If your Travel Agent sends a bottle of wine?

[Coochuck]

If a bottle is sent to your stateroom, can you still ask your room steward to have it sent to your table in the dinning room? Has anyone done this since RCCL imposed the 'no wine brought onboard' policy? If so is there still a corkage fee?

[Travel Angel]

If a bottle is sent to your stateroom, can you still ask your room steward to have it sent to your table in the dinning room? Has anyone done this since RCCL imposed the 'no wine brought onboard' policy? If so is there still a corkage fee?

 

I personally just take the wine with me to the dining room and do not ask permission from anyone or request it to be sent for me. When I arrive, I either have them store it to be chilled for the next evening meal, or often they will take it and provide an identical chilled bottle they have on hand that evening. Corkage fee sometimes happens and sometimes not. It is hit and miss.

[willco]

My travel agent always sends a bottle to the room and I sometimes send myself bottles. I have taken them to the dining room with no hassle. I don't think I have been charged corkage, but my bar tab gets so high I may not have noticed.

 

Will

[iheartbda]

I asked this question back in Oct. and got all sorts of answers ranging from, we could only drink it in our cabin, we would pay a corkage fee, we would not pay a fee, we could take it to dinner, to any combination of the previous.

 

Here's what we experienced. The wine was waiting in our cabin chilled in ice accompanied by a corkscrew. I did stop at the dining room and ask about bringing it to dinner. They said by all means bring it and there was no corkage fee. My husband does not drink so they corked it and brought it out the next night.

 

But, like someone else said, it may be hit or miss, just ask.

[katiel53]

It is hit or miss. On Mariner in October, we asked our waiter about bringing it to the dining room. He said we weren't able to do so. I asked to talk to the head waiter. I told him we had done this before as we had no choice as to where it was delivered. He said we could bring it with no corkage fee.

 

I also asked if we could pay the difference and get something else. The head waiter said no. When we went to Portofino, I asked the same question and was told yes, so here we are on the same ship with different answers.

 

Good luck. I think it's if you act like you know you can, you can, lol. Just be firm, but nice.

[Merion_Mom]

R

C

I

 

Really

Consistently

Inconsistent

 

More often than not, there will be no corkage fee charged. If they try, more often than not you can find someone who will tell you that there is no fee and/or will remove the fee for you.

 

This is all since the NO ALCOHOL WHATSOEVER rule came into being.

 

I even had them sending bottles back and forth between the main dining room and Portofino, and no one ever breathed the words "corkage fee".

[rjg41]

Here is from the RCCL web site.

 

"Our extensive Wine Cellar Collection rivals those of the finest restaurants, offering more than 50 bottles of wine and champagne from around the world. Order from the list below and have your favorite bottle delivered to your stateroom or to your table at dinner. Please choose Dining Room delivery if you wish to drink your wine in the dining room (corkage fee is waived). Stateroom delivery indicates you will drink your wine in your stateroom only."

 

The problem comes if it is scheduled for delivery on embarkation day. The rule was that they would not deliver wine on that day to the dining room but only to your cabin. I think that has now changed but not everyone may have gotten the message. If you want it in the dining room make sure whomever orders it, requests it that way. If you wish to bring a bottle of wine purchased through the cruise line to the dining room that was delivered to your cabin try bring the receipt/gift card you should have been given with the bottle of wine and show to the dining staff. That will often work but no guarantees.

 

They do this since many people were bringing personal wine(now smuggled on-board) to the dining room and saying it was a bon voyage gift, thus the policy.

[Neil Down]

Surely the answer is; the bottle, whether purchased by yourself or your travel agent, comes from the cruise line stock and therefore the ship’s price has been paid for it. There should be no “add-on” price otherwise you are paying twice ….and should my agent ever be bounteous enough to buy me a bottle (fat chance I think) that would be my response to anyone who even looked like they were going to suggest corkage. ….Neil

[Woobie]

I know everyone asks about wine, but I didn't see anything about rules for bringing soft drinks on board. Does anyone know of any limitations re:bringing soda's on board? My mom is a coke-a-holic and she'd at least need to bring on a six-pack for a 3 day cruise.

[PrettyLA]

I know everyone asks about wine, but I didn't see anything about rules for bringing soft drinks on board. Does anyone know of any limitations re:bringing soda's on board? My mom is a coke-a-holic and she'd at least need to bring on a six-pack for a 3 day cruise.

 

Yes, you can.

[pmshirl]

I have seen many (including myself) bring soft drinks and bottled water onboard. There has never been a problem with it.

 

For the Wine the TA sends to the cabin, it is so bad...I give it to the Cabin steward, Unopened !

[TerriDHair]

Surely the answer is; the bottle, whether purchased by yourself or your travel agent, comes from the cruise line stock and therefore the ship’s price has been paid for it. There should be no “add-on” price otherwise you are paying twice ….and should my agent ever be bounteous enough to buy me a bottle (fat chance I think) that would be my response to anyone who even looked like they were going to suggest corkage. ….Neil

 

We have had wine sent by our TA on numerous occasions and only one time (on Monarch) did they try to charge a corkage fee when we brought it to the dining room. We firmly argued that as the wine had been purchased from the cruise line, we didn't feel we should pay again. We were told it was RCCL's policy and that the maitre 'd on the Monarch was strict about the waiters enforcing it. Our waiter discreetly told us he would take it off and he did. Upon returning home I contacted the TA, trying to get to the bottom of what the reasoning was, as she had told me there would be no corkage fee. After extensive research, the answer was this:

The TA wine can only be ordered for cabin delivery. If the wine is taken to the DR a corkage fee will apply. The TA price for wine is considerably less than the price a passenger would pay if they ordered the same wine, so the corkage fee makes up the difference.

That said, the issue hasn't arisen since, and on both cruises we've taken since the Monarch cruise we called either the dining room or guest relations (I can't remember who DH talked to at the moment) and requested the wine delivery to be changed to dining room and it was done with no problem.