1rst time on X - bringing wine onboard?

[dawne577]

Can you bring wine on at embarkation without stashing it in the luggage, i.e. wine packing boxes. My DH and I usually bring about 6 bottles on when sailing Disney/Princess. I know the official line is "with prior approval" but what is your experience?

[canderson]

Can you bring wine on at embarkation without stashing it in the luggage, i.e. wine packing boxes. My DH and I usually bring about 6 bottles on when sailing Disney/Princess. I know the official line is "with prior approval" but what is your experience?

 

As for taking wine aboard -- no problem. We took 8 bottles along for our recent 11 nt. trip on the Summit for 4, and half a dozen on our April Constellation trip. Looks like we'll have 8 or so on our trip in a couple of weeks. We’ve taken something special with us on each cruise. As reported, there's a $15 corkage charge, clearly signaling Celebrity’s intent, but it is expected that wine will be consumed in the dining room. That said, I’ve heard of corkscrews being delivered to cabins, too.;)

 

Rather than having you ambling into the restaurant with bottles under your arms, the "correct" procedure is to write your cabin and table number on the bottles, and hand them over to your cabin steward for delivery to the dining room. The wine steward will assure that it is held at an appropriate temperature until dinner. Since this typically means an extra run to the restaurant for your assistant cabin steward, be a sport and check the dinner menu early and give them your bottles as early as you are able. I liked to try to assure they had them by 5:00 so as not to interrupt them while they were working over the cabins of those at early seating.

 

Note about wine on Celebrity M-Class ships. Do NOT be bashful about asking to see and order from the specialty restaurant wine list when seated in the main dining room. It's a more complete list with some interesting selections that you won't be seeing on the regular dining room wine list. It's nice if you can let the wine steward know the day ahead, though, if you know the entree schedule. Saves them a run down to the other restaurant.

 

Another nice feature -- if you don't finish a bottle (yours or theirs) at dinner, and it's got the wherewithal to spend an overnight, your wine steward will be happy to store it for you until dinner the next evening. I've even had a few somewhat raw cabernets that actually benefited from the experience.

 

[Longboysfan]

The post above covers it.

Celebrity allows you to carry on.

As long as it is within reason.

You could look ahead at the ports and replenish your stock from there.

They will not take away as you reboard in ports unless you want them to or the store you buy at only sends to the ship.

[canderson]

As it happens, I note that CC's "Alcohol Policies" have recently been put front and center on the main page again.

 

I tried to correct the information being posted by CC the last time they brought forward the "Alcohol Policies" column. I see that again, they're using the brief (but quickly reduced) $20 figure for corkage fees. As I recall, it was raised from $12 to $20, but the resulting uproar caused Celebrity to quickly back down to the current $15 per bottle level. Have emailed CC on this again. Will see if it gets fixed this time.

 

As for CC's comments about "special permission" from "Fleet Operations" -- hogwash. As long as you're not attempting to bring a container load aboard, I have heard NO reports of complaints in recent years by Celebrity at the docks, and they've been x-raying my wine (such bottles are plain as day on these machines) for some years as well. 7 cruises with as many as 8 bottles in the carry-on luggage and not a peep from security.

 

The strongest thing I've heard in the last couple of years (and it's a single anecdotal report at that -- not from the party involved) was a single incidence of the wine being taken at the dock on a Mercury cruise and delivered to the dining room to be held (at the correct temperatures) for the passenger's dining pleasure.

[jb_yvr]

We did the Transatlantic on the Century in Oct, and we bought wine in every port and took on onboard, no problem. No need to hide it - ours was usually in a plane brown bag or plastic carry bag.

 

Our cabin stewart brought us a corkscrew, and we had 4 champagne glasses and 4 wine glasses that they kept replacing during the entire trip. We had a lot of bon voyage wine too.

 

During dinner we drank a lot of wine from both the menu and our own. If you are nice to your sommellier, (s)he will sometimes not even charge you. They like wine as much as you do (I hope - otherwise they have the wrong job!), and can appreciate that you want something else. That was what happened in our case, and he helped make our trip.

[canderson]

During dinner we drank a lot of wine from both the menu and our own. If you are nice to your sommellier, (s)he will sometimes not even charge you. They like wine as much as you do (I hope - otherwise they have the wrong job!), and can appreciate that you want something else. That was what happened in our case, and he helped make our trip.

Just remember that they live on tips, too. They net $5 of the $15 of the normal corkage charge, and that translates to having bought about a $32 bottle of wine from the list at the normal 15% gratuity.