New Drinks Menus and Prices

[Cathygh]

Hi

Can someone who was on the shakedown cruise yesterday post the drinks prices and menus please? I have seen them on social media and the prices have gone up, many cocktails now £7.95 and so not included in the drinks package.

Thanks cathy

[pete14]

1 hour ago, Cathygh said:

Hi

Can someone who was on the shakedown cruise yesterday post the drinks prices and menus please? I have seen them on social media and the prices have gone up, many cocktails now £7.95 and so not included in the drinks package.

Thanks cathy

Just guessing here but would I be right in thinking that if cruises do not leave British waters, taxation / duty on alcohol will be higher than in international waters? 

[sammyh25]

I would be interested in this information as well....  

 

The intention was to buy the drink package before we go and get that cost out the way, but certainly wouldn't do it if a lot of the drinks are now not included!!!  Hopefully if prices have gone up, so will the package threshold.

[cruisenewbie1976]

Just now, pete14 said:

Just guessing here but would I be right in thinking that if cruises do not leave British waters, taxation / duty on alcohol will be higher than in international waters? 

Was just about to say that. Excise duty will be payable on the alcohol served in the bars for the UK only cruises, so the prices might come back down when they start leaving the UK again (or will they just try and make a bit more money?!?).

[majortom10]

4 hours ago, Couple-Somerset said:

Just booked a 4N end of July - I've heard you can now pre-book drinks package - does anyone know when that option appears in cruise planner please?

 

Unless they have changed the rules recently the Ultimate Drinks Package £39-95pppd is only available on cruises 5 nts and longer.

[sandancer]

We are thinking of purchasing the hot drinks package on our 7 night Britannia cruise. Could anyone tell me how much a primo size latte would cost. Would it be good value if we usually had 3 drinks a day each. 

[smilesonfaces]

If they are same prices as Costa restaurants a primo latte is £3.20. At £10.95 a day you would need to have 4 every single day of the holiday to break even. It’s just the advantage of having pre paid and not having to think about prices when onboard. 
I think I will see how bad the free coffee is when I am onboard before I decide ! 

[sandancer]

Good idea. We’ll do the same as I believe you can get it on the second day and just pay for 6 days. I expect to pay more per coffee than in a Costa coffee shop. 
 

[Pink-belle]

11 hours ago, sandancer said:

We are thinking of purchasing the hot drinks package on our 7 night Britannia cruise. Could anyone tell me how much a primo size latte would cost. Would it be good value if we usually had 3 drinks a day each. 

Is Primo the regular? End of 2019 on Britannia that was £2.75.  
 

I’ve seen the Hot Drinks package, does that mean they no longer do the 10 coffees for £21.50? 
 

I don’t actually find the “free” coffee on board unpalatable, and that’s from someone who doesn’t have a jar of instant in their house.  

[LifeonMars]

20 hours ago, Couple-Somerset said:

 

OMG just remembered the 5N rule - either we need to cut down our alcohol consumption by 70% or see if we can get a free upgrade based on our £200 per day drinks bill hahahaha

We did a 4N on MSC in May and thankfully it was drinks included - but if you got a free cruise you had to pay for drinks ----- EVERY drink was priced as £10 or more (which is way way higher than any MSC drinks prices Ive seen before).

Even though we didn't have to pay, our drinks "bill" was on the cabin TV and showed between £270 and £350 per day !!!!

 

.

 

A bottle of bier was £8  with coffee, tea and soda in Bars/dining experiences  a lot less.  The alternative dining experiences were also expensive if you were paying for them £43 for a steak.  Ice Cream was also around £6 for a cone in the Mall, I think the MSC £ pricing structure they used for the first time,  was for accounting purposes  or possibly as most had the premium drinks package , the price structure attempted to get passengers to upgrade to the Premium Plus drinks package at extra £16 day,  which was a shame as quite possibly it may have put  customers trying MSC for the first time off making a future booking.

 

Edited June 25, 2021 by LifeonMars

[MX-Drew]

20 hours ago, Couple-Somerset said:

Even though we didn't have to pay, our drinks "bill" was on the cabin TV and showed between £270 and £350 per day !!!!

 

And people argue a drinks package is not worth it!🤣

[Windsurfboy]

On MSC it looks as if they want everyone to book a package and price drinks to force this, presume it makes admin easier.

 

On P&O with it's  more reasonable drinks it needs thinking about. We don't because we find we can spend the same and get a much better bottle of wine and a good bottle of  bubbly  a day, that does us nicely.   However if it was somewhere tropical (which so far we haven't done on a cruise) we drink cocktails , and would go for the drinks package. 

[wowzz]

5 minutes ago, Windsurfboy said:

On P&O with it's  more reasonable drinks it needs thinking about. We don't because we find we can spend the same and get a much better bottle of wine and a good bottle of  bubbly  a day, that does us nicely.   However if it was somewhere tropical (which so far we haven't done on a cruise) we drink cocktails , and would go for the drinks package. 

And on Princess the package is a no brainer- £30 pppd, and that includes wifi and gratuities. 

