Drinks package cancelled on Dec Princess Diamond cruise

Hi guys

We're about to embark on our first cruise with Diamond Princess this Sunday (13 Dec). Excited!

We had booked the $49 drinks package for the whole trip but last week they did a last-minute cancel on us because it is now apparently illegal to offer discounted alcohol in Australia.

Did anyone else get the same story? One of the main reasons we booked Princess was because of their drinks package and I know other cruise lines in Australia do it so feeling a little disappointed and confused.

Can anyone shed any light?

Thanks, Chrysti

Chrysti

You have posted in the wrong spot, this is the P&O Australia Board, not Princess.

However I'll pop in my 2 cents worth, we have had the drinks package on the Celebrity Century, going to have it again on our Celebrity Solstice cruise in February and could have had it on all 3 of our Holland America cruises.

The only thing I can think would change is that all the above are US based ships, with US currency, etc. Whereas I believe the Diamond Princess, when in her Australian season, changes over to AUD and becomes for a short period part of the Australian Princess fleet, I may be wrong on this.

I know, from my sister, that on the Australian Carnival ships they cannot offer drinks packages but they do on the US Carnival ships.

"it is now apparently illegal to offer discounted alcohol in Australia"

That sounds a little weird to me, presumably your itinerary will take you out into international waters.

The pull back of the offer may also have something to do with Carnival Australia (as opposed to the Carnival Cruise line) and - if I can recall correctly - the appearance of the CEO before a government "enquiry" into the cruising industry in Australia a couple of years or so ago. The comment I recall reading alleged to have been said by Ann Sherry was that there would not be any drinks packages offered on cruises in Australia.

Dougo

I find it odd I was able to get my drinks package on the Celebrity Century, that cruise was a Sydney to Adelaide back to Sydney cruise, did not go into international waters. If it is as I think US based ships just coming in for a 'season' are still able to offer packages it is unfair to our local based ships. You really wonder about the Australian Government sometimes.

Elise

Dougo

 

I find it odd I was able to get my drinks package on the Celebrity Century, that cruise was a Sydney to Adelaide back to Sydney cruise, did not go into international waters. If it is as I think US based ships just coming in for a 'season' are still able to offer packages it is unfair to our local based ships. You really wonder about the Australian Government sometimes.

 

Elise

Elise

to my knowledge, Celebrity is not part of Carnival PLC ... which would explain why you could get drinks on that line and not those lines that fall under the Carnival umbrella

And it's not a government controlled thing, it's a policy of Carnival as far as I'm aware.

Cheers

D

Carnival policy, not Australian law. If it was Australian law the RCI and Celebrity ships based in Australia wouldn't be able to offer them either.

Interesting, I have just returned from a Celebrity Century cruise South Pacific, where the drinks package was included in the price, we did upgrade to Premium and managed to drink $1235 worth of drinks, and just normal drinking. I also went with Royal Caribbean Voyager of the seas again South Pacific and purchased the drinks package, so now I am going on Diamond Princess and what! no drinks packages because it is sailing out of Australia, what rubbish!

Interesting, I have just returned from a Celebrity Century cruise South Pacific, where the drinks package was included in the price, we did upgrade to Premium and managed to drink $1235 worth of drinks, and just normal drinking. I also went with Royal Caribbean Voyager of the seas again South Pacific and purchased the drinks package, so now I am going on Diamond Princess and what! no drinks packages because it is sailing out of Australia, what rubbish!

read post # 6.....Carnival policy

You cant even get buckets of beer anymore in australia its got nothing to do with govt its princess being greedy and unfortunately the fact that aussies are all drunks and would drink the ship dry

Australia and New Zealand both have a serious problem associated with binge drinking. The culture in simple terms is to get very drunk very fast at every opportunity.

A significant proportion of the customers with be Aussie and Kiwi and having unlimited alcohol available to this audience would be a recipe for misery.

Australia and New Zealand both have a serious problem associated with binge drinking. The culture in simple terms is to get very drunk very fast at every opportunity.

 

A significant proportion of the customers with be Aussie and Kiwi and having unlimited alcohol available to this audience would be a recipe for misery.

