Armonia Drinks Package Recommendation

[JAGR]

Hi, All:

Just finished booking an Aurea suite on the Armonia for next year out of Tampa.  The package includes the Easy Drink plan.  We want to upgrade to Premium or Premium Plus, but our MSC experience is limited to three cruises in Yacht Club on the Seaside.  Does anyone have Premium or Premium plus drinks lists from Armonia?  DW is a serious red wine drinker, and I like better gins.  I can live without Hendrick's if the Plus plan is not worth buying, and she can live without premium champagne.  Don't really need to have the stocked mini-bar either.  Also, does anyone know if there is a bar or bar service in the Top 13 Solarium?

Thanks for any information! 

 

 

[Até]

My next cruise will be my first with the Easy package, it's going to be interesting because on all other MSC cruises I've either had YC or Deluxe and consider myself a fairly picky drinker.  You can get a deal on the Easy by booking the All In promotion where I think of it as the OBC and WiFi cut the cost of the drinks package from lows of $10pp/day on Armonia to up to $20pp/day on the newer ships.  A lot better than the asking price of $35pp/day, which I would never pay based on what's being offered drink wise.  It's hard to value Easy when booking Aurea, can't really say how you value the other Aurea perks. 

 

The main objection I have to upgrading the Easy package is the horrible rates to upgrade on US sailings.  $37 more for Premium and $44 more for Plus turns me off after multiple sailings with much better value.  Having just sailed Meraviglia with YC Premium around the ship was okay, but I found many, many drinks I would have preferred were not covered.  At least some were available in the YC.  Forget the Champagne bar and specialty restaurants with extremely limited choices there.  Might not be a problem on Armonia?  If you're not going to be happy drinking a lot less with the Easy package then I say go Premium Plus.  I need to start drinking less on cruises so I'm sticking with Easy for now, will report back how that goes.

 

MSC usually puts a bar cart on the Aurea deck of the smaller ships.  On Divina it was a cooler in a side room.  Drink choices were extremely limited.  In the MSC Armonia 360 virtual tour you can see a drink cart on the Aurea deck.

[JAGR]

1 hour ago, Até said:

MSC usually puts a bar cart on the Aurea deck of the smaller ships.  On Divina it was a cooler in a side room.  Drink choices were extremely limited.  In the MSC Armonia 360 virtual tour you can see a drink cart on the Aurea deck.

Thanks, Ate!  I'll look at the video.  An earlier posting talked about a few really good attendants in the Solarium so that should work.  I could use some exercise as well in the worst case!  I got the promotion on the original booking  for Easy.  The upgrade cost I am looking at is $27/day Premium, and the $44 you noted for Premium +.  I did get spoiled by YC on Seaside.  Just trying to get an idea of what they stock on Armonia.  Thanks for the reply. 

[Até]

Sorry, a typo on my post.  $27pp/day to upgrade Easy to Premium.  $378/week or $616/week for Plus in addition to what you already paid for Easy.  Hard for me to justify either.  I'm going to try the promotion discounted Easy for now, but if I ever decide to pay to upgrade it will be to Plus.

[THIS IS US!]

I looked at the list and I find it worth the price. You can search bar menus for the ship and you will see the well choices are very basic. When looking at the old list MSC has (I found on another cc post) it would be equivalent to the old deluxe plan. 
I have posted it here thanks to the cc poster who put it out there on another thread. 

708084582_2018DrinkPackageComparisonGuide.pdf

[Até]

Unfortunately what I have found is that you can't use the old pre Nov, 2018 drinks package charts for comparison to the new drinks packages, other than if you have Premium Plus you can see all the liquor choices available.  I'd estimate 30%+ of the liquor brands listed as covered by Deluxe are not covered by the new Premium.  An even worse problem exists with the wines as Premium covers up to $12, but most of the decent wines have now been priced over that amount, in fact my sailing late last Fall with the old Deluxe plan covering wine to $14 had pretty limited choices compared to earlier sailings.  My sailings with the new Yacht Club package, same as the Premium $12 limit around the ship, was very limited with regards to wines.  Beer drinkers will not be happy with Easy, Premium is needed.

 

The only way to make comparisons is to look at post November 2018 bar menus, which is were the initial price increases took place, and see what is actually covered for the dollar amount of your package.  Even then be careful because I found there were drink price increases since Fall 2019 - particularly with the wines.  Additionally, be aware that the Connoisseur Selection drinks priced within a package with a dollar limit are frequently not included.

[THIS IS US!]

Thanks for the information, that was very informative. Back to the search hopefully we can find the new list and share out. Happy sailing whenever we sail the seas again.

[George C]

I loved premium plus , very high end liquor some that cost 200 a bottle, wine was limited not that much red wine  offered we did have one nice Cabernet, some really good champagne costing 30 a glass is included. 

Edited May 7, 2020 by George C

[THIS IS US!]

43 minutes ago, George C said:

I loved premium plus , very high end liquor some that cost 200 a bottle, wine was limited not that much red wine  offered we did have one nice Cabernet, some really good champagne costing 30 a glass is included. 

Thanks for the reply George. I will definitely be trying some of the higher end liquor as a splurge  

Did you by chance utilize the mini bar or order drinks to the room with the premium plus?

[George C]

I was in yacht club so they did supply that even without package, yacht club got premium for free, did not really use that much. But some really good scotch like Johnny Walker blue and no problem getting doubles, also really high end XO cognacs, I was on seaside which had a nice champagne bar , good selection of French champagne. 

[JAGR]

19 hours ago, George C said:

I was in yacht club so they did supply that even without package, yacht club got premium for free, did not really use that much. But some really good scotch like Johnny Walker blue and no problem getting doubles, also really high end XO cognacs, I was on seaside which had a nice champagne bar , good selection of French champagne. 

You were lucky, or you sailed some time ago.  Had to pay an upcharge $17/person/dya to go to Premium+ on Seaside in March.  If you were sailing that time, they must have taken a shine to you.

[George C]

10 minutes ago, JAGR said:

You were lucky, or you sailed some time ago.  Had to pay an upcharge $17/person/dya to go to Premium+ on Seaside in March.  If you were sailing that time, they must have taken a shine to you.

You are correct , premium was free , but we paid the extra 17 for the premium plus I thought it was definitely worth the extra 17 a day , we were on in November and hopefully will be on this year in November.