Advantage to buying the alcohol pkg on board?

[my3pies]

Can anyone tell me if there's a financial advantage or disadvantage to buying the alcohol packages on board?

[Max Density]

You can use OBC to buy it, instead of pre-paying on your credit card. :D

[Clarea]

Can anyone tell me if there's a financial advantage or disadvantage to buying the alcohol packages on board?

No difference in price, unless they raise the price, in which case it would have been better to buy pre-cruise.

[mark22mac]

I always wait and use my obc towards the price.

[BigDaddyCVO]

Some also wait until the morning of day 2 to purchase drink packages at the prorated price. The reasoning is day 1 is shorter due to embarkation and paying for each drink on day 1 will be less than the daily average of the package if purchased pre-cruise. Personally, I purchase it on day 1 and DW purchases it day 2; we use OBC. As with most things...personal preference.

[ParadiseTattoo]

We did not buy a package on this or our past trips. But drinks were not expensive in my opinion. $5.50 for a beer, $8 for a screwdriver, $12 for a double Jameson all included tip.

[Burtanddi]

Depends on what you drink and how much. Just off the Liberty and for 4 days at $231 inclusive of gratuity and using my $100 OBC against it (making it $131) for me it made sense.

 

My wife doesn't drink a lot. I was able to let her have a few of mine here and there. And no, I don't feel one bit guilty about doing that. I always spaced my buying of drinks at least 5 mins apart and never had an issue. They also allow you to get one bottle of water and a cocktail at the same time. As well my daughter had the soda pack at $21. That was a value buy.

 

You always drink more the first 2 days of a cruise then it usually tapers off a bit. On a long cruise with a bunch of port days I would probably go a la cart. Not every drink is $10 or $14 as everyone on here is convinced. DOTD is $6.95 with the glass, a rum and coke is like $8 beers are around $5-6. Things like Long Island are going to get you into that $10 range as well as the frozen stuff.

[John&LaLa]

Some also wait until the morning of day 2 to purchase drink packages at the prorated price. The reasoning is day 1 is shorter due to embarkation and paying for each drink on day 1 will be less than the daily average of the package if purchased pre-cruise. Personally, I purchase it on day 1 and DW purchases it day 2; we use OBC. As with most things...personal preference.

 

How many drinks will you need before noon. :what:

 

If you plan on getting it, go all in and hit the ground running. :D

[Frankmac]

What is this OBC thing all you Americans speak of ? :D

[sky0000547]

What is this OBC thing all you Americans speak of ? :D

 

OBC stands for onboard credit but RCI likes to call it onboard spend. It is a prepaid amount in your onboard account.

 

You can generally receive OBC for purchasing a cruise and the travel agent or RCI might give you a certain amount of OBC to spend onboard as an incentive.

 

But us UK & ROI cruisers tend to get a raw deal on cruises and not often we get OBC.

[SDA1125]

You can also accumulate points and get OBC by using the royal Caribbean visa card.

[John&LaLa]

You can also accumulate points and get OBC by using the royal Caribbean visa card.

 

Money spent online should count to the bonus as well.

[LMaxwell]

I was reading another thread (Linda's blog report) and she stated that there were discounts onboard for the drink package and that people that prepaid were not afforded the discount retroactively. So there is definitely the possibility of saving money by purchasing onboard versus prepaying.

 

Also, as others have said, some people skip embarkation day as they "miss" a half a day of drinking and just purchase on day two for a prorated amount.

[John&LaLa]

I was reading another thread (Linda's blog report) and she stated that there were discounts onboard for the drink package and that people that prepaid were not afforded the discount retroactively. So there is definitely the possibility of saving money by purchasing onboard versus prepaying.

 

Also, as others have said, some people skip embarkation day as they "miss" a half a day of drinking and just purchase on day two for a prorated amount.

 

See post 8

[Havingfun2010]

Some also wait until the morning of day 2 to purchase drink packages at the prorated price. The reasoning is day 1 is shorter due to embarkation and paying for each drink on day 1 will be less than the daily average of the package if purchased pre-cruise. Personally, I purchase it on day 1 and DW purchases it day 2; we use OBC. As with most things...personal preference.

 

I don't drink too much before 11:00 and I'm usually on the ship by 11:00 so day one is a full day of drinking for me. Also, day 1, which starts at 11:00 and day 8, which ends at 9:00 am is basically a complete day. So 7 days of the package works for me. Especially since day one is filled with sail away parties, and lounging by the pool!

[John&LaLa]

I don't drink too much before 11:00 and I'm usually on the ship by 11:00 so day one is a full day of drinking for me. Also, day 1, which starts at 11:00 and day 8, which ends at 9:00 am is basically a complete day. So 7 days of the package works for me. Especially since day one is filled with sail away parties, and lounging by the pool!

 

Yea, someone gets it. :cool:

[skyking]

Yea, someone gets it. :cool:

 

 

 

On the last day of our Liberty cruise we were drinking Mimosas in the Windjammer while we waited to get off the ship, no problems using our drink package and it was AWESOME!!!

Edited May 5, 2015 by skyking

[John&LaLa]

On the last day of our Liberty cruise we were drinking Mimosas in the Windjammer while we waited to get off the ship, no problems using our drink package and it was AWESOME!!!

 

I knew the soda cups worked, didn't realize bars were even open since accounts were already settled

[karena1]

Can anyone tell me if there's a financial advantage or disadvantage to buying the alcohol packages on board?

 

For me yes. I still have some points from my Royal Caribbean CC to use up. I stopped using the card as it is now pretty much worthless since you cannot combine anything. So for now, I am using my points to get OBC to buy the pkg onboard. Once I use the points up, I will pre-buy the pkg before we go and use the points from my new CC as a direct credit on my CC to pay for it.