Help a Mom Out

[Sarcastic Mama]

So, we are going on the Breeze and are looking in to the drink package, things to do, ect.  I'm going over what we can and cannot bring on the ship in the way of drinks and my son asks why I can bring wine on but he cannot bring a bottle of liquor on. I pull up the policy, read it to him and say tough, buy a bottle and have it delivered to your room.  But now my husband is involved saying alcohol is alcohol so what's the big deal.  (Well alcohol isn't all the same, I should know, you two are the reason I drink! )

So, aside from me saying it's the rules get over it, why is wine ok, and a bottle of whiskey not?   My guess is the percentage of alcohol in the drink.  

[joepeka]

I kind of doubt anyone on this board will be able to give an authoritative answer (unless there are closet CCL employees on this board). It sounds like your family isn't taking "those are the rules, deal with it" as an answer but you "might" be able to get something concrete out of Carnival guest relations, if you were to email them and ask. Don't hold your breath but they may actually, miraculously, give you some honest insight.

ETA: you could also post a question on John Heald's FB page and, similarly, hope for an honest answer.

Edited November 27, 2018 by joepeka

[Pyrate13]

I don't know for sure why the rule is like it is but...regardless of whether the guys say alcohol is alcohol so what's the difference, if they do bring liquor it will be taken.

 

(Well alcohol isn't all the same, I should know, you two are the reason I drink! )

I like this line!

[woodman]

Wine is low in alcohol where whisky is much higher. 6 drinks of hard liquor in an evening will make you drunk not so with wine. I am thankful Carnival still allows us to bring 2 bottles of wine on board at embarkation. I you must have hard liquor just buy it online before the cruise and it will be in your room when you get there.

[coevan]

my opinion is wine is more of celebratory liquor and booze is where they make their money. 

 

 

1 hour ago, Sarcastic Mama said:

(Well alcohol isn't all the same, I should know, you two are the reason I drink! )

 

 

classic

[grandmarnnurse]

47 minutes ago, woodman said:

Wine is low in alcohol where whisky is much higher. 6 drinks of hard liquor in an evening will make you drunk not so with wine. I am thankful Carnival still allows us to bring 2 bottles of wine on board at embarkation. I you must have hard liquor just buy it online before the cruise and it will be in your room when you get there.

Maybe 6 glasses of wine won’t do you in, but if I ever had more than 2, I’d be out cold! Lol! Actually, wine does have a higher alcohol content per glass, than a glass of beer. Since my hubby and I never drink any whiskey, I wouldn’t know, but I bet I couldn’t drink more than 1! I usually have a total of 3 drinks per day on a cruise, and need to space them out by hours, or I’d be in poor shape! Just very low alcohol tolerance here.

[GradUT]

It's not the amount of alcohol in wine vs. hard liquor.  It's the number of drinks that each bottle contains. 

A bottle of wine contains about 4 servings and a bottle of scotch contains about 16 servings.    If you assume that Carnival charges $10 each for a glass of wine and a shot of scotch, then Carnival "loses" $40 on your bringing a bottle of wine.  They would "lose" $160 by your bringing on a bottle of scotch.  

 

So, it's all about the money.  

[tinkr2]

24 minutes ago, grandmarnnurse said:

Maybe 6 glasses of wine won’t do you in, but if I ever had more than 2, I’d be out cold! Lol! Actually, wine does have a higher alcohol content per glass, than a glass of beer. Since my hubby and I never drink any whiskey, I wouldn’t know, but I bet I couldn’t drink more than 1! I usually have a total of 3 drinks per day on a cruise, and need to space them out by hours, or I’d be in poor shape! Just very low alcohol tolerance here.

Perhaps but a standard pour of wine is half that of a beer.And people don't often drink half a beer. And many of the trendier beers have a much higher alcohol content. The standard is one 5 ounce glass of wine equals a 5% beer equals a 1.5 ounce liquor pour. 

[CruiseGal999]

2 hours ago, Sarcastic Mama said:

So, we are going on the Breeze and are looking in to the drink package, things to do, ect.  I'm going over what we can and cannot bring on the ship in the way of drinks and my son asks why I can bring wine on but he cannot bring a bottle of liquor on. I pull up the policy, read it to him and say tough, buy a bottle and have it delivered to your room.  But now my husband is involved saying alcohol is alcohol so what's the big deal.  (Well alcohol isn't all the same, I should know, you two are the reason I drink! )

So, aside from me saying it's the rules get over it, why is wine ok, and a bottle of whiskey not?   My guess is the percentage of alcohol in the drink.  

 

I think most cruise lines classify 'Wine & Champagne' as 'Spirits' and Whiskey/Rum/Vodka, etc. is 'Liquor'.  Hard liquor.  Why does this matter?  I don't know but it seems like this is the reasoning the cruise lines use. 

[1025cruise]

Its because its old tradition to bring a bottle of wine on board to toast the beginning of the cruise.

[Saint Greg]

I say just be happy they let you bring any alcohol. The reason doesn't really matter. If you try to bring something other than wine you will lose it.

[cb at sea]

Their ship, their rules.

 

[Treyatl2006]

They do it because some people like to bring their own special, vintage, or imported bottle of wine for celebrations, anniversaries, weddings, honeymoons and etc. 

