Drink tab on 7 day cruise..Cheers package

[crewsweeper]

Everyone  using or not using CHEERS has a different reason/price point.

There are spreadsheets out there to assist if you need to decide based on cost alone ( and you can spice it up by adding more expensive drinks).

But truly in the end, it just comes down to if you WANT to and can AFFORD to buy CHEERS for both adults in the cabin, by all means do so.  If you think it costs too much based on the total price and your budget, don't buy it!

[Joebucks]

9 hours ago, bahacca said:

Why do people use the excuse about trying something new on Cheers, but not without? I will never hit anywhere near the cost of Cheers, and if I see something I want to try, I buy it and try it. I have NEVER thought, "If I had Cheers I'd get that drink on the menu, but because it is going on my sign and sail, I'm not going to."

 

It's either that in their 30-70 years of life, this is the first ever opportunity to try a new drink or it's them trying to justify the purchase.

[Galatz]

What it comes down to is how much do you drink and what you drink. If you drink mostly beer you will need to drink a dozen beers a day. Do you think you would do that every day? If so then it might be worth it. If you think you will have 8 during days at sea and 5 during days you are in port, its not worth it. The best thing to do is just figure out the math. Keep in mind your card is capped at 15 drinks a day, so if you think you will surpass that, definitely do both, but make sure any time you are together she is ordering the drinks, so you can get 30 a day. She can enjoy soda and coffee on the plan too.

 

One our last cruise our total bar bill was $10.56! We got one drink, a mocha chocolate getaway, which was awesome, costed us 8.95 plus gratuities.

 

My wife is not a very big drinker. I enjoy one glass of whiskey with dinner and just used these https://amzn.to/2T5wwEi and they worked great.

[sparks1093]

9 hours ago, bahacca said:

Why do people use the excuse about trying something new on Cheers, but not without? I will never hit anywhere near the cost of Cheers, and if I see something I want to try, I buy it and try it. I have NEVER thought, "If I had Cheers I'd get that drink on the menu, but because it is going on my sign and sail, I'm not going to."

I'm not going to pay money for something if I don't know that I'll like it. We've gotten drinks before that we didn't care for a whole lot and I ended up drinking them anyway because I paid for them. And it's not just the fruity drinks on the menu, it's trying a whiskey sour, a Tom Collins, a martini, an Old Fashioned, a Black Russian, etc. etc. We had the drink package on our last cruise (not on CCL) and that is what we did, found a couple of new favorites that expands our selection somewhat.

 

OP, when we were on Pride we drank what we wanted, when we wanted to. Including the cost of the bottle we bought for the cabin our bar tab for the 7 days for two was $700. When we had the package on our last cruise we definitely made it worthwhile, but we also drank more than we normally do and ingested an awful lot of calories in the process. I doubt that we'll get a package again.

[Bluelock]

I don’t separate bar bill from my total folio bill and still haven’t exceeded $500. I’ll probably spend less this upcoming cruise, the almost $500 was with my ex. I have tried the RCCL equivalent at $42.99 pp/ day for 2, and even with trying every single drink that remotely caught my eye, we still hoarded Red Bulls to break even! 

[hoopersville]

Thank you all!!! One more questions..... does anyone remember the cost of drinks?

Crown and coke

mirtinas

momosa's

and how much the drink of the day is??

[hoopersville]

50 minutes ago, Galatz said:

What it comes down to is how much do you drink and what you drink. If you drink mostly beer you will need to drink a dozen beers a day. Do you think you would do that every day? If so then it might be worth it. If you think you will have 8 during days at sea and 5 during days you are in port, its not worth it. The best thing to do is just figure out the math. Keep in mind your card is capped at 15 drinks a day, so if you think you will surpass that, definitely do both, but make sure any time you are together she is ordering the drinks, so you can get 30 a day. She can enjoy soda and coffee on the plan too.

 

One our last cruise our total bar bill was $10.56! We got one drink, a mocha chocolate getaway, which was awesome, costed us 8.95 plus gratuities.

 

My wife is not a very big drinker. I enjoy one glass of whiskey with dinner and just used these https://amzn.to/2T5wwEi and they worked great.

Thank you!!! Just ordered your suggestion

[grillinchillin]

We end up with a Carnival  Bar Tab around $300. I usually get the DOU card from the Casino, so I can get 5-6 drinks for "free" while gambling in the Casino. We bring our 2 bottles of wine, and usually spend $30 on  drinks in Port. Our next cruise has 5 port days, so our total expenditure will be about $450 for the entire cruise.

