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Bringing wine on board Holland America


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Welcome to Cruise Critic.

 

Enjoy your first cruise and wine.

 

Depending on your ports -- you might consider buying some local wines -- yes you cn bring those on board as well to enjoy in your cabin or in the dining room.

 

There is a $15 corkage fee in the dining room for each bottle which includes the 15% gratuity.

 

Don't forget to pack a wine bottle opener in your checked luggage for the wine in your cabin.

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Big plus for HAL. Hope they continue with their current policies. Many of the other lines are prohibiting or strictly limiting bringing personal wine onboard. It's a big part of my vacation - and another reason for choosing HAL. (Kind of makes you feel ripped off). ENJOY your vino! Cheers!

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Hello. We (4 of us) brought on board 3 cases of wine last year for our 21 day panama cruise. We had pre-ordered the wine from a local shop in FLL. The shop delivered to our hotel. We brought our own 'luggage carriers' and bungee cords. Had prepared labels for all sides of the boxes with our Ship name, Cruise Date/Name, Room # and used the clear packing tape bought locally. We ended up just rolling thru the check in process with lots of people in our trail! Good thing there was the 4 of us, to go thru the "scanning" machine prior to boarding the ship...had to remove the boxes from luggage carrier and re-strapped back on the other side of machine...no biggy, just took a few extra minutes - well worth it. We boarded around 1pm and as we were walking onto ship, the announcement was made that our cabins were ready! We had VA on Zuiderdam, plenty of room in the closets to store the wine (boxes on their side of course).

 

As mentioned above, each evening, we'd select a white and a red and went to the dining room. Charged $15/corkage each bottle to open (not each night) - still saved good $$ and our wine steward would put away what we didn't drink and brought back out the next evening (all on ice waiting for our arrival - no corkage fee)...it was PERFECT! Wine in FLL much cheaper than what we pay in Canada for the same label.

 

We are going to do the same thing for our 28 day cruise in Oct 09 from Venice...going to first go on some wine pre-cruise tours...yipee...as you may have noticed, we too, love our wine!

 

The unlimited wine & champagne policy with HAL is one of the reasons why we'll stick with HAL!

 

Enjoy your cruise and your wine!

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We are going on our first 30 day cruise. My husband enjoys his wine. Has anyone had any experience bring wine on board the ship? How much were you able to bring aboard? We are considering bringing 6 bottles.

 

I see you are on the same cruise as we are.... We like Merlot and Cabernet :D

 

how are you getting to SD?? We just booked AMTRAK

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We are going on our first 30 day cruise. My husband enjoys his wine. Has anyone had any experience bring wine on board the ship? How much were you able to bring aboard? We are considering bringing 6 bottles.

I brought three bottles of my favorite chardonnay (DH doesn't drink!) on our last Noordam cruise. Same experience as the others: I brought it to the dining room and had the wine steward uncork it. He kept it, and we were even able to use it the next night in the Pinnacle Grill! As it turned out, it's on their wine list, but given what I paid at "home," and the $15 corkage fee, it was still less $$$.

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Big plus for HAL. Hope they continue with their current policies. Many of the other lines are prohibiting or strictly limiting bringing personal wine onboard. It's a big part of my vacation - and another reason for choosing HAL. (Kind of makes you feel ripped off). ENJOY your vino! Cheers!

 

Sorry -- but this is not a BIG plus for HAL!!

 

 

For those of us who always have no choice but to fly to a port -- this is a BIG mistake!!

 

HAL needs to stop allowing people to bring wine and champagne on board. The prices HAL charges for a bottle of wine is HORRIBLE.

 

We live in a state where everything has to bought through a State Liquor Store and our prices are high. HAL charges 5 times what we pay at home!!

 

If HAL stopped people from bringing wine and champagne on board , then HAL could reduce what they charge for a bottle of wine!!

 

Face facts!!

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We had a group of about 40 people on a Alaskan cruise and one of our group was a wine sales man. He shipped several cases to our ship ahead of time. It work out great.......

 

Do you mind me asking how he arranged this? We're travelling on the Eurodam in late September, and have already been in touch with a wine store in Manhattan who are more than happy to deliver to our hotel, but they didn't know how to arrange delivery to a particular cabin on a cruise ship. I got the impression that they'd be happy to do that too though, as long as we could describe the exact procedure!

