Bringing back bottles of liquor

[CruiseDiva0319]

We leave on Freedom April 8 and will be visiting Cozumel, Labadee, Grand Cayman, and Jamaica. Can someone tell me which island has better prices for purchasing bottles of liquor?

 

Also, how many bottles can each passenger bring back?

[Merion_Mom]

Labadee is a private beach; no liquor stores.

 

Prices are not "great" on Grand Cayman.

 

It's not, in my opinion, worth it to haul bottles back any more. You must pack them in your checked luggage, and you would need multiple layers of protection to trust your bags to those gorilla-esque baggage handlers in the airports.

 

The duty-free legal limit is one liter per adult.

[rubrrick]

There are some "off brand" Jamacian rums that are very tasty, which you might like to bring one home with you.

 

Other than that, as Carol mentioned, it's getting to be more of a hastle to get a bottle home than it's worth.

 

Rick

[masonpips]

We bought ours in Cozumel last year - tequila and some random other items. We brought back a total of six bottles (didn't realize the Western duty free is less than Eastern, but oh well) and packed them in our dirty clothes suitcase, wrapped in brown paper that the on-ship liquor store was nice enough to give us. No issues whatsoever.

 

This year we're planning on bringing 8 sheets of bubble wrap (light-weight, easy to pack!) and buying some in St. Maarten. We really enjoy the "deal" aspect of it and living in a part of the country that doesn't exactly endorse alcohol sales, we find a great variety in the Caribbean.

[cb at sea]

Just make sure the liquor you bring back doesn't put your luggage over the weight limit--sort of defeats the purpose of cheap booze if you have to pay extra to fly it home!

Now, if you're driving--go for it!!!!

[robtulipe]

We leave on Freedom April 8 and will be visiting Cozumel, Labadee, Grand Cayman, and Jamaica. Can someone tell me which island has better prices for purchasing bottles of liquor?

We found Tortuga duty free shops on Grand Cayman to be good especially if you use the $ off coupon ( something like $5 off of a min. $25 purchase) that has been given out at the port talk onboard our previous W. Carib. cruises. Also the duty free shop at the pier in Cozumel is good for Mex. liquor products.

[robtulipe]

It's not, in my opinion, worth it to haul bottles back any more. You must pack them in your checked luggage, and you would need multiple layers of protection to trust your bags to those gorilla-esque baggage handlers in the airports.

This all depends on where you live.

Here in Ontario, Canada, that liter liquor bottle cost us about $30 and DW loves Cruzan coconut rum and OJ. From the last two cruses, this and last month, we brought back three litres (cost $6 each in St, Maarten) each time which might last DW and her friends through this year's trailer season. We wrapped bottles separately with a towel and placed in a sealed plastic bag which we surrounded with clothes in the middle of our luggage and got them back with no breakage or leakage.

Now if we lived in the Philly area, close to Liquor World or the other liquor stores in Claymont, Delaware or could get down easily to State Line in Maryland, I wouldn't bother either. It's been three years but I seem to recall buying $7 to $8 Texas Mickies (60 ozs) bottles of rum and other alcohol there. But since I am now retired and no longer go regularly to the head office in Wilmington,DE, I can no longer do that easily.

[CruiseDiva0319]

Thanks everyone for your responses. We are from Ohio, and we have a few people in our group who are driving back, so they will be bringing any liquor that we buy back in the car with them. We won't have to worry about putting into our checked luggage. On our last cruise, we bought bottles of Tanqueray Gin (I think in St. Martaan) for $13 and the price here for the same bottle is $25. So, we were hoping to take advantage of the same deal if we could.

[mikeblum]

we just got off the AOS last sunday...and brought back 8 bottles for the 2 of us...knowing the issue before we left minneapolis i came armed with all of the needed buffer materials...all available at you local wal-mart...1 or 2 rolls of bubble wrap...1 roll of clear tape...and one 2 gal freezer bag for each bottle...wrap the bottle in bubble wrap and then tape the bubble wrap around the bottle...then put each bottle in a 2 gal. freezer zip lock bag... and buffer with dirty clothes...only issue then becomes the weight of each bag...we even did this to a 3 liter bottle of jack daniles for my nephew and it all got home in one piece and we went thru newark nj. to get home...

[mikeblum]

fyi...the booze options on the western itinerary are not that great when compared to eitherthe estern or southern routes...

[cruiseguy1016]

Tortuga on Grand Cayman. I save a bunch compared to what I pay at home.