 

We try to take advantage of the Half Price Wine on Departure Night in the Steakhouse as well 1/2 Price Drinks on Ships that have a Red Frog Pub on Departure day, normally from 1-3pm.

[MRVEGAS711]

We tested this out 2 years ago. We drank as we would normally drink on a cruise vacation. Bottles of wine during dinner. A couple of blow-out nights and drinking IN THE PORTS as we would normally do. Our bar tab came out to $480.

Cheers would be a waste and a couple of nights, we were happily drunk al a carte.

[amyotravel]

I am willing to try Cheers if I can ever convince myself to take a short cruise again. Can't seem to do less than a week any more 🙂

 

I think if I did Cheers on a longer cruise I would feel like I had to drink more than I usually do on board to make it worth it and I drink enough as-is. 🙂

[heckledtrio]

2 hours ago, hoopersville said:

Thank you all!!! One more questions..... does anyone remember the cost of drinks?

Crown and coke

mirtinas

momosa's

and how much the drink of the day is??

 

I'd say they are roughly comparable to land-based bar/restaurant prices. I have photos of the regular bar menu from my recent Christmas cruise on the Panorama, and mixed drinks were around $10, plus 18% gratuity. Beers were about $6-7. 

[hoopersville]

25 minutes ago, heckledtrio said:

 

I'd say they are roughly comparable to land-based bar/restaurant prices. I have photos of the regular bar menu from my recent Christmas cruise on the Panorama, and mixed drinks were around $10, plus 18% gratuity. Beers were about $6-7. 

THANK YOU! THIS HELPS ALOT

[marci4tony]

We had $300 ish tab for two.  Much less than the cost of the unlimited.

 

[shaneandpamela]

Just got off of the Glory 1/5/20.  We did not buy Cheers.  Our total bar bill for two adults including both alcoholic drinks and coffee shop drinks was $425.90.  We are not "big" drinkers but on ship will grab a drink whenever we feel like it.  We always seem to start the cruise with a drink in our hands thinking "We should have bought Cheers," but by day 5 or 6, we may only have one or two a day.  In 13 cruises we've never come close to the break even for buying Cheers.

[ricew001]

Some thoughts - 

first you folks are light weights. LOL. Hubby hit 15 on a sea day in November. I was probably around 6 or 8 most days.

Trying something new - well the red frog rhum bar had a frozen drink that looked amazing. I tried it. It was sweet. No thanks. I went on to something else.

I have said before - many times so why don't people search the bazillion Cheers thread out here but anyhoooo......

I like pre-paying. I buy ahead of time so that's a savings. Plus I use the 10% off gift card and that's an additional savings. I like not worrying about what my bill is at the end. We did a 7-day to Alaska on our first cruise in 2002 and our bill was $700 for our drinks. I about fainted. This way I budget before the cruise and step on the ship without having the dread of the upcoming bill.

 

And here's that famous spreadsheet. 

Carnival Beverage Package Evaluator (2).xls

[wolft927]

So, Last Cruise my wife and I ( Who like to drink lol...) would have easily had a bar bill more then the $858 it cost for cheers. We have a bloody Mary or 2 in the morning then drink beer and frozen drinks during the day and who knows at night. Add on the bottled water, coffea etc and I bet we would rack up about $1200 to $1500. We are sailing on the Glory this month with our oldest stepson (18) and got cheers. Cheers also gives you the peace of mind not worrying or caring about your bar bill while you are relaxing on vacation

[rukkian]

13 minutes ago, ricew001 said:

Some thoughts - 

first you folks are light weights. LOL. Hubby hit 15 on a sea day in November. I was probably around 6 or 8 most days.

Trying something new - well the red frog rhum bar had a frozen drink that looked amazing. I tried it. It was sweet. No thanks. I went on to something else.

I have said before - many times so why don't people search the bazillion Cheers thread out here but anyhoooo......

I like pre-paying. I buy ahead of time so that's a savings. Plus I use the 10% off gift card and that's an additional savings. I like not worrying about what my bill is at the end. We did a 7-day to Alaska on our first cruise in 2002 and our bill was $700 for our drinks. I about fainted. This way I budget before the cruise and step on the ship without having the dread of the upcoming bill.

 

And here's that famous spreadsheet. 

Carnival Beverage Package Evaluator (2).xls 69 kB · 0 downloads

While I understand the sentiment, and my wife would definitely get it if like RCI, I did not have to for that same reason, as to the Gift card, you can still use gift cards to pay for drinks on the ship, you just add it to your ss card, so that is a wash.  We will be taking several hundred worth of gc onboard in March to pay for any drinks we may order.  We will never spend $1k on drinks in 8 days.  I will probably only have 3 or 4 the whole cruise, as I don't like to drink the day before or the day of a scuba dive, and we have 2 booked.

