Drinks package/policy changes?

[Megabear2]

The rule stated one bottle per passenger if I recall? I'm not someone who has ever even considered bringing a soft drink on board never mind a bottle of spirits so cannot say definitely.  However as someone with a rather encyclopedic memory of historic posts I am aware of many stating they take more than that allowance, discussing where to put it, how no one ever checks it etc etc. 

 

P&O are not stupid. If there are reports of people openly using their own bottles of drink as described by some very reliable people on this forum they too will have seen it and be aware.  So two things spring to mind, abuse of a very generous system and onboard incidents being noted and reported.  Add them together and there's the perfect opportunity to stop it.  Some, not all, people were given an inch and took a mile.

 

With the drinks package the cruise line has some control. Go over your 15(!) drinks and legitimately P&O can say no more as per Carlanthony's point.  Again 15 drinks at 15 minute intervals can or not be extreme depending on what the individual can handle.  On a Princess cruise my regularly drinking friend ran out of inclusive drinks by dinnertime  because he was ordering two 330ml bottle of beer to make a pint, you wouldn't have even been aware he'd had the equivalent of 7.5 pints as he easily consumes that and more on his nights out.  If it had been me or my husband however we would have been falling down drunk for sure.  15 G&T's would most likely cause the latter or more severe consequences however the cruise lines most likely haven't encountered many in preceding years who could actually consume that number.  Watching the "camp outs" around the pools on Arvia and Britannia on my three most recent P&O cruises I have the distinct impression many of the new customers are giving that limit a really good try.

[Peter Lanky]

11 hours ago, majortom10 said:

But you cannot compare P&O with Azamara/Silversea/Oceania as they are different standard and far higher cruise prices. You could drink a considerable amount on P&O and still be paying a lot less.

Yes they are higher standard, but not necessarily more expensive as I've previously mentioned. My 20 night cruise on Azamara last November from Gran Canaria to Cape Town was far cheaper than (for example) a 19 night cruise on Arcadia in October this year. Add the P&O drinks package, and the price of the P&O becomes almost double that of the Azamara. We were also booked on an Azamara cruise that we should have been on at this very moment, but was cancelled because of the Red Sea problems, which was 27 nights and also cheaper than the 19 night P&O cruise.

 

Careful choice of cruises can reap dividends. I do a lot of homework. The only reason I went on a P&O cruise this year was because it was so cheap, it would have been foolish to stay at home in January. I also previous said that it was acceptable without being inspiring, and I am glad that we took the cruise, but we managed the trip with our permitted litre of Scotch, which never left our cabin, and no other drinks.

[S1971]

12 minutes ago, Selbourne said:

As for the motivation for this change, I’m inclined to fall on the side of trying to drive up on board spend rather than to deter drunkenness. If it was the latter, then offering drinks packages runs contrary to that objective

 

I totally agree.

 

But what's has suprised me is the number of posts that suggests the frequency of booze related anti-social behaviour has risen so much.

 

If that's the case, P&O need to address this by removing those individuals  instead of removing the odd cabin bottle.

[Cruise enquirer]

Question?

 

I dont want to raise the heat anymore on this thread,but….would i get away with a bottle of Pimms?

 

such are the major questions in life!

 

thoughts?

 

🤯🤯🤯

[Peter Lanky]

1 hour ago, Snow Hill said:

Is this the start of change in a policy of what alcohol you can bring onboard? From the accountants point of view only allowing alcohol purchased onboard to be drunk on board would maximise the profit from those sales, especially with the markup on the price of a single alcoholic drink and non alcoholic as well.

 

To make the changes in one fell swoop would cause a bigger uproar no doubt, factor it in over couple of years then maybe different. So this year prohibit spirits, next year add wine to the list of prohibited items. At the same time raise the price of drinks packages and exclude certain drinks from said packages.

 

The airlines have been doing it for sometime, what used to be included in the fare is now chargeable and you can’t go elsewhere whilst in transit. What next a charge for the number of cases you take onboard that would be a nice little earner from the accountants point of view.

 

Let’s face it Cruise Lines are like any other business they are there to make a profit.

