Are there wine packages on Princess?

[Astro Flyer]

 

1 hour ago, Expo67 said:

As the wine package seems to be a wine card that is punched when you want a bottle of wine is there a chance you could get a bottle from the wine card at one of the ships bars to consume there? Appreciate all the information posted. 😉

 

I purchased a 7 bottle wine package on a Royal Princess 7-day cruise a couple of weeks ago & it continues to show it’s only available from dining locations but not from bars or room service.  Although you can get a bottle from a dining room to drink anywhere onboard which I’ve never attempted to do but don’t see why you couldn’t drink the wine at a bar.

Edited May 16, 2019 by Astro Flyer

[crystalspin]

3 hours ago, Ombud said:

Wow. I've not seen happy hour in a long time. Glad its back

You're looking at a two-year-old post and photo, so don't get too excited. I read in a different thread that there is now only one package, the gold one, because there aren't any bottles under $29 any more... and it is inconsistent in availability I believe. 

[Ombud]

3 hours ago, crystalspin said:

You're looking at a two-year-old post and photo, so don't get too excited. I read in a different thread that there is now only one package, the gold one, because there aren't any bottles under $29 any more... and it is inconsistent in availability I believe. 

😞

[paul929207]

On the last few cruises, the silver plan was no longer available.

[Nauticaldreamer3010]

Does anyone have any updated advice on what if any wine packages are now available post the updated wine list on Princess?  We are doing a 31 day cruise on Ruby Princess from Vancouver to Sydney in September and I need to do some serious planning.

[Aus Traveller]

On 5/16/2019 at 1:00 PM, Ombud said:

Wow. I've not seen happy hour in a long time. Glad its back

No. Happy Hour has been discontinued. The post you quoted was posted in June, 2017. A clue is the 15% gratuity that has now been increased to 18%.

[Astro Flyer]

38 minutes ago, Nauticaldreamer3010 said:

Does anyone have any updated advice on what if any wine packages are now available post the updated wine list on Princess?  We are doing a 31 day cruise on Ruby Princess from Vancouver to Sydney in September and I need to do some serious planning.

 

Only the Gold wine package is now available & there hasn’t been any change in the prices as a result of the new wine list.  The Silver packages were eliminated because there were few wines below that limit.

 

Gold Package (wines up to $45 per bottle list price)

7 bottles -- $217 (average of $31 per bottle)

10 bottles -- $290 (average of $29 per bottle)

12 bottles -- $336 (average of $28 per bottle)

 

Like any drink purchases, add an 18% tip to these prices.

Edited June 27, 2019 by Astro Flyer

[Aus Traveller]

5 minutes ago, Astro Flyer said:

 

Only the Gold wine package is now available & there hasn’t been any change in the prices for the new wine list.  The Silver packages were eliminated because there were few wines below that limit.

 

Gold Package (wines up to $45 per bottle list price)

7 bottles -- $217 (average of $31 per bottle)

10 bottles -- $290 (average of $29 per bottle)

12 bottles -- $336 (average of $28 per bottle)

 

Like any drink purchases, add an 18% tip to these prices.

Is 18% gratuity added to the cost of the Gold package - $217 + 18% ?

[Astro Flyer]

Just now, Aus Traveller said:

Is 18% gratuity added to the cost of the Gold package - $217 + 18% ?

 

Yes

[Aus Traveller]

7 minutes ago, Astro Flyer said:

 

Yes

We were planning on buying the Silver package and didn't realise it would have had the 18% added. With it discontinued and an 18% gratuity added to the cost of the Gold package, it makes bringing our own wine and paying corkage a more attractive proposition.  🙂

[Astro Flyer]

Just now, Aus Traveller said:

We were planning on buying the Silver package and didn't realise it would have had the 18% added. With it discontinued and an 18% gratuity added to the cost of the Gold package, it makes bringing our own wine and paying corkage a more attractive proposition.  🙂

 

We always compare our options but when flying to a port will usually get a wine package.  We prefer the Gold package to enjoy a cruise long wine tasting from the new list. 🍷🙂

 

And when we have sufficient OBC the price is great. ☺️

[Aus Traveller]

8 minutes ago, Astro Flyer said:

 

We always compare our options but when flying to a port will usually get a wine package.  We prefer the Gold package to enjoy a cruise long wine tasting from the new list. 🍷🙂

 

And when we have sufficient OBC the price is great. ☺️

Thanks for the information. I can see what you mean about a cruise long wine tasting. 🙂 However, it does get rather expensive. 😒 My husband keeps converting the US dollars to AUD which makes it look even more expensive. I tell him "Forget our dollars. Everything is in US$".

 

We will be in New York for three nights before boarding our ship. From checking on the internet, it looks like there is a wine store virtually next door to our hotel. I think that will be our first place to call when we get into New York.