[momof3cruisers]

4 hours ago, sparks1093 said:

I'm not going to pay money for something if I don't know that I'll like it. We've gotten drinks before that we didn't care for a whole lot and I ended up drinking them anyway because I paid for them. And it's not just the fruity drinks on the menu, it's trying a whiskey sour, a Tom Collins, a martini, an Old Fashioned, a Black Russian, etc. etc. We had the drink package on our last cruise (not on CCL) and that is what we did, found a couple of new favorites that expands our selection somewhat.

 

 

Exactly. I don’t get why that is so hard to understand. I wanted to try most of the drinks at Alchemy but wasn’t sure I’d like them. Husband wanted to try the one with absinthe which he ended up not liking and didn’t drink it. 
 

Prior to Cheers, our drink bill would have been about $300 or so. But that would be with me not trying things I wanted to and hubby really limiting his drinking. Now, if I had to pay for two packages for only one drinker, I wouldn’t do it. Even if your daughter drinks a whole lot of soda, bottled water and coffee, it takes a long time for $2-$4 drinks to add up to $60 a day.

[hoopersville]

9 minutes ago, momof3cruisers said:

Exactly. I don’t get why that is so hard to understand. I wanted to try most of the drinks at Alchemy but wasn’t sure I’d like them. Husband wanted to try the one with absinthe which he ended up not liking and didn’t drink it. 
 

Prior to Cheers, our drink bill would have been about $300 or so. But that would be with me not trying things I wanted to and hubby really limiting his drinking. Now, if I had to pay for two packages for only one drinker, I wouldn’t do it. Even if your daughter drinks a whole lot of soda, bottled water and coffee, it takes a long time for $2-$4 drinks to add up to $60 a day.

Makes total sense. Thank you

[Kri1970]

On our 7 night, we spent $250-300 on drinks total, hubby mostly drinks beer, I think had maybe 4 mixed drinks over the week. I drink martini's, pina colada, or several nights had a couple amaretto and sprite. Probably had 3 drinks each on average per day, something like that, but had a couple port days where we might not have any or had one, and beers hubby usually just bought a bucket and when those were gone, he was done. 

[Joebucks]

4 hours ago, ricew001 said:

I buy ahead of time so that's a savings

69 kB · 4 download

 

If it makes you feel better than paying ahead, by all means. A savings it is not.

[Nic6318]

8 hours ago, hoopersville said:

Thats what i was thinking also. That would be a lot of drinks

 

 

Hi

 

You haven't said what you like drinking, but you have many other options besides the drink package.

 

You know you can bring soda on board as well as the bottle of wine each. They have wine "packages" which would be a good choice if that were your preferred drink. Otherwise, you can order a bottle of alcohol for your cabin. It's a pretty high mark up for the bottle and certainly not as convenient as Cheers, but if a bottle in your cabin would work for you, even with buying other drinks occasionally you wouldn't be spending anywhere close to the cost of the Cheers package for the two of you. Also, don't forget when you are at the different ports, many people will make a point of having a few drinks at a local bar, which is very often less expensive than on the ship. 

 

have a great cruise

[Sean_B]

1 hour ago, Joebucks said:

 

If it makes you feel better than paying ahead, by all means. A savings it is not.

You save 10% by purchasing Cheers before sailing.

[jdemps]

My husband and I typically drink top shelf spirits so our bar bill was $900 on a 3 day cruise our first time back in 2012.

Cheers was introduced shortly after that and we've always purchased cheers from then on. 

My husband says he's drinking for 2 on some days cuz I just can't do it....lol 

The savings is still there though because we would have around a $300 bar tab from just night one.  Night one is the heaviest drinking night for us because we typically meet up with friends for cruises we haven't seen in a while and it's just a straight party celebration!

[ricew001]

16 minutes ago, jdemps said:

My husband and I typically drink top shelf spirits so our bar bill was $900 on a 3 day cruise our first time back in 2012.

Cheers was introduced shortly after that and we've always purchased cheers from then on. 

My husband says he's drinking for 2 on some days cuz I just can't do it....lol 

The savings is still there though because we would have around a $300 bar tab from just night one.  Night one is the heaviest drinking night for us because we typically meet up with friends for cruises we haven't seen in a while and it's just a straight party celebration!

I like ya'll. We should cruise together!! 😂

We always say we go really hard on the first night of vacation!