 

Am I being too cynical about the accountants involvement in respect of this policy change?

 

 

No you are not being cynical, because not only cruising, but everything nowadays is ruled by the accountants, and in my opinion they are not very good accountants, being straight out of business school in many cases and have no idea about real life.

Everything seems to be a 'race to the bottom', and I have seen this in employment where the minimum wage is now a target rather than a safety net, with peripheral benefits being removed by stealth. Customer happiness is no longer seen as important.

[S1971]

9 minutes ago, Megabear2 said:

With the drinks package the cruise line has some control. Go over your 15(!) drinks and legitimately P&O can say no more as per Carlanthony's point

 

But would P&O then stop you purchasing on your cruise card, I suspect not.

 

This is what makes the change pointless, they are not going to stop rowdy behaviour by banning to odd in cabin bottle, they need to deal with those who create the behaviour by removing them at one next port.

[Norwayfan1]

We are giving Virgin Voyages a try, later this year.

 

My husband drinks virtually no alcohol, and I don't drink a great deal, so no cruise line will ever make a profit from our bar purchases!

 

However, we like Virgin's concept of the bar tab - a cabin credit that can be spent on any drinks for anyone - that seems much more sensible to us than drinks packages we would not get the value from - or the nonsense about two passengers in the same cabin, having to buy the same drinks package, even if one of them doesn't drink!.

 

Because of a special offer when we booked, combined with a loyalty match, we have a very generous bar tab, which we may well struggle to spend, especially as the cruise fare includes soft drinks anyway, and the loyalty match gives us a daily coffee credit.

 

For passengers who want to buy a bar tab, I think it is possible to buy different values of bar tab and to get 'extra' added to the tab by Virgin as a perk. 

 

 

[crompton21]

We are many posts into this thread.  There seems to be a lot of anger about the removal of the ability to carry spirits onboard, but I don’t think I have seen many complaining about the price increase to the drinks package. 

That leads me to question if smaller numbers are affected by the drinks package cost increase whilst many more are affected by the inability to take spirits onboard.  There have historically been threads (even on here) suggesting how to beat the carry on allowance.  
Whether it’s a good policy or not, responses in this thread may well indicate that there could be a valid reason for introducing it.

[david63]

I think that a few points need to be made.

 

- The number of passengers complaining about this change on here, and other social media sites, is small in relation to P&O's total passengers, so is this a major problem for P&O?

 

- There are some saying that they will not cruise with P&O again - well that happens with every change that is made and yes some do move away but also some don't.

 

- Currently all Carnival brands, and most other cruise lines, are experiencing high volumes of bookings well into 2026 so Carnival as a company will not be the least bit concerned about loosing a few passengers.

 

- The move within P&O for a passenger demographic is towards families, and possibly younger families, and as a generalisation very few of these will be affected by this change.

 

- I would make a guess that the majority of new passengers to P&O don't even know that they are able to take alcohol on board so there is no problem there.

 

Yes this is a change and none of us like changes to things in our life but I am coming to the conclusion that mountains are being made out of molehills over this and in six weeks everyone will have forgotten about it and will be moaning about the next change.

[AndyMichelle]

17 minutes ago, S1971 said:

 

But would P&O then stop you purchasing on your cruise card, I suspect not.

 

This is what makes the change pointless, they are not going to stop rowdy behaviour by banning to odd in cabin bottle, they need to deal with those who create the behaviour by removing them at one next port.

I agree with your whole sentiment, but you do keep saying the 'odd bottle'. 

We took 5 new cruisers with us recently and a big discussion prior to cruising was how much alcohol they can take on board. 

We don't take anything, so they were asking us to take bottles for them. 

A big part of their cruise was 'pre drinks'. 

They are all looking to cruise again, but when we told them of the change, they all said they are not bothered and enjoyed having the pre dinner drinks in a bar, taking in the atmosphere. 

It certainly hasn't put them off. 

Quite often it's a case of 'if you can, you will'. 

If half the passengers boarding took 1 litre, that's a lot of potential income P&O are losing. 

Andy 

[Eglesbrech]

32 minutes ago, S1971 said:

 

But would P&O then stop you purchasing on your cruise card, I suspect not.