[Angel57]

30 minutes ago, wowzz said:

And on Princess the package is a no brainer- £30 pppd, and that includes wifi and gratuities. 

That is a very reasonable deal……

[Britboys]

9 hours ago, wowzz said:

And on Princess the package is a no brainer- £30 pppd, and that includes wifi and gratuities. 

Princess seem to be working very hard to attract P&O cruisers. If I liked larger ships, with the deals on Princess at the moment I would have no hesitation in choosing Princess over P&O - and I base that on my week aboard Coral Princess in July 2019.

[wowzz]

35 minutes ago, Britboys said:

Princess seem to be working very hard to attract P&O cruisers. If I liked larger ships, with the deals on Princess at the moment I would have no hesitation in choosing Princess over P&O - and I base that on my week aboard Coral Princess in July 2019.

I have a sneaking feeling that by 2025, there will be no small ships left in the P&O fleet, in which case Princess might be your de facto choice.

Given the choice between Britannia/Azura versus Sky/Regal Princess, I would think the Princess ships would win hands down,  especially with the Princess Plus package. 

Obviously,  the smaller alternatives such as Fred, Saga etc will be available, but at a cost.

[terrierjohn]

44 minutes ago, Britboys said:

Princess seem to be working very hard to attract P&O cruisers. If I liked larger ships, with the deals on Princess at the moment I would have no hesitation in choosing Princess over P&O - and I base that on my week aboard Coral Princess in July 2019.

Coral Princess was our first cruise on what I consider to be a proper modern cruise ship, back in 2004 on a partial Panama transit, and I think it's still my avatar on CC.

[wowzz]

5 minutes ago, terrierjohn said:

Coral Princess was our first cruise on what I consider to be a proper modern cruise ship, back in 2004 on a partial Panama transit, and I think it's still my avatar on CC.

Our second ever cruise was on Dawn Princess, back in the mid 90s. At the time we thought she was enormous! 

[Britboys]

39 minutes ago, wowzz said:

I have a sneaking feeling that by 2025, there will be no small ships left in the P&O fleet, in which case Princess might be your de facto choice.

Given the choice between Britannia/Azura versus Sky/Regal Princess, I would think the Princess ships would win hands down,  especially with the Princess Plus package. 

Obviously,  the smaller alternatives such as Fred, Saga etc will be available, but at a cost.

I agree with you about the likely demise of Aurora and Arcadia. I'm booked on Aurora next Summer and not entirely convinced she will still be in the fleet then. My de facto choice will in fact be Fred Olsen or, if successful, the newly launched Ambassador Cruises (CMV rising from its ashes). Saga will be too expensive for me as they only have balcony cabins. I accept it will cost me more but I have no desire to sail on the bigger ships, especially on my solo cruises.

[Bazrat]

5 hours ago, Britboys said:

I agree with you about the likely demise of Aurora and Arcadia. I'm booked on Aurora next Summer and not entirely convinced she will still be in the fleet then. My de facto choice will in fact be Fred Olsen or, if successful, the newly launched Ambassador Cruises (CMV rising from its ashes). Saga will be too expensive for me as they only have balcony cabins. I accept it will cost me more but I have no desire to sail on the bigger ships, especially on my solo cruises.

You seam to excluded marella from your choices they run smaller ships

[wowzz]

3 hours ago, Bazrat said:

You seam to excluded marella from your choices they run smaller ships

Marella seem to be a  Marmite cruise line for many people.  

[yorkshirephil]

2 hours ago, wowzz said:

Marella seem to be a  Marmite cruise line for many people.  

You could probably say that about several cruise lines for one reason or another. We used to cruise quite a bit with Thompsons and enjoyed the experience. Since we retired we basically stopped drinking, we still don't really know how that happened, we still like a drink when it suits us and a glass of wine with dinner but don't see any point paying for all inclusive when we won't use it. 

[davemorton]

I'm giving Marella a try in a couple of weeks, so should be interesting.  I must say though, they seem to treat their customers very well.  No over-booking, and for the 3 night cruise I am on, since there is no stops in Scotland now, they are giving all passengers £100 on board spend to compensate. 

[zap99]

6 hours ago, Bazrat said:

You seam to excluded marella from your choices they run smaller ships

As do NCL and RC.

[Denarius]

12 hours ago, Britboys said:

I agree with you about the likely demise of Aurora and Arcadia. I'm booked on Aurora next Summer and not entirely convinced she will still be in the fleet then. My de facto choice will in fact be Fred Olsen or, if successful, the newly launched Ambassador Cruises (CMV rising from its ashes). Saga will be too expensive for me as they only have balcony cabins. I accept it will cost me more but I have no desire to sail on the bigger ships, especially on my solo cruises.

Sadly, so do I. P&O obviously see their future as being in ever larger ships. I suspect (pulls out crystal ball) that we will see these ships leave the fleet within the next few years, with their place as adult only ships being taken by Azura and Ventura. Britannia, Iona and Arvia will remain family ships, perhaps joined by another possibly even larger ship.