

harry

[Cruzin Terri]

Let's look at it this way. If Macy's doesn't have what I want, I will go to Lord and Taylor, or Saks, or whatever store will carry the product I want.

The same with a cruise. The cruise lines are in business to have happy passengers. When I get a letter from the Office of the President, saying "we know you are unhappy" but we're going to do it anyway, it tells me that HAL does not care if they have unhappy cruisers. So I will go shopping and find what I want elsewhere.

I am using up my final future cruise credits this summer. We will see how it goes. Then we will take it from there.
Terri

[cruz chic]

[quote name='taxmantoo']It was then and still is a total bunch of ... :rolleyes:[/quote]
Good to know you know so much about HALs business.

[cruisemom42]

Anyone who's been exposed to marketing knows it's a tough sell whenever a company cuts back on something that was previously included. It creates a perception of offering less for the same price.

Throughout the last decade, ships have mined alternative additional sources of income and by and large did a good job of "adding" new revenue sources (specialty restaurants, specialty coffee bars, spa/fitness areas, etc) without cutting back visibly.

Then they turned to areas where cuts could be made but were still not too obvious (e.g., they don't have to be "announced") such as substituting less expensive ingredients and simpler preparations in food dishes, or lowered staff/passenger ratios.

Now the low-hanging fruit is mostly gone, and if the cruise lines intend to continue this LOW PRICE war, they will have to make changes in areas that are ever more visible to the passenger.

Perhaps things like the wine policy shouldn't matter so much. But there's something known as "death by a thousand cuts" that perhaps management should take notice of. For some, this policy may be the last straw or the thing that, on top of everything else, causes them to look elsewhere.

[cruz chic]

[quote name='cruisemom42']Anyone who's been exposed to marketing knows it's a tough sell whenever a company cuts back on something that was previously included. It creates a perception of offering less for the same price.

Throughout the last decade, ships have mined alternative additional sources of income and by and large did a good job of "adding" new revenue sources (specialty restaurants, specialty coffee bars, spa/fitness areas, etc) without cutting back visibly.

Then they turned to areas where cuts could be made but were still not too obvious (e.g., they don't have to be "announced") such as substituting less expensive ingredients and simpler preparations in food dishes, or lowered staff/passenger ratios.

Now the low-hanging fruit is mostly gone, and if the cruise lines intend to continue this LOW PRICE war, they will have to make changes in areas that are ever more visible to the passenger.

Perhaps things like the wine policy shouldn't matter so much. But there's something known as "death by a thousand cuts" that perhaps management should take notice of. For some, this policy may be the last straw or the thing that, on top of everything else, causes them to look elsewhere.[/quote]
It would be a good idea if HAL had a better pricing strategy. They gouge the early bookers and give away the farm at the end. People know that and if they can, they will wait. I'm in no hurry to book my next cruise with them because I'm tired of these games. If they had more fair pricing all along they would likely make more money overall and possibly less they would have to chip away.

[taxmantoo]

[quote name='cruz chic'][B][I][U][COLOR="Red"]It would be a good idea if HAL had a better pricing strategy. [/COLOR][/U][/I][/B]They gouge the early bookers and give away the farm at the end. People know that and if they can, they will wait. I'm in no hurry to book my next cruise with them because I'm tired of these games. If they had more fair pricing all along they would likely make more money overall and possibly less they would have to chip away.[/QUOTE]

Good to know you know so much about HALs business.

[Kona921]

[quote name='Harry1954']It is quite disheartening to have read of the new wine policy crafted in the ivory tower in Seattle or wherever.

We too are wine drinkers (DW/me), enjoy better quality wines, and, fortunately for us, can afford them. Generally we will order the wines from our wine steward for dinner on short cruises – 12-16 days. There are enough decent wines that we just repeat after a few days and get by.