 

This is what makes the change pointless, they are not going to stop rowdy behaviour by banning to odd in cabin bottle, they need to deal with those who create the behaviour by removing them at one next port.

I can’t say what the P&O policy is but Princess have the same 15 units drink limit and yes they do indeed let people move to paying by cruise card after that. Seen it several times as the person at the bar is told they have used their daily allowance but a drink is served and charged.

 

In fairness the people we have seen were not rolling drunk so there was perhaps no obvious reason for bar staff not serve them (except perhaps liver damage).

 

As they are the same group perhaps the same policy? Maybe someone else knows definitively 

 

[S1971]

4 minutes ago, AndyMichelle said:

I agree with your whole sentiment, but you do keep saying the 'odd bottle'. 

We took 5 new cruisers with us recently and a big discussion prior to cruising was how much alcohol they can take on board. 

We don't take anything, so they were asking us to take bottles for them. 

A big part of their cruise was 'pre drinks'. 

They are all looking to cruise again, but when we told them of the change, they all said they are not bothered and enjoyed having the pre dinner drinks in a bar, taking in the atmosphere. 

It certainly hasn't put them off. 

Quite often it's a case of 'if you can, you will'. 

If half the passengers boarding took 1 litre, that's a lot of potential income P&O are losing. 

Andy 

 

In the grand scheme of things I'm of the opinion that it is the odd bottle in the odd cabin.

 

 

 

 

[Megabear2]

25 minutes ago, S1971 said:

 

But would P&O then stop you purchasing on your cruise card, I suspect not.

 

This is what makes the change pointless, they are not going to stop rowdy behaviour by banning to odd in cabin bottle, they need to deal with those who create the behaviour by removing them at one next port.

I'd agree removal should happen but unfortunately not in my experience.  Two of the events I have been involved in ended in a quite large group of well behaved passengers being asked to move away from the drunken and abusive passengers, once on Britannia and once on Azura and in the case of the latter extra bottles of champagne were given to the offending bridal party who were hosting an unofficial hen and stag do in the clubhouse.  The next port day we watched to see what happened, yes we saw a removal, it was the mother of the bride being taken into the ambulance with alcohol poisoning, the rest remained on board.  The wedding day arrived and they had a massive fight amongst themselves in the evening.

 

These were two fairly extreme events which I wrote to P&O about as frankly the staff were out of their depth an quite frankly frightened. The replies, which I still have, stated that P&O are not responsible for their guests behaviour.

 

Yes, I cruise at Christmas and New Year and in the Caribbean so obviously people are more likely to kick over the traces a little but on my past two of these I've witnessed drunken teenagers stripping off Argentinian football shirts and dancing on theatre seats after a goal, had a youngster throw up violently on my husband whilst watching a Pulse concert on deck, been physically assaulted by a football fan who didn't like my accent and seen somewhat dubious adult behaviour late night on deck.  All seen and witnessed by staff, all left well alone by security as the offenders were in large groups.  

 

No they aren't deal breakers, I still cruise on P&O and intend to do so for many years. However I doubt those drunken youngsters bought their drinks onboard, so where exactly did it come from?  

[Clodia]

Thank you to those who posted the list of room service drinks. I am perfectly happy with Courvoisier VSOP cognac as opposed to what they used to sell, so will buy a bottle from Room Service for balcony nightcaps. They DO need to widen the range though; gin and whisky drinkers are adequately catered for but not the rest. I shall be writing to P and O on this point.

[GSPG]

3 minutes ago, S1971 said:

 

In the grand scheme of things I'm of the opinion that it is the odd bottle in the odd cabin.

 

 

 

 

It’s not just alcohol, with full up ships the company’s can ‘go to work on us’ extracting every pound they can, wherever they can.

All these additions, extras or less of something are being rolled out gradually, but they are mounting up now.

 

Even for my cruise this Friday, two excursions were cancelled, then renamed with the same itinerary, but an additional £5 & £7 was added to price?

 

From the company’s point of view they must be loving this. Their people who look at the data and pricing and come up with the decisions must be working over time compiling reports because every venture must be a successful one right now.