[ProgRockCruiser]

4 hours ago, woodman said:

Wine is low in alcohol where whisky is much higher. 6 drinks of hard liquor in an evening will make you drunk not so with wine. I am thankful Carnival still allows us to bring 2 bottles of wine on board at embarkation. I you must have hard liquor just buy it online before the cruise and it will be in your room when you get there.

The amount of alcohol in a standard pour of wine (@12%), liquor (at 40%), or beer (@5%) is supposed to be the same - the drink is just diluted to different volumes as part of the overall serving.  So six drinks of hard liquor (single shots, not doubles) will have the same total alcohol as six glasses of wine.

 

As noted, Carnival does this purely to limit the total amount of alcohol - there are 4 to 6 glasses per 750 ml wine bottle, 20-26 servings of liquor per 750 ml bottle.

 

Whether the limit is "for your safety" (they can't control you drinking the whole bottle of liquor in one night) or financial I cannot say.  Draw your own conclusions.

[sparks1093]

11 hours ago, GradUT said:

It's not the amount of alcohol in wine vs. hard liquor.  It's the number of drinks that each bottle contains. 

A bottle of wine contains about 4 servings and a bottle of scotch contains about 16 servings.    If you assume that Carnival charges $10 each for a glass of wine and a shot of scotch, then Carnival "loses" $40 on your bringing a bottle of wine.  They would "lose" $160 by your bringing on a bottle of scotch.  

 

So, it's all about the money.  

Since we're all guessing this is my guess also. I suppose they could be like NCL and charge a corkage fee for every bottle of wine brought on board. 

[Joseph2017China]

14 hours ago, Sarcastic Mama said:

So, we are going on the Breeze and are looking in to the drink package, things to do, ect.  I'm going over what we can and cannot bring on the ship in the way of drinks and my son asks why I can bring wine on but he cannot bring a bottle of liquor on. I pull up the policy, read it to him and say tough, buy a bottle and have it delivered to your room.  But now my husband is involved saying alcohol is alcohol so what's the big deal.  (Well alcohol isn't all the same, I should know, you two are the reason I drink! )

So, aside from me saying it's the rules get over it, why is wine ok, and a bottle of whiskey not?   My guess is the percentage of alcohol in the drink.  

 

Simply "tradition".  Watch the "Love Boat".  Watch "Titanic".  Sailing away was a major event, and drinking wine, and celebrating is part of the tradition. 

 

Part of the tradition was not seeing how much you can drink on the ship.  Plus the sale of drinks, including the price of drinks, increases profit.  All cruise lines, basically keep the tradition of wine, but they price other drinks to "control" the amounts purchased, but keep the profit high. 

 

A bottle of beer costs $0.50 for the ship.  If they sell it for only $2.00 They make $1.50 profit.  The customer, seeing it is so cheap, will buy 3 beers and stop.  So the profit is $4.50.  But they sell it for $7.00 which is $6.50 profit.  The customer says, this is too much! and only buys one bottle.  The cruise line still makes the profit they need, the customer is not as drunk, and everyone is happy! 

[Nic6318]

Hi Sarcastic Mom

 

Off the top it sounds more like you have two children.

 

The question they are really asking is, "Why can't I break the rules?" Now the answer is easier, Why would you obey any rules? If you don't feel you need to abide by rules, then you would have a hard time surviving in society.

 

This discussion over a cruise is silly. There are cruise lines that will allow you to bring alcohol on board. There are also many cruise lines that offer included alcohol packages. So you have options that don't require breaking rules. If you don't like the rules, don't sail with them.

 

The bottom line for both your kids, is to tell them to just grow up.

 

hope this helps

[BoDidly]

So I guess this makes beer a fruit punch?

[StillPooh]

17 hours ago, Sarcastic Mama said:

So, we are going on the Breeze and are looking in to the drink package, things to do, ect.  I'm going over what we can and cannot bring on the ship in the way of drinks and my son asks why I can bring wine on but he cannot bring a bottle of liquor on. I pull up the policy, read it to him and say tough, buy a bottle and have it delivered to your room.  But now my husband is involved saying alcohol is alcohol so what's the big deal.  (Well alcohol isn't all the same, I should know, you two are the reason I drink! )

So, aside from me saying it's the rules get over it, why is wine ok, and a bottle of whiskey not?   My guess is the percentage of alcohol in the drink.  

The two word, easy answer? Profit margins. A bottle of wine is gone in the course of a meal (for most people). A bottle of whiskey would negate your son buying drinks for the duration of the voyage. Selling alcohol is where the cruise line makes their money. 

[pacruise804]

16 hours ago, CruiseGal999 said:

 

I think most cruise lines classify 'Wine & Champagne' as 'Spirits' and Whiskey/Rum/Vodka, etc. is 'Liquor'.  Hard liquor.  Why does this matter?  I don't know but it seems like this is the reasoning the cruise lines use. 

 

I've never heard of Wine or Champagne classified as spirits, rather that spirits/liquor were synonymous.  Growing up in PA we have Fine Wine and Good Spirit stores (as opposed to lousy wine and awful booze shops🙄) and they are the only place you can purchase harder spirits.  They only recently started selling beer and wine outside of distributors or 6 pack shops.

 

OP - my guess is the difference is a combination of economics, alcohol laws, and tradition/acceptable practices.  Even many higher end cruises list including beer or wine with lunch and dinner, but not alcohol and not evening drinks (some might, but not all).

[LuckyStar]

Mom answer:  Because I said so.  

 

Sorry, not helpful, but I couldn't resist.