[Nauticaldreamer3010]

Thanks for the quick and very helpful replies.  Being a long cruise I'm starting to think about the Gold Package anyway and also taking a dozen or so bottles on board at embarkation. Even with the corkage, if it is manageable taking wine on board is still a cost effective option.

[Ombud]

57 minutes ago, Aus Traveller said:

No. Happy Hour has been discontinued. The post you quoted was posted in June, 2017. A clue is the 15% gratuity that has now been increased to 18%.

Oh snap!! I was hoping that was a typo. 

[Astro Flyer]

1 minute ago, Aus Traveller said:

Thanks for the information. I can see what you mean about a cruise long wine tasting. 🙂 However, it does get rather expensive. 😒 My husband keeps converting the US dollars to AUD which makes it look even more expensive. I tell him "Forget our dollars. Everything is in US$".

 

We will be in New York for three nights before boarding our ship. From checking on the internet, it looks like there is a wine store virtually next door to our hotel. I think that will be our first place to call when we get into New York.

 

Hope that works great for you! 🙂  When sailing from Civitavecchia Italy we shop at the market to purchase our favorite Italian wines.

 

1 minute ago, Nauticaldreamer3010 said:

Thanks for the quick and very helpful replies.  Being a long cruise I'm starting to think about the Gold Package anyway and also taking a dozen or so bottles on board at embarkation. Even with the corkage, if it is manageable taking wine on board is still a cost effective option.

 

The new wine list has one of our favorite wines (Castello Banfi Rosso di Montalcino) which is a younger version of Brunello di Montalcino.  With the 12 bottle Gold package the price drops from $39 to $28 and with tip $33.  From Total Wine after adding tax & corkage it’s $39...it’s cheaper buying it with the wine package & we don’t need to carry it onboard.

 

While that probably doesn’t apply to every bottle it does apply for one of our favorite wines. 🍷

[NMTraveller]

We did the Gold package and found some wines that we really liked.  Some that we would purchase at home.

[Nauticaldreamer3010]

We recently cruised on both Ruby Princess and Regal Princess and were very disappointed to hear that the wine packages have been discontinued.  It was even brought up with the Captain who simply said he drives the ship and wine package policy is something for corporate office.

 

[New Cruiser Girl 2]

On 2/20/2018 at 5:52 PM, msmoger said:

 

See above. :D:wine-glass::wine-glass:

Yes,  you can take the unfinished bottle of wine to other bars on board. Ive done it with white and the server even brought an ice bucket to keep my Pino Grigio nice and cold ~

[chrysalis]

On 11/7/2019 at 12:30 AM, Nauticaldreamer3010 said:

We recently cruised on both Ruby Princess and Regal Princess and were very disappointed to hear that the wine packages have been discontinued.  It was even brought up with the Captain who simply said he drives the ship and wine package policy is something for corporate office.

 

The Gold package was available on the Emerald in October....

[Scotmay]

They don't offer them on every cruise longer than 7 days. We were on a 28 day cruise LA to Sydney and they were not offered on this cruise. We weren't told this before the cruise and so we had to buy individual, expensive bottles of wine. We had many days at sea on the Pacific and so had no other option. We weren't too happy about this and never did get a satisfactory explanation as to why!

[OzKiwiJJ]

They also don't offer the wine package at all on Australian cruises. 😡

Edited November 8, 2019 by OzKiwiJJ

[Scotmay]

6 hours ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

They also don't offer the wine package at all on Australian cruises. 😡

My point was that it was a Pacific Ocean cruise and we were days at sea and had no chance to buy wine. So, we were a captive audience. Nowhere on our booking did they tell us there wouldn't be any wine packages. There were a lot of passengers up in arms about this.  Nothing to stop this happening again in my opinion. 

[OzKiwiJJ]

2 hours ago, Scotmay said:

My point was that it was a Pacific Ocean cruise and we were days at sea and had no chance to buy wine. So, we were a captive audience. Nowhere on our booking did they tell us there wouldn't be any wine packages. There were a lot of passengers up in arms about this.  Nothing to stop this happening again in my opinion. 

Then again, they didn't specifically say there would be wine packages, did they? I've always understood that the wine packages weren't always on offer on non-Australian cruises and it was put luck to get them. We did get them on a Med cruise a couple of years ago but they were out of stock of 25% of the wine list which was annoying. And we managed to get them on a repositioning cruise from Australia to Japan last year, much to our surprise.

 

It's certainly an area that Princess needs to provide consistency in, and not only on USD cruises. We recently did a 35 night cruise, Sydney return, and would have loved to have had the wine packages on that one. We did enjoy working our way through the far better wines on the new wine list though, especially the European wines which we seldom get a chance to indulge in very often, but it would have been nice to have had a bit of a discount on them on a long cruise like that. However I wasn't unhappy with our average daily pp drinks spend, we came in well under budget.