 

As to other poster's comments regarding the cost, I doubt very seriously whether HAL or any other cruise line base their vastly inflated wine prices on the amount of wine their clients bring on board. It's MUCH more likely to be based on the fact that they have a monopoly market and can therefore charge pretty much what they like. Whilst decent wine on board ship is priced at the around the $60 range, I'm going to bring aboard similar wine (that I know for a fact I'll enjoy) for $15 a bottle and pay the $15 corkage.

 

I tend not to drink champagne at dinner, but rather only with canapes in the cabin or on the verandah beforehand, so in that case the savings are even greater! Bucks Fizz for breakfast on sea days anyone?

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Even though you post on every subject (24000+) HAL won't reduce wine prices because they limit wine brought on board. They will probably raise the prices as they have done on the liquor.2 years ago I paid $20 for a ltr. of Stoli and I think they now charge $38. That's not due to the Euro but greed and threats of taking your liquor when boarding.

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My husband is not a wine connoisseur. In fact he's a beer drinker. However, he's like one of those Italian guys with the tank top undershirt sitting backwards on a chair in the middle of Little Italy in Manhattan. He enjoys his red wine from a gallon.

 

If we bought a gallon of this so-called wine how can we bring it on board? Do we just put it with our luggage with a tag? Does he carry it?

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If we bought a gallon of this so-called wine how can we bring it on board? Do we just put it with our luggage with a tag? Does he carry it?

 

Are you talking about a glass bottle? Why not find him a box wine he can enjoy--much easier to pack! We box up our wine with some appropriate padding (boxes and bottles) and drop it off at the pier with the rest of our luggage--it eventually shows up in our cabin and we commence drinking:p

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Sorry Krazy not agreeing with your observation/comments...In my opinion, HAL's wine prices onboard are no more inflated than we find here (in Canada) at a regular (onshore) restaurant compared to what we pay for in gov't run liquor stores.

 

If HAL choses to raise their prices, on any product that can be purchased onboard, the reason is more likely a result of soring fuel prices than a few pax out of hundreds that bring wine onboard. Again, my opinion.

 

Love HAL's wine policy!

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Do you mind me asking how he arranged this? We're travelling on the Eurodam in late September, and have already been in touch with a wine store in Manhattan who are more than happy to deliver to our hotel, but they didn't know how to arrange delivery to a particular cabin on a cruise ship. I got the impression that they'd be happy to do that too though, as long as we could describe the exact procedure!

I believe he doesn't ship to the cabin itself. He ships it to the port services office. HAL uses a different one in every port ... for a variety of things; i.e. to assist passengers who miss the ship, take deliveries, etc. You could just call HAL, find out who their "port master" is in that particular port, and then the wine store ships there. On the box, not the mailing label, but somewhere else on the outside of the box, you write your ship name, cruise line name, date of sailing and cabin number in prominent letters. The port master will get the wine to the ship on embarkation day, and HAL will get it to your cabin.

 

Blue skies ...

 

--rita

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Sorry Krazy not agreeing with your observation/comments...In my opinion, HAL's wine prices onboard are no more inflated than we find here (in Canada) at a regular (onshore) restaurant compared to what we pay for in gov't run liquor stores.

To be honest, for what relatively little wine I drink, I'd just as soon arrange to have HAL provide a couple of bottles in my stateroom on embarkation day. Then I can supplement that with wine from various ports. I couldn't be bothered shipping wine to the ship, or lugging on cases of it. I have enough crap in my luggage. I don't need wine in there too ... especially when you consider that it could break and wreck everything else.

 

I don't think HAL's wine is that pricey. Sure, it's a bit more than I could probably buy it for at home, but the convenience of having it waiting for me in my stateroom is well worth the little extra I pay. I think I paid $20 something for a bottle of house red. Not too bad.

 

Question, though. Someone else mentioned a wine opener. Can't you just ask your steward for one if you're gonna need it for the cruise, or is that something I have to bring along? If so, where do I get one?

 

Blue skies ...

 

--rita

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