Queen Anne Drinks Packages Announced

[Solent Richard]

For those on the 'Early' sailings onboard Queen Anne I note that the drinks packages and prices have been added to the 'My Cunard' pages....

 

[Pushpit]

Sames prices as the other ships thankfully, given they were increased a bit a few months ago. On board it would be (from left to right) US$12, $15, $40 and $80, but charged against the OBC.

[bluemarble]

To be consistent, I imagine they will also be applying the existing pricing structure where the price of the Beers, Wines & Spirits option varies by the length of the voyage.

 

Less than 5 nights: $82.50 in advance, $95 on board

5 - 14 nights: $72 in advance, $80 on board

15 - 84 nights: $67.50 in advance, $75 on board

85 nights or more:  $49.50 in advance, $55 on board

 

Edit to add: Yes, the price of the Beers, Wines and Spirits option is $67.50 in advance as listed on our 17-night Queen Anne voyage.

Edited April 2 by bluemarble

[Wonky]

Are the soft drink options reduced on longer cruises as well?

[bluemarble]

Just now, Wonky said:

Are the soft drink options reduced on longer cruises as well?

 

No, the only drinks package where the price varies by the length of the voyage is the Beers, Wines & Spirits option.

[Gheph]

Is the alcohol-inclusive package a good value for the "generally moderate but on vacation" drinker? If one pays a la carte, is there any additional administrative burden to ordering? In other words, does this (or any) drink package make shipboard life less complicated, or is the only difference in one's bill?

[Pushpit]

1 hour ago, Gheph said:

Is the alcohol-inclusive package a good value for the "generally moderate but on vacation" drinker? If one pays a la carte, is there any additional administrative burden to ordering? In other words, does this (or any) drink package make shipboard life less complicated, or is the only difference in one's bill?

My take on this is that these packages are not bargains, and you can sort of see that in the big range of daily rates from longer sailings to the 2 night version. They are priced so that Cunard makes money, no question about that. Unlike with some other companies, Cunard are careful not to cannibalise the pricing (apart from in the USA where sometimes it is bundled into the booking packages). So you may find Valentine's deals on wifi, but so far not on drink packages.

 

If you are a moderate drinker (which is a self-defined term....), depending on exactly what you drink (and perhaps where you are prepared to compromise) then I doubt the package will save you money, particularly if you consider any port days when you may be off the ship. But it's easy enough to do some maths to work that out. The package does remove the 15% service charge of pay-per-drink but I would argue that is just shuffling the numbers around.

 

In terms of practicalities, then the on board account will run through all the transactions, you will usually be auto-billed at the end of the sailing with the total bill, you will get a print out of that on the final night, and you can see it via the mycunard app on board. Clearly a package will greatly reduce the number of entries on that print out, less to check, but in terms of process it still ends up on your credit card without intervention. Cunard may well take an early collection if the bar bill (and everything else) gets too high. 

 

Though it's not consistent, if you are on a package you may not always have to sign for each drink. Some places / staff always make you sign, package or no package, some just wizz it through their gizmo and there is no signing.

 

Some people here find it convenient / makes it easier to relax by being on the package. I think it means "it is one less thing to worry about", in terms of a big bill building up, so there is that convenience factor. On the other hand, as a scientist I don't quite get the logic of paying more (via a package) in order not to worry about a potential (but smaller) bill, but humankind is very diverse.

Edited April 2 by Pushpit

[Gheph]

Thank you for the thoughtful, thorough, and eloquent response!

[D&N]

You need to calculate based on your own expected consumption.

 

The average prices of the drinks we would buy including the 15% charge are: Hot $4.57, Cold $4.07, Alcoholic $11.31. Decent bottle of wine $92.00

 

We have 1 hot drink at 11am and 3.30pm. We have 1 cold drink at lunch, 1 at dinner, and 2 over our evening of dancing. We have 2 x wine at lunch, 1 x aperitif before dinner, 1 x wine at dinner, 2 x wine while dancing, and 1 nightcap before bed.

That totals 2 x Hot, 4 x Cold, and 7 x Alcoholic, which would cost $104.62 per day, or $2,929.31 for two of us in 14 days/nights.

But we will also share a decent bottle of wine split between 2 nights, so 7 bottles over 14 nights.

That would add $644 for 2 weeks, making a total of $3,573.31.

 

For us the package at $72.00 per person per day would cost $2,016. Due to the package the total price of the decent wines would be $515.20, making a total of $2,531.20.

 

To explain our dinner plans; we don't think the wines by the glass are good enough for dinner. But for decent wines our taste buds won't need a full bottle between us each night. We'll share half the bottle and ask the sommelier to keep the rest for another night. Then we'll finish our dinner with a glass from the package list.

 

On days 1 and 8 we'll miss 1 x hot and 2 x wine. But we could do that every day and still be better off.