Cost of wine in dining room? Any recent experiences?

[CowPrincess]

Can anyone give me an idea of the cost of a bottle of mid-point wine in the dining room on HAL ships? I've looked at the packages on their website, and the prices seem a tad high. Was wondering about ordering a bottle of wine with dinner, as opposed to bringing along a bottle and paying corkage.

Any help/info would be much appreciated. Thank you!

[Gsel]

We found the wine prices high. In our experience we could bring on our own wine and pay the corkage fee and still come out ahead. Some of the wine we brought on board was the same wine offered on the wine list and paying the corkage fee we still saved money.

[betonic]

On the Westerdam I bought a bottle of reisling that I liked a couple of weeks ago for $29. I also brought a couple of bottles and paid the $15 corkage fee. With the fee the price was about the same or little bit better than buying from HAL.

[CowPrincess]

We're Canadian, so $29 for a bottle of wine is pretty reasonable, given the "hassle factor" of getting wine onto the ship. The LEAST we'd pay in a Canadian shop for wine is around $15 or so (generally), plus the $15 corkage fee -- so for NO HASSLE :) we'd save $1 or so. Works for me!!

[Gsel]

Average price was around $44. Little too high for us! We like our median price wine!

[dakrewser]

Remember to compare apples to apples. It isn't a question of the DR wine list versus the bins at Costco, unless you're going to carry a case or two on for yourself. Compare to a decent restaurant. That said, HAL's prices are still a tad high, and the selection is unimaginative compared to, say, Celebrity.

[betonic]

I agree that the selection is not very good and the wine that I bought was one of the lower priced wines on their list. For these reasons I will continue to bring a few bottles of my favorites.

[EastCoast]

I prefer to enjoy my own selections and choose to bring it aboard. The corkage fee is money well spent to have what one truly enjoys. This is an easy task when sailing from a home port but the adventure of shopping for wine in a different place can add some additional fun to the pre cruise experience.

[superchief]

The wine prices on our recent Westerdam cruise were exhorbitant, $40 for an $8 retail bottle. There was also only one wine steward for our whole side of the dining room, so she usually did not make it to our table until after appetizers were served. Since we had the 8pm seating, we enjoyed having a glass or two of our own wine on our cabin balcony prior to dinner. We bought the 10 glass wine card, and had a glass of wine with dinner (Merlot and Pino Grigio were acceptable). I would have gladly paid a $15 corkage fee if I had an earlier seating, but I didn't want to bring an open bottle to the dining room.

If you are cruising from Ft. Lauderdale, Total Wine is a great place to buy your wine to bring onboard. They will provide free delivery to your hotel for $200 +orders, or you can pick it up on the way to the ship. They have a great selection and you can preorder from their website. If you plan to drink wine in your cabin, don't forget to bring a corkscrew.

[CowPrincess]

Thanks, everyone, for the info! We've purchased a wine card, and will probably just bring a couple of bottles on board to enjoy in the cabin. We enjoy wine, but if we're looking at $40 + (for a likely unknown-to-us wine) with dinner, we'll probably only do that one or two evenings.

This thread had really helped me with planning. Again, thanks very much!