However, on longer cruises it is quite a challenge for several reasons. First and foremost, there is a very limited selection of premium wines on HAL’s wine list. This creates a problem as it interferes with our enjoyment of the cruise. Thus, we either buy wines on an excursion where we go to a winery, or we will bring back wines from port purchases – always buying high quality alternatives to the HAL wine list and paying the corkage fee as well as a generous tip to the wine steward.

Secondly, on the longer cruises, HAL runs out of the very good wines … for instance, on World Cruise 2011, they ran out of Silverado Cab 2 ½ weeks into the cruise. They also ran out of several other alternatives as well, leaving the choices for cab-style red wines close to zero. On World Cruise 2013, they repeated this process … and included their top wines .. Heitz Cellar being one I clearly remember. There were no high quality white wines either … out of stock. This was very frustrating to us. Fortunately, we had port calls in Hong Kong and Cape Town where we stocked up on alternatives.

We expect HAL to make a profit as that is what they are in business for .. but .. basic management theory puts service-to-customer ahead of profits as service is the horse that lugs the profit cart along … sadly, I am coming to the conclusion that the HAL ivory tower types are missing this.

Fortunately for us, we have Crystal as an alternative … sad to say, we will be forced to limit our bookings on HAL .. being five star doesn’t seem to matter in this type of situation. We want to book cruises where we have a high probability of enjoyment throughout the whole experience.

harry[/QUOTE]

Thank you for this post. This is where the argument should be focused in the future. I am hopeful that once these changes have been implemented that the powers that be will shift focus to providing more choice as well as increasing the stock levels so that we are not stuck with b and c choices. It's not as if we are requesting some rare vintage. These are commonly found wines that should always be in stock.


3 Star Mariner on HAL

[RJ2002]

[quote name='kazu']actually, if I may - why not take a different approach? bring 2 (TWO) bottles per person and see what happens and feign shock. At the very least they have to return the bottles on the last night so you can always either (a) take them to the MDR or (b) enjoy them in your cabin and invite fellow cruisers if need be.

Why not put them to work and make them store it?[/QUOTE]

[quote name='Thebes']Kazu,
I like your idea and your thinking. . I might consider it on my upcoming cruise. Really , why not. Got nothing to lose IMO.[/QUOTE]

If significant amounts of people were to employ this strategy, it will delay everyone getting on the ship. Please, consider another way to express your dissatisfaction with the new wine policy.

[slimknyzer]

[quote name='Wakepatrol']Do they sell the flask that's a belt buckle,or one for my ankle?[/QUOTE]

Can you bring a full flask onboard?

[kazu]

[quote name='Harry1954']It is quite disheartening to have read of the new wine policy crafted in the ivory tower in Seattle or wherever.

We too are wine drinkers (DW/me), enjoy better quality wines, and, fortunately for us, can afford them. Generally we will order the wines from our wine steward for dinner on short cruises – 12-16 days. There are enough decent wines that we just repeat after a few days and get by.

However, on longer cruises it is quite a challenge for several reasons. First and foremost, there is a very limited selection of premium wines on HAL’s wine list. This creates a problem as it interferes with our enjoyment of the cruise. Thus, we either buy wines on an excursion where we go to a winery, or we will bring back wines from port purchases – always buying high quality alternatives to the HAL wine list and paying the corkage fee as well as a generous tip to the wine steward.

Secondly, on the longer cruises, HAL runs out of the very good wines … for instance, on World Cruise 2011, they ran out of Silverado Cab 2 ½ weeks into the cruise. They also ran out of several other alternatives as well, leaving the choices for cab-style red wines close to zero. On World Cruise 2013, they repeated this process … and included their top wines .. Heitz Cellar being one I clearly remember. There were no high quality white wines either … out of stock. This was very frustrating to us. Fortunately, we had port calls in Hong Kong and Cape Town where we stocked up on alternatives.

We expect HAL to make a profit as that is what they are in business for .. but .. basic management theory puts service-to-customer ahead of profits as service is the horse that lugs the profit cart along … sadly, I am coming to the conclusion that the HAL ivory tower types are missing this.