 

While there appears to be no lull in the demand for cruises, cuts or increases can only go on.
 

Their balance sheets must be looking pretty healthy right now!

[S1971]

4 minutes ago, Megabear2 said:

I'd agree removal should happen but unfortunately not in my experience.  Two of the events I have been involved in ended in a quite large group of well behaved passengers being asked to move away from the drunken and abusive passengers, once on Britannia and once on Azura and in the case of the latter extra bottles of champagne were given to the offending bridal party who were hosting an unofficial hen and stag do in the clubhouse.  The next port day we watched to see what happened, yes we saw a removal, it was the mother of the bride being taken into the ambulance with alcohol poisoning, the rest remained on board.  The wedding day arrived and they had a massive fight amongst themselves in the evening.

 

These were two fairly extreme events which I wrote to P&O about as frankly the staff were out of their depth an quite frankly frightened. The replies, which I still have, stated that P&O are not responsible for their guests behaviour.

 

Yes, I cruise at Christmas and New Year and in the Caribbean so obviously people are more likely to kick over the traces a little but on my past two of these I've witnessed drunken teenagers stripping off Argentinian football shirts and dancing on theatre seats after a goal, had a youngster throw up violently on my husband whilst watching a Pulse concert on deck, been physically assaulted by a football fan who didn't like my accent and seen somewhat dubious adult behaviour late night on deck.  All seen and witnessed by staff, all left well alone by security as the offenders were in large groups.  

 

No they aren't deal breakers, I still cruise on P&O and intend to do so for many years. However I doubt those drunken youngsters bought their drinks onboard, so where exactly did it come from?  

 

Wow, extreme or not, I'm not normally shocked but what you have encountered and the absolute shocking response from P&O would put me off them for life.

 

Regardless of how the alcohol was purchased, no one should have to endure such behaviour anywhere, let alone a cruiseship.

 

I applaud your resilience, if it happened to me I'd never set foot on a P&O ship again.

 

 

[Lee Jones Jnr]

6 minutes ago, Clodia said:

Thank you to those who posted the list of room service drinks. I am perfectly happy with Courvoisier VSOP cognac as opposed to what they used to sell, so will buy a bottle from Room Service for balcony nightcaps. They DO need to widen the range though; gin and whisky drinkers are adequately catered for but not the rest. I shall be writing to P and O on this point.

If gin, whisky and brandy drinkers are well catered for, vodka famously tastes the same from the bottom to the top, what spirits are you asking P&O to add?

[S1971]

4 minutes ago, GSPG said:

It’s not just alcohol, with full up ships the company’s can ‘go to work on us’ extracting every pound they can, wherever they can.

All these additions, extras or less of something are being rolled out gradually, but they are mounting up now.

 

Even for my cruise this Friday, two excursions were cancelled, then renamed with the same itinerary, but an additional £5 & £7 was added to price?

 

From the company’s point of view they must be loving this. Their people who look at the data and pricing and come up with the decisions must be working over time compiling reports because every venture must be a successful one right now.

 

While there appears to be no lull in the demand for cruises, cuts or increases can only go on.
 

Their balance sheets must be looking pretty healthy right now!

 

Nothing surprises me anymore about the lengths not just P&O will go to extract your money.

 

That said P&O (Carnival) seem to be getting experts at it recently.

[Lee Jones Jnr]

7 minutes ago, GSPG said:

It’s not just alcohol, with full up ships the company’s can ‘go to work on us’ extracting every pound they can, wherever they can.

All these additions, extras or less of something are being rolled out gradually, but they are mounting up now.

 

Even for my cruise this Friday, two excursions were cancelled, then renamed with the same itinerary, but an additional £5 & £7 was added to price?

 

From the company’s point of view they must be loving this. Their people who look at the data and pricing and come up with the decisions must be working over time compiling reports because every venture must be a successful one right now.

 

While there appears to be no lull in the demand for cruises, cuts or increases can only go on.
 

Their balance sheets must be looking pretty healthy right now!

