Is it worth it to have Drink Package on Port-Intensive Europe/Britain cruise?

[cruisegal415]

I'm not sure the best forum to ask this, but I thought I'd start here.

 

Let me preface this by saying, we just returned from a 7-day music themed cruise where we were at sea 5 of the 7 days and while we are not big drinkers, we opted for the premium beverage package because we were basically on the ship the whole time, going from venue to venue enjoying the music, drinking frozen drinks, having drinks during the shows, and bottles of water were included, as were fancy coffee drinks which I like.

 

We are doing a British Isles cruise next year, very port intensive.  We will be getting off the ship first thing in the am and returning right before sail away. We only have one sea day, and it is not in the warm Caribbean where we would be lying around the pool drinking fruity drinks. That said, our deal with NCL includes a "free" beverage package that adds about $400 in service charges, but when I looked at the beverage packages, the "free" one doesn't include bottled water, which we drink lots of, and doesn't include the coffee drinks.  They offer an "upgrade" to the premium plus package, but that would be another $348 per person, including the service charges.  So basically we'd be paying about $1100 for a beverage package, which seems quite excessive. 

 

Considering all of the above, would it be more cost effective for this cruise to pay-as-you-go for beverages? We would mostly be buying bottles of water every day, maybe fancy coffee once a day for one of us, and wine with dinner most days.  They do sell packages of water (12 liters for $36-outrageous when you can get it cheaper on land, but we are flying to London and don't know if we could pick up a case there). Of course, we can just buy a bottle of water at the port/on land, or even bring along our water thermoses and fill them up before we leave the ship.

 

I think I just talked myself out of the beverage package, but what is your experience with beverage packages on a port-intensive cruise? 

[LHT28]

If you are off the ship a lot of the time  I would just pay as you drink but only you can decide if that is worth it  for you

 

 

We take our own refillable bottles for water  & fill up before heading ashore

You can take a small container of dish soap & wash them nightly

[sparks1093]

That's the thing that turned me off about NCL when Del Rio took over. First they started giving away the drink package, which wasn't a bad thing. But then they started charging people the gratuity that they would have paid had they bought the package. Boo. Then they doubled the price of their drink package in order to charge more for gratuity. Double boo. And then they raised their drink prices and cut what was available on the basic package. Triple boo. Given all that you've said I would forego the drink package and just budget $1100 for drinks. And we would cough up the inflated $36 for a case of water as well just to make sure we had it for excursions (the only reason that we buy water to begin with).

[LHT28]

15 hours ago, sparks1093 said:

. And we would cough up the inflated $36 for a case of water as well just to make sure we had it for excursions (the only reason that we buy water to begin with).

You could just take a refillable water bottle  & use tap water that would save you more $$ 🤔

[sparks1093]

7 hours ago, LHT28 said:

You could just take a refillable water bottle  & use tap water that would save you more $$ 🤔

If saving money were the deciding factor I could, but I don't mostly because we'd have to keep the bottle with us all day. Much more convenient to buy the water and recycle the bottle (plus it is the only water DW will drink, she doesn't like the ship's water at all, or any other water come to think of it).

[weltek]

Question: Why do you need to factor in the upgrade to the premium? If that's a must (e.g., you only like wines or a spirit on that list), given your consumption rate, I would skip it and just buy a bottle for dinner. You can always cork it and bring it back the next night.  

If you remove the need for the premium upgrade, then it's really just simple math. There are enough sample price lists on the NCL forum to make an educated guess about how much buying a few drinks per day would be. Because I agree, you'll drink less on a port intensive cruise. Especially if you come back each day exhausted. So, I suspect it's not worth it to you to take the beverage package perk, but if you really want to cost it out to compare, you can.

Plus, if you don't take that, and you don't care that much about choosing your stateroom location, you can save a lot by booking a sail away cabin rate with NCL. It doesn't come with any of the perks, allowing you to a la carte things according to your needs.
 

[Hlitner]

I do think that drink packages are often a bad investment for many folks on port intensive cruises.  You might want to just evaluate your own drinking habits based on days when you do not get back to the ship until late afternoon.  Also keep in mind that port intensive European cruises tend to wear out folks (especially if they are visiting for the first time) since they are on the go from early in the morning until late afternoon (on most days).  Many of the folks that are up past midnight on sea days are in bed by 10 on busy cruises.   Many drink packages require a person to have at least 5 drinks (sometimes more) a day just to get near breakeven.  And if your ship has Happy Hours and specials that would be another reason to forego a drink package.

 

Hank