Fortunately for us, we have Crystal as an alternative … sad to say, we will be forced to limit our bookings on HAL .. being five star doesn’t seem to matter in this type of situation. We want to book cruises where we have a high probability of enjoyment throughout the whole experience.

harry[/QUOTE]

I totally hear your frustration. On our last Prinsendam cruise which was only 31 days (nothing compared to your voyages) the wines we were choosing were gone by the beginning of the second segment. Fortunately they did substitute some decent ones at the same price but...those didn't last long either. Talking to the cellar master, I could sense he wished he was allowed to pick up wines in ports for the ship's cellar and not just his personal stock.

[sail7seas]

[quote name='cruisemom42']Anyone who's been exposed to marketing knows it's a tough sell whenever a company cuts back on something that was previously included. It creates a perception of offering less for the same price.

Throughout the last decade, ships have mined alternative additional sources of income and by and large did a good job of "adding" new revenue sources (specialty restaurants, specialty coffee bars, spa/fitness areas, etc) without cutting back visibly.

Then they turned to areas where cuts could be made but were still not too obvious (e.g., they don't have to be "announced") such as [u]substituting less expensive ingredients and simpler preparations in food dishes, or lowered staff/passenger ratios.[/u]

[/quote]

[B]

You don't think guests noticed these cuts? :confused:

[/B]

[quote]

Now the low-hanging fruit is mostly gone, and if the cruise lines intend to continue this LOW PRICE war, they will have to make changes in areas that are ever more visible to the passenger.

Perhaps things like the wine policy shouldn't matter so much. But there's something known as "death by a thousand cuts" that perhaps management should take notice of. For some, this policy may be the last straw or the thing that, on top of everything else, causes them to look elsewhere.[/quote]

[B] Yes, people have been making theses comments since the new wine policy was announced.

We do not bring wine aboard so for us it makes no difference but for many it is an important issue and I recognize that.

Death by a thousand cuts........
Those cuts are visible.

[/B] Edited January 27, 2014 by sail7seas

[mamaofami]

[FONT=Comic Sans MS][SIZE=3]Only those people who are on CC will be aware of the new wine policy. I think they will be very surprised that their wine will be confiscated. I'd expect delays in boarding.[/SIZE][/FONT]

[kazu]

[quote name='RJ2002']If significant amounts of people were to employ this strategy, it will delay everyone getting on the ship. Please, consider another way to express your dissatisfaction with the new wine policy.[/QUOTE]

While my post was partially tongue in cheek so to speak, I think I can say that there will be plenty of delays on the first few embarkations. There will be many I suspect that will not be aware of the new policy. It's a drastic change and if people checked the 'know before you go' and booked a fair ways out, they will be unaware of the change . And many don't check it if they have sailed a number of times. ;)

I suspect that there will be a lot of surprised passengers and a lot of checking of wine bottles. The crew have it down to a fine art - I have seen them tagging others' liquor at ports :)

But there will be delays I suspect and not from one bottle - but many

[chrispb]

Hmmm. No smokers, no wine drinkers - who's left?:cool:

[jtl513]

[quote name='mamaofami'][FONT=Comic Sans MS][SIZE=3]Only those people who are on CC will be aware of the new wine policy.[/SIZE][/FONT][/QUOTE]Not if they've reviewed the Know Before You Go as they should. Admittedly, most repeat cruises probably don't. Edited January 27, 2014 by jtl513

[sackman]

[quote name='taxmantoo']Thanks for the update and have a wonderful TWO cruises.

We are boarding on Feb 2 and will probably not even bother with going to Total Wines for 2 bottles. Quite different than our usual walking out of there with a case worth approximately the cost of an SA cabin for one person! Oh well ... [B]off to Princess after this one[/B] :([/quote]

This may have been addressed already, but Princess has the exact same policy.

[Cruzin Terri]

[quote name='sackman']This may have been addressed already, but Princess has the exact same policy.[/QUOTE]

Not exactly. Go read the Princess Alcohol policy. It is quite different.
Terri