Liquor package...

[Hawaiidan]

Question  does HAL  allow you to purchase either of their liquor packages during the cruise.   Say on a 30 day cruise   15 days into the cruise ?

Also it appears  that neither package allows ordering doubles   and that a double   at  even $7.50 with a mixer$ 2-3.5 would exceed the 15 limit !!   Furthur if I were to order a double and a mixer would I get dinged for 3 uses?

Thanks  I am use to Oceania   with no limits on price or number of use.    Help

[kazu]

28 minutes ago, Hawaiidan said:

Question  does HAL  allow you to purchase either of their liquor packages during the cruise.   Say on a 30 day cruise   15 days into the cruise ?

 

I assume you are talking about the SPB & Elite packages.  NO, they don't.

 

If you are on a B2B then on turnaround day you could, but otherwise, the purchase is for the entire cruise.

28 minutes ago, Hawaiidan said:

Also it appears  that neither package allows ordering doubles   and that a double   at  even $7.50 with a mixer$ 2-3.5 would exceed the 15 limit !!   Furthur if I were to order a double and a mixer would I get dinged for 3 uses?

 

You can order a double.  It will count as two drinks on the 15.  MIxers don't count they are part of the drink.  If you order a soda/pop/mixer separately, that is different but for example - a double gin and tonic is 2 drinks.

 

28 minutes ago, Hawaiidan said:

Thanks  I am use to Oceania   with no limits on price or number of use.    Help

 

[Krazy Kruizers]

If you have a true back-to-back cruise -- 2 different confirmation numbers, then on the second cruise you can buy the drink package.

 

But if you have just 1 confirmation, it will depend on the Food and Beverage if he will allow you to buy the signature beverage package on the second half.

[Hawaiidan]

Thanks  to all....   it dosen't look like a good deal from where I sit      Think I will bring on my own mixers and order a few bottles for the room....  Yes drink in the room I know.        Their wine choices seemed awful    When they are selling beer for the same price as Stoli    thats amusing.... and not in a good way 

I guess I was spoiled by other lines....  Thats Ok  I can deal with this

[movie buff]

Just my opinion. If you are on a longer cruise, like 14 days or more, the drink packages are a rip off. Unless of course you drinks lots of acohol from morning to late at night. On my upcoming 17 night Hawaii cruise the premium package is over $2000 for 2 people. You must purchase the package for both people in the cabin. I drink much more than my spouse. It would be a total waste of money in our case.  I have never even been on a cruise where my bill for drinks was anywhere close to $2000.  Keep in mind on a longer cruise the tendency is to drink more at the beginning of the cruise.  By day 10 my body was more or less telling me "NO MORE!  Also if you enjoy wine you have lots more options by not having the drink package because you have by the bottle options too.

I understand some people just like the advantage of not running up a large bill at the end of the cruise.  That is fine if you just do not want to think about it.  I tested the waters last September on a 7 night Alaska cruise. We got two premium drink packages and both ordered anything and everything we wanted. I kept pretty good track of everything we drank from coffee drinks to bottle water, wines by the glass and cocktails. When I added up all what the cost would have been it was actually a few hundred dollars less then the actual drink package cost.  So again the bottom line is the drink package might be a winner if you actually drink 10 or more cocktails a day plus a few morning coffee drinks plus bottled water. I just do not come anywhere close to that number.  In my opinion the cruise line is the real winner in most cases.

[Nang]

The break even point for the Signature Bev Package is 14 alcoholic drinks shared between two people. If you have coffee, sodas or bottled water this number comes down. I am a fairly big beer drinker and my wife averages out at one cocktail a day - its not worth it for us unless it comes as part of a package at a reduced rate. I have booked under explore 4 twice (includes SBP and a Pinnacle dinner) and once the fare drop after the promotion was way more than the cost of the SBP so we refared and did not get the SBP while the other it was line ball and we kept the Explore 4 perks. I have no idea whether we won or lost on the latter and I don't care as I have better things to do than count drinks (but the statistician in me kept telling me I should have counted them and do a post cruise comparison and now I do wonder).

[Krazy Kruizers]

A few years ago we did get the Explore4 which included the Signature Beverage package -- no raise in cruise fare back then.

 

Just out of curiosity I did keep track of the alcoholic drinks we had -- definitely would never but the package -- we don't drink enough to warrant the cost of the package.

