Bar Tab for a couple, easy or hard to use up?

[rcrabb1513]

Topic covers it.  Never cruised VV before, always bought the drink package on other cruise lines. 

 

[Lustate]

14 minutes ago, rcrabb1513 said:

Topic covers it.  Never cruised VV before, always bought the drink package on other cruise lines. 

 

Depends how much you drink, and what you drink. Tot up the usual drinks you have on a sea day and a port day, and times that by your itinerary, and we can work out the prices and how many "bundles" to buy. 🙂 

[CineGraphic]

Bottles of champagne are always a good idea for eating up your bar balance.

[rcrabb1513]

13 minutes ago, Lustate said:

Depends how much you drink, and what you drink. Tot up the usual drinks you have on a sea day and a port day, and times that by your itinerary, and we can work out the prices and how many "bundles" to buy. 🙂 

 I should have mentioned looking at a 5 night cruise.  I 'll some math.....

[cantgetin]

Prices of drinks on VV include grats.  Mixed drinks were $9-13, most wines were in the $10-11 range (although obviously you can go much higher).  You can also use your bar tab for smoothies, special coffees/teas.  If you are on the last evening of the cruise and have money left on the tab, you can buy a round for your new best friends, or purchase a bottle of wine or other stuff AT A BAR to take home.  If you purchase at the duty free shop, it is applied to "loot" or your credit card.  But purchased at a bar gets it applied to your bar tab!

If you are getting the "free" bar tab promotion, it hasn't cost you anything, but I understand the concept of not wanting to leave anything unused.  If you purchased the bar tab, you did get a "bonus" amount added, which would have ranged from $50-125 depending on what promo you purchased during.  So, if you spend the $300 you paid, you are "even."  If you use the bonus, so much to the good..

We never found a drink package "worth it" on any other cruise line because we are light drinkers. The bar tab concept works much better...again, based on length of cruise.  The $300 tab can be shared between the two of you, so on a 5 night cruise that is basically $30 per person per day.  That's a whole lot cheaper than any alcohol package I've seen on any other ship!

[gordiej]

A $350-400 bar tab (including bonus) for 2 on a 5-night cruise is $35-40/pp/day, or roughly 3-4 drinks. That's borderline binge drinking (I think 5/day) lol. But if you include specialty coffee, or mocktails, you could still get there, or alternatively a couple of nice ($75+) bottles of wine will do it as well. On a 7-day cruise this is obviously easier, as it's ~$28pp/day. 

[jon81uk]

4 hours ago, gordiej said:

A $350-400 bar tab (including bonus) for 2 on a 5-night cruise is $35-40/pp/day, or roughly 3-4 drinks. That's borderline binge drinking (I think 5/day) lol. But if you include specialty coffee, or mocktails, you could still get there, or alternatively a couple of nice ($75+) bottles of wine will do it as well. On a 7-day cruise this is obviously easier, as it's ~$28pp/day. 

 You think four drinks a day is binge drinking? One by the pool in the afternoon, one with dinner, one with a show and one in the Manor at 11pm. That’s almost nothing really for many people on vacation, four drinks over eight hours. Also realistically many drinks are under $10 so more likely to be five per person per day if having beer or wine with dinner. Some people will have a bottle of wine between them over dinner, that will be $70 alone.

 

on a sea day I might have one drink by the pool (more at Bimini), beer/wine with dinner, a drink while watching a show and then two in the Manor or watching the band through past midnight. 

Edited January 29, 2023 by jon81uk
Autocorrect

[AtSeaWithChris]

It’s easy to spend the bar tab if you buy champagne and $55 shots of whiskey etc. the real question is the value worth the cost up front? You can just skip the bar tab and buy as you go. At best you will benefit from a 33-+ % return on investment if you do buy a bar tab. It’s really up to you and what you will likely spend. 

Edited January 29, 2023 by AtSeaWithChris

[fndecker]

Well drinks and things like Bailey's, Frangelica, Amaretto, etc. were just $7. Some things were $9. Hard to spend $300, let alone $400 if that is all you drink. The fancy drinks of $10-17 might get you there. We had a drink each before sailaway and then there was so much champagne, we couldn't drink anything else that night. Last night of the cruise, we bought a bottle of liquor to spend our $400 and finished with 2 drinks for brunch the day we left the ship

[cantgetin]

October 2022, most mixed drinks were $8-13, lots of wines for about $10 per glass.  If you have money left, buy a bottle of wine or liquor FROM A BAR on the last night.  If you buy it in the store, it is charged to loot.

[tinkr2]

On 1/28/2023 at 11:24 PM, gordiej said:

A $350-400 bar tab (including bonus) for 2 on a 5-night cruise is $35-40/pp/day, or roughly 3-4 drinks. That's borderline binge drinking (I think 5/day) lol. But if you include specialty coffee, or mocktails, you could still get there, or alternatively a couple of nice ($75+) bottles of wine will do it as well. On a 7-day cruise this is obviously easier, as it's ~$28pp/day. 

Thats certainly not binge drinking in anyway in my book. I think even my lightweight elderly mom drinks a mimosa at breakfast and a glass of wine with each meal when on vacation.

 

10 hours ago, fndecker said:

Well drinks and things like Bailey's, Frangelica, Amaretto, etc. were just $7. Some things were $9. Hard to spend $300, let alone $400 if that is all you drink. The fancy drinks of $10-17 might get you there. We had a drink each before sailaway and then there was so much champagne, we couldn't drink anything else that night. Last night of the cruise, we bought a bottle of liquor to spend our $400 and finished with 2 drinks for brunch the day we left the ship

There was a lot of champagne the first day? Im deciding whether to do the pub crawl.

