Wine purchased at ports of call

[Kittyonions]

hi,

Will be boarding Royal Princess in Barcelona soon, and am not familiar with Princess procedure. Am I allowed to bring on the ship a bottle of wine only on Embarkation or can I purchase a bottle at one of the ports of call. Your advice would be much appreciated, as we are flying from U.K, and with a direct transfer to the ship, we will not have the opportunity to purchase wine prior to boarding.

[Kinkacruiser]

hi,

Will be boarding Royal Princess in Barcelona soon, and am not familiar with Princess procedure. Am I allowed to bring on the ship a bottle of wine only on Embarkation or can I purchase a bottle at one of the ports of call. Your advice would be much appreciated, as we are flying from U.K, and with a direct transfer to the ship, we will not have the opportunity to purchase wine prior to boarding.

 

We were able to take wine on board in Barcelona mid cruise. There is a wine shop in the terminal. That could be dated information since our visit there was in 2014.

[Micahs Grandad]

In Europe they seem to allow wine purchase at ports of call. Was able to bring on a bottle last year in Hawaii also

[IECalCruiser]

hi,

 

Will be boarding Royal Princess in Barcelona soon, and am not familiar with Princess procedure. Am I allowed to bring on the ship a bottle of wine only on Embarkation or can I purchase a bottle at one of the ports of call. Your advice would be much appreciated, as we are flying from U.K, and with a direct transfer to the ship, we will not have the opportunity to purchase wine prior to boarding.

You definitely can bring wine on board at ports of call. Be prepared to pay $15 corkage after the first bottle per person of drinking age per cabin and $15 corkage for any wine consumed in a public area. If I remember correctly, the wine shop at the port in Barcelona is after the Princess security screening.

 

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[wheezedr]

Technically you only get the one bottle free of corkage at embarkation but they tend to be very low key about this and we have brought wine on at other ports without issue. Remember if you bring it to dinner you will be charged corkage there.

[Astro Flyer]

There's additional information in this other current thread that could also help to answer the OP's questions.

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2526722

[skf]

In Europe we have never had a problem bringing wine to the cabin. Many of the ports do security screening in the port building and not on the ship. Bring a corkscrew or look for screwtops. We found a good 1-liter Rosé in Rotterdam for about €5.

Steve

[easyboy]

We were able to bring wine onboard in Europe ports. We ask from Room Service for cork screw and wine glass.

[Kittyonions]

Many thanks everyone for the information I needed. $15 corkage seems very reasonable, given that we should be able to buy some decent wine in South of France and Italy.

[long cruiser]

We bring wine aboard all the time in european ports.We also bring our own corkscrew.

long cruiser

[jefa]

Many thanks everyone for the information I needed. $15 corkage seems very reasonable, given that we should be able to buy some decent wine in South of France and Italy.

 

You could also buy a bottle of wine at your UK airport after you have passed through security and hand carry it onboard the aircraft. All airlines allow that now - even Ryanair!!!

[Micahs Grandad]

We were able to bring wine onboard in Europe ports. We ask from Room Service for cork screw and wine glass.

 

More and more moderately priced wines seem to come in screwtop bottles which we find useful to avoid having to wait on room service for cork screws.

 

Also grab wine glasses periodically from bar and bring back to cabin.

[easyboy]

Agree. Screwtop bottles are more convenient to bring onboard.

 

 

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[danacline]

Depending on your itinerary... We were able to find bottles of Absinthe in Barcelona within sight of the Columbus memorial near the docks. Can't bring it back to the states so drink it there.

 

We got really good wine in Cinque Terre, where the vineyards are populated with lemon trees. We also got really good wine near the summit of Mt. Vesuvius, grown on its slopes. Of course, you should bring back limoncello as well. If you go to Greece, ouzo is good. We also tried retsina (wine with pine resin) and grappa (wine made with leftover residue after the grapes are stomped), and both tasted like cr*p. Not worth the luggage space coming home.

 

Fortunately we were able to pack (11 bottles as I remember) using bubble wrap and cardboard, and made it home with all unbroken.

[Adventures ahead]

We were able to take wine on board in Barcelona mid cruise. There is a wine shop in the terminal. That could be dated information since our visit there was in 2014.

 

Still true.

[skf]

tasted like cr*p. Not worth the luggage space coming home.

 

 

We were in Paris & found a friendly wine shop...Paid 116€ (coulda bought it for $99 in NH) for Dom Perignon, got it home, & hated it.

Give me Asti Spumante instead!

OTOH we brought back some Framboise which went well with ginger ale.

Steve

[spalla]

We bought wine in ports in California and Mexico and we didn't have any problem bringing it on board.

[nini]

Has anyone found good wine at Panama Canal ports? We are doing the

east bound from Los Angeles to Fort Lauderdale. Two bottles will not last

long on this 15 day cruise. :o

TIA

[IECalCruiser]

Has anyone found good wine at Panama Canal ports? We are doing the

 

east bound from Los Angeles to Fort Lauderdale. Two bottles will not last

 

long on this 15 day cruise. :o

 

TIA

You are not limited to two bottles of wine when you board in LA. You just need to pay $15/bottle corkage on additional wines.

 

There appear to be three 15 day itineraries with different ports of call.

 

If you stop at Puerto Vallarta the Walmart across from the pier has had some reasonable wines in the past.

 

If you stop at Fuerte Amador there was a shop that had a small selection of decent wines near the tender dock. By the time we returned from our tour many of the bottles had been sold and there was a significantly lower selection.

 

If you stop at Aruba the Kong Hing Supermarket near the port on Havenstraat had a fairly extensive wine selection to buy a bottle or two for the last two sea days on the way to FLL.

 

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Edited August 30, 2017 by IECalCruiser

[Bethcb]

We will be on the Royal in October Barcelona TA cruise to FLL and plan to pick up a bottle of wine at each port. We will be staying on the ship an additional 10 days when it arrives in FLL so the Spanish wines will be a treat. We always bring our allotted 2 bottles (1 each) at embarkation. After 38 Princess cruises, I can say that we have bought a bottle of wine at many different ports around the world and just put the bottle through the scanner on the ship. Did not try to hide it at all. Never once have we been asked to pay a corkage which we would have gladly paid.

[satxdiver]

We have bought wine at ports of call and brought them back on the ship without any problems. A few times we have been asked for the $15 corkage fee but most of the time we just took them to our stateroom. If you drink them in the stateroom, there is no problem. However if you take them to the MDR or bars, the bottle has to have their stamp on it or they are supposed to charge you the corking fee. We always drink all of our wine in our stateroom as an afternoon treat on the balcony.

 

We have been on B2B and were allowed 1 bottle/pax/cruise such that the first 4 bottles that we had were allowed without the corking fee.