Wine on board?

[mdwife]

Hello all! I have a question regarding bringing wine onboard. I have read threads that state that HAL lets you bring your own wine on board. The other day one of my co-workers stated that there is a fee if you take your wine into the dining room. Is this true? Does anyone know if we are indeed allowed to bring wine and how much the charge is if there is one? Thank you for your help. I'm new to this and have found lots of great information from reading everyone's posts. :)

[Bfson]

Yes, you can bring your own wine onboard for serving in the dining room or the Pinnacle. There is a corkage fee of $15 per bottle. If you go back a week or so on this board, there is a long thread about this topic that began with a note of mine about taking a full case onboard with no problems. Here's a link to that thread: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=142552

(sorry if the link won't work but if you copy and paste it into your browser it will take you to that thread.)

[mdwife]

Thank you Bob for the info! I appreciate it. We are leaving Saturday for the Western Carribean and I am very very excited! More excited now that I know I can take my favorite wines along! :D

[lgt]

Have a wine question also. Since I am the only one who will be drinking wine, I would like to buy from HAL a couple of bottles to be delivered to our room. If I open a bottle in our room and have a glass before dinner, will it look terribly tacky to take the opened wine with us to dinner? Maybe I should just buy a bottle for our room and buy a bottle from the ship. I just didn't want to be taking more "stuff" in my carryon. Thanks for your help. Usually we just take 5 or 6 bottles on with us, but there won't be anyone else in party drinking it & I can't drink that much (I suppose I could try)

[peaches from georgia]

... Since I am the only one who will be drinking wine, I would like to buy from HAL a couple of bottles to be delivered to our room. If I open a bottle in our room and have a glass before dinner, will it look terribly tacky to take the opened wine with us to dinner? ...
I would order the 2 bottles from HAL's Ships Services and have them waiting in your cabin. Keep one there for in-cabin consumption during the cruise and take the other, unopened , to the dining room. There will be no corkage fee since it was purchased from HAL and the Wine Steward will keep it for you to enjoy with dinner throughout the cruise. That's what I would do anyway. ;)

[zdude]

You should not take an opened bottle of wine into any eating/drinking establishment.

[Bfson]

Not so. On wines that need lots of breathing time, it's perfectly acceptable to open them in advance of arriving in the restaurant, letting them breathe (even decanting them) and then replacing the cork. I would agree that taking a half consumed bottle would be tacky.

[Bfson]

Peaches-good idea but an open bottle of wine, after a few days, will go over the hill. They make a product called Private Preserve that is inert gas. You spray it into a partially consumed bottle. It replaces the air with inert gas-and stops the aging (Aging of wine is oxidation. The reaction can't occur without oxygen. And if you keep it in the refrig it slows down any reaction with any bits of air that may be left in the bottle) It's a neat product, cost very little and weighs next to nothing. We use it at our house.

[dakrewser]

I use a Vacu-Vin (http://www.wineaccessory.com/Images/vacolr.jpg) - a pump (with a rubber stopper) that removes the air creating a partial vacuum in an open bottle. Refrigerated white last a week or so, while reds (at room temp) last 3-4 days. More if I decant into a 375 ml btl first.

-dave

[Bfson]

In a test done a few years ago by one of the major wine magazines, they found that the vacuvin didn't pull out enough oxygen but pulled a lot of the components out that gave the wine it's lovely smell. The Private Preserve simply displaces the oxygen with a heavier inert gas.

[peaches from georgia]

Wouldn't it be a lot easier and more relaxing to just purchase a good wine in the dining room and let the Wine Steward worry about serving it? Save your good stuff to drink at home where it doesn't go through all these handling problems? ;)

[Bfson]

It certainly would be easier. But I prefer wines that have some age on them. Most of the wines on the ship are current (more or less) releases. Besides I want to drink very special wines on a cruise and since I have them in my cellar, I like to bring them along. For me, it works. For others, it's probably too much work.

[garydm]

We found a couple of very nice wines on the HAL wine list on our recent cruise. Try the Wente Crane Ridge Merlot-I am not a big merlot fan but this was very good with some substance. Another good one was the King Estate Pinot Noir-which I think is only on the Pinnacle wine list but you can order it in the main dining room also. Surprisingly, there was a very inexpensive Chilean chardonnay-Walnut Crest-that was not bad. We received a bottle of it after our toilet had been inoperative for 7 hours, so we affectionately referred to it as our "toilet wine."

For San Diego departures, I can endorse other's recommendation to visit the Wine Bank (as I recall the name) in the Gaslamp District. Great place with very nice selection at reasonable prices. Picked up a couple of Brunelos that were very nice.

Gary

[Cruising Illini]

On our recent Veendam cruise we were able to buy a package that was for a selection of wines by the glass. They were primarily house wines and about 3 types to pick from. This is very nice when only one or two are drinking and saves keeping an open bottle. They sell an envelope with coupons in it and you simply ask the wine steward for what you want and give him one of your coupons. It may not be available on all ships but would ask about it before ordering a bottle -- we bought our package in the Lido from a female wine steward when we first came on board.

[dakrewser]

In a test done a few years ago by one of the major wine magazines, they found that the vacuvin didn't pull out enough oxygen but pulled a lot of the components out that gave the wine it's lovely smell. The Private Preserve simply displaces the oxygen with a heavier inert gas.

I've been pleased with the tests I've done. Generally, I don't use it on wines of any great moment, just the normal everyday stuff. Although if I were younger and just outfitting my cellar, I'd probably go for a dispensing cabinet (http://www.westsidewinecellars.com/images/napa.jpg).

Peaches: I do always get my DR wines from the ship's cellars, but a stoppered bottle of an "afternoon" or "pre-dinner" white in the mini-fridge can be nice. No need to put clothes on, or call room service!

Gary: I found the King Estate Pinot Noir to be very good, also. Certainly better than the pinots on the DR list.