[cantgetin]

15 minutes ago, tinkr2 said:

 

 

There was a lot of champagne the first day? Im deciding whether to do the pub crawl.

Sail away party 6-7:30 on first day.

[_tacocat_]

1 hour ago, tinkr2 said:

Thats certainly not binge drinking in anyway in my book. I think even my lightweight elderly mom drinks a mimosa at breakfast and a glass of wine with each meal when on vacation.

binge drinking is formally defined as 5 drinks at one occasion for men/4 for women, so take from that what you will haha

 

there's about 30 mins of basically all you can drink sparkling wine from all the bars on 15 and 16 during sailaway.  sometimes they have servers floating around with trays too.  plenty of folks end up either missing their dinner reservations on night 1 or being too pooped to go to PJ party as a result

[tinkr2]

3 minutes ago, _tacocat_ said:

binge drinking is formally defined as 5 drinks at one occasion for men/4 for women, so take from that what you will haha

 

there's about 30 mins of basically all you can drink sparkling wine from all the bars on 15 and 16 during sailaway.  sometimes they have servers floating around with trays too.  plenty of folks end up either missing their dinner reservations on night 1 or being too pooped to go to PJ party as a result

Well an entire cruise day int an occasion in my mind. 5 drinks at the party is a lot for me but I guess it depends on the party😃

[krueg2828]

On 1/27/2023 at 11:55 AM, rcrabb1513 said:

Topic covers it.  Never cruised VV before, always bought the drink package on other cruise lines. 

 

We used our $300 tab to buy espresso drinks at the coffee bar to bring to breakfast as well as some alcohol drinks.  We are not heavy drinkers and we managed to erase the $300 in 5 days with a drink here and there.

[Ekposh]

Anyone done Richards Rooftop Happy Hour? Do they have sailaway party and am I right in thinking it's free champagne every night between certain hours? I'll look to maximise that. 

 

On a side note, I was concerned to read 5 drinks is binge drinking 🙂

[jon81uk]

29 minutes ago, Ekposh said:

Anyone done Richards Rooftop Happy Hour? Do they have sailaway party and am I right in thinking it's free champagne every night between certain hours? I'll look to maximise that. 

 

On a side note, I was concerned to read 5 drinks is binge drinking 🙂

On the first night everyone gets free sparkling wine for the sail away at the pool from 6-7pm or thereabouts, the captain will make an announcement. 
then for rockstars only it’s free Moet around 5-6pm in Richard’s rooftop, although it will move for bad weather. 

[cantgetin]

52 minutes ago, Ekposh said:

Anyone done Richards Rooftop Happy Hour? Do they have sailaway party and am I right in thinking it's free champagne every night between certain hours? I'll look to maximise that. 

 

 

Yes....you must be a suite guest or have a special status that gets you access. Sail away party on deck 16 and 17 6-7:30 on the first night is open to all.  

Edited February 7, 2023 by cantgetin

[neverendingcruising]

Admittedly mt memory is a little foggy, but I believe the free bubbly was only 30 minutes in December compared to an hour in September. Would be interested to hear data points from more recent sailings. 

[cantgetin]

1 hour ago, neverendingcruising said:

Admittedly mt memory is a little foggy, but I believe the free bubbly was only 30 minutes in December compared to an hour in September. Would be interested to hear data points from more recent sailings. 

It was definitely an hour on Valiant in October.

[RNPJN]

On 2/7/2023 at 6:43 PM, cantgetin said:

Yes....you must be a suite guest or have a special status that gets you access. Sail away party on deck 16 and 17 6-7:30 on the first night is open to all.  

On our cruise in Oct its was not open for all  only for Suites  

 

 

[cantgetin]

3 hours ago, RNPJN said:

On our cruise in Oct its was not open for all  only for Suites  

 

 

Richard's Rooftop is only for suites and a few special invitees.  The sail away party on embarkation day is held all over decks 15-17 and is open to all with free bubbly at the bars. If you are in a suite, you can do sail away on Richards Rooftop, but for those of us in lowly cabins, it is open all over the open decks to everyone.

[CruisingWalter]

On 1/27/2023 at 11:55 AM, rcrabb1513 said:

Topic covers it.  Never cruised VV before, always bought the drink package on other cruise lines. 

 

 

As others say, it depends on what you drink and how much you drink. You buy the Bar Tab in $300 increments of use it or lose it. I think most folks would be fine with a $300 Bar Tab for the cabin for 5 nights or less and $600 for 7 nights or longer. 

 

If you still have money left on the final night and you can carry liquor on your travels home, you can purchase bottles of wine or liquor from the bars. 

Edited February 18, 2023 by CruisingWalter

[SouthWestEngland]

Bar tabs are not per person, you decide how many of the $300 bar tabs you want for your cabin (depending when you book it, you usually get a bonus amount).  My husband and I had $400 for a 7 night cruise which worked out at just under $30 each per day.  If you are not huge drinkers this is about the right amount.  Because mixers are free soft drinks, they are not charged in the price of a drink like Bacardi and Coke, this is way cheaper than on other cruise lines.

[CruisinShips]

So you can go to any bar and buy a new, unopened bottle of say Tito’s without a problem?