[Hawaiidan]

After careful study  and the policy and its limits  how you can use when you have to buy etc  I came up with a simple approach

during the first several days  test the water...see how much you would use and for what.     Then, instead of the package,  Buy a  beverage card for say $150     and order anything any time  much more flexable than the fix term for Beverage package.   Some days you may  not use any.  That would be a waste with the package where you have to drink daily and drink a lot.        Then as need buy another beverage card... sort of pay as you go no pressure  to keep it up.   

I have been on 20 to 40 day cruises... and like food, in the beginning everyone is doing both alot.  As time passes you eat and drink less.    and Less  and Less.       This is human nature and what the cruise lines count on    you may not even want to drink for several days or more at a time.....     So  from where I sit   getting a beverage card as needed rather than a beverage package that requires you to keep up the pace  rain or shine.

[Overhead Fred]

40 minutes ago, Hawaiidan said:

Then as need buy another beverage card... sort of pay as you go no pressure  to keep it up.   

 

On our recent Nieuw Statendam cruise, a fellow passenger (@rkacruiser) reported that the beverage cards were not available on board. I am not sure if this is a new HAL policy or something to do with the "newness" of the NS. Maybe they did not get their supply of "blank" drink cards?

[GPBgal]

Newbie question here. What is the difference between a beverage card and paying by the drink? Is there some discount associated with a beverage card?

I’ve only sailed on Disney until now. They only had packages (which were not worth the price) or pay by the drink options.

[Krazy Kruizers]

2 hours ago, GPBgal said:

Newbie question here. What is the difference between a beverage card and paying by the drink? Is there some discount associated with a beverage card?

I’ve only sailed on Disney until now. They only had packages (which were not worth the price) or pay by the drink options.

 

There is no discount for buying the Beverage Card.

 

We buy the cards because we like that on our shipboard account we will only see a $250 charge for the card.  Charging each drink means that I have a ton of receipts to check at the end of the cruise compared to one receipt for the Card.  We tend to do 21 day cruises and this makes checking the final statement a big deal when we charge the drinks individually.

 

We do get a receipt when we use the card to buy drinks -- I just check it to make certain that we are charged for the right drinks and then just throw out the old receipt.

[RuthC]

2 hours ago, GPBgal said:

Newbie question here. What is the difference between a beverage card and paying by the drink? Is there some discount associated with a beverage card?

There is no financial difference between paying by the drink or using a Beverage Card. The difference is in keeping track of your purchases.
If you buy a beverage card, there is one charge on your account. You keep that purchase slip to proof out against your bill at the end of the cruise. You use the per drink slips to keep track as the balance on the card goes down.
If you pay by the drink, every charge shows on your bill on that last morning. It can be time consuming, and a real bother, to proof out all those slips. Either a longer cruise, or several drinks a day (or both!) can make for more work to do when you are trying to finish up packing, having breakfast, and get off the ship.

[TAD2005]

The break even point for the Signature Beverage Package (SBP) is 6 drinks with a menu price of $7.95 which is about average.    

The SBP is $44.95 per day plus 15% SC, or $51.70.   Between beers, wines and just about all mixed drinks, the average menu price is $7.95.   Divide $51.70 by $7.95 and you get around 6.5 drinks to break even.   The available wines below $9 are not great, which is the weak point of the package.

Recently, most HAL ships have not been including sodas, bottles of water, or non-alcoholic specialty coffees in your daily 15 limit, but they are covered by the SBP.   So with the SBP you have a package that covers your "adult" drinks, plus the equivalent of a "Quench" soda package.   

We generally take cruises with lots of sea days, like Trans-Atlantic, Trans Pacific.   We are on the 28 day Eurodam March 9 Hawaii, Tahiti, Marquesas cruise next month.  We have 17 sea days out of the 28 total.   The SBP will definitely pay for itself on this and all of our other cruises.   And we are not Bill W. candidates, we are on vacation and the captain is driving.

[movie buff]

I totally agree if you were to have 6 alcohol drinks plus a few soft drinks every day you would come out ahead of the game. The bigger issue is when the other adult person in the cabin is forced to also buy the same exact package. If they are a non drinker or even Drink one or two cocktails  a day before dinner you are not going even break even if you buy the package.  On Celebrity cruise line if only one person buys the package that is ok. Holland makes it impossible if you only have one person who is the drinker. Unless of course that one person drinks 12 or more cocktails a day on their own. I suppose there are a few people who will do exactly that. LOL