You aren't factoring in the cheap cruise prices

[S1971]

1 minute ago, Lee Jones Jnr said:

You aren't factoring in the cheap cruise prices

 

Depends what ship though.

 

The older ships are pricing at times up to £350pppn as previously posted 😳

[Megabear2]

6 minutes ago, S1971 said:

 

Wow, extreme or not, I'm not normally shocked but what you have encountered and the absolute shocking response from P&O would put me off them for life.

 

Regardless of how the alcohol was purchased, no one should have to endure such behaviour anywhere, let alone a cruiseship.

 

I applaud your resilience, if it happened to me I'd never set foot on a P&O ship again.

 

 

Sadly it is possible to encounter this sort of behaviour anywhere so not really cruise specific. However my point, which I've been banging on about more since the physical assault, is that there is more of a fear factor onboard a ship in a "closed" environment and with all the will in the world P&O really don't have an idea of who's onboard.  Apparently the New Year Britannia cruise just passed there was a massive brawl on deck after some champagne bottles were knocked over - a friend was onboard and witnessed this - and the offenders were removed at the next port.  Hopefully a precursor for the future.  

 

I'm aware many on here think these are isolated incidents as thankfully they haven't witnessed them, however a read through the Feefo reviews does seem to suggest more are commenting on undocial behaviour and I noted that the "Code of Conduct" on the website has also been substantially amended at the same time.

 

 

[JeanieC,Aston]

1 hour ago, Mollag said:

You stated in a previous post about people taking opened bottles from the dining rooms which they do and is fair enough but the giveaway is the people bringing full bottles which have quite obviously been used several times before I.e. well stained to the bars several nights on the run and shouting at the staff when they try to remove the empty bottle because they’re taking it home as a souvenir 🤷‍♂️😂

Hi

Just to be a devils advocate,,my wife used to buy a 6 or 12 bottle wine package.

If she finished a bottle in the restaurant she would order another full one from a bar.

How on earth does anyone know were people get the wine from.

As an aside and to support your observation the Prosecco served in the wine package is Conti,,,all the supermarkets sell it for ~£7.50!if you brought 2 or 3 bottles on board how would staff know.

[Clodia]

15 minutes ago, Lee Jones Jnr said:

If gin, whisky and brandy drinkers are well catered for, vodka famously tastes the same from the bottom to the top, what spirits are you asking P&O to add?

Goading again. Well, for a start, Southern Comfort, Liqueurs like Grand Marnier, a wider range of vodkas and cognacs because unfortunately the discerning palate CAN taste the difference. As I have said more than once, I have no objection to buying from P and O, or I would go back to the truly all inclusive lines at their prices, but I expect a good choice.

At least the fact that I can buy a fairly decent cognac onboard means I can take a decent bottle of champagne on with me instead.

Edited May 8 by Clodia

[Lee Jones Jnr]

1 minute ago, Clodia said:

Goading again. Well, for a start, Southern Comfort, Liqueurs like Grand Marnier, a wider range of vodkas and cognacs because unfortunately the discerning palate CAN taste the difference. As I have said more than once, I have no objection to buying from P and O, or I would go back to the truly all inclusive lines at their prices, but I expect a good choice.

It was a perfectly earnest question.

I'm not sure that I have spoken to someone who told me about their discerning palate before who also enthused about Southern Comfort.

Cognacs yes, though you said that you are satisfied with that, vodka is vodka, people pretending that they can tell the difference between Smirnoff and Grey Goose or higher are drinking the emperors new vodka.

All in all it sounds like you, like me, will be cruising elsewhere, though our reasons are different.

[Clodia]

Actually no. I've tried the 6 star lines where everything including decent champagne is constantly on offer, but the prices since the pandemic are eye watering for solos though I am looking at one such line for 2025. In the end, P and O is good value if you get a good cabin (I sometimes do a suite), use the speciality restaurants most nights, and get the deluxe drinks package because I drink quality rather than quantity. I'd never get to 15 alcoholic drinks but I like the more expensive ones.

I do the sums, and will continue to cruise with P and O. Just not every time, whereas before the pandemic I was very much a P and O girl!

Edited May 8 by Clodia