Ahh, so you think Royal Caribbean ships attract a better class of client, hence they can still offer drink packages? :eek: LOL

Australia and New Zealand both have a serious problem associated with binge drinking. The culture in simple terms is to get very drunk very fast at every opportunity.

 

A significant proportion of the customers with be Aussie and Kiwi and having unlimited alcohol available to this audience would be a recipe for misery.

I've seen people on P&O with guards outside their rooms and people being put off the ship ... quite a few times.

I think the policy stems from them trying to clean up their image from poor publicity / incidents etc and ensure safety of everyone on board.

Even with those measures, there are certain sections of the community that don't get the message. Some are sleepy drunks and some are not ... it doesn't make for a pleasant cruise if you are in a cabin next to someone like that.

Lines such as RCI wouldn't necessarily have had the same publicity / issues as P&O has had ... who knows? Maybe they may change their policy if they decide that Aussies and NZers are too much to handle when they have a few under their belt

Ahh, so you think Royal Caribbean ships attract a better class of client, hence they can still offer drink packages? :eek: LOL

I've no opinion on that. It's not a class of client issue - the problem of which I speak is endemic across the entire population.

Highly visible anti-social behavior stemming from public drunkenness is common in Oz and NZ. Carnival Australia has plenty of experience of this problem and I imagine this is why they've done something to mitigate this on their ships.

Clearly the cruise operator wants to make as much money as they can. They're not going to deny people the opportunity to spend lots of money unless there is some greater purpose to worry about. Here that greater purpose is to not turn away from the next cruise those who aren't conditioned to know how to deal with and survive this aspect of local culture.

Hi All

I am planning on going on the Diamond Princess in September 2015

from Singapore to Sydney, does this still mean no drinks package if we are sailing out of Singapore ?

I have been on the Voyager Of the Seas November 2014 there were drinks package so i think it is more the problem with the Carnival Australia company not the government.

i have been on the old Oriana in the early 80"s and the boozing onboard was to the point that when arriving back in Sydney you would see carpet removed from the ship after a throw up job. i asked the management of the line why we weren't getting the newer ships that were used in overseas and was told that the companies who owned the ships reckon that there were 2 reasons and one was that they reckon Australians were drunk heads and they didn't want their ships ruined by us and the other reason which i think was more of the case that it was too expensive to reposition the ships to Australia and there was not enough people out here to fill up the ships and i thought this was narrow thinking.

But back to the drinks package, i think it is all about costs as the lines know that Australians can drink so why not rip them off and get rid of the drinks package and charge by the glass.

anyway back in the early 1980"s when you went on a cruise and you bought a glass of alcohol it was suppose to be duty free so you actually got it a lot cheaper than on land so why are we paying full land price when we are out at seas not in Australian waters. we should be getting duty free not taxed drinks.

My other question is will the soda packages be still available or they ripping of the kids as well.

Come on Carnival Australia get your act together and get out of the dark ages Australians are more refined these days and love quality wines and spirits sure there are still some party animals as we used to call them but why rip the rest of us off as we like to just walk up to the bar and order a wine or beer without the over consuming and don't have to worry abut how much it is going to cost at the end of the trip.

when i was on Voyager in November i did not see one over intoxicated passenger, so what is the problem. Royal Caribbean have it right.

The drinks package is available on this cruise ex SIN.

Thanks for that. I will have my children with me and kids go through gallons of soft drink and without the drinks package it would cost a fortune.

I thank you again for the comment.

:)

Agree the soft drinks packages are great. But how are you being ripped off if you are charged per each drink you consume? You can pay for what you drink, drink less, or take your own.

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Hi

It works out cheaper to get the soft drinks package as kids can drink a lot of soft drink and if you pay by the glass you will be putting your hand in your pocket every 5mins and at the end you have spent way more than the drinks package plus the kids are on holidays so why restrict them, they have a right to enjoy themselves as they would be doing things they wouldn't be doing at home. As for the alcohol i don't think people need to drink themselves stupid to make it worth while for the drink package. people who get the drink packages and drink themselves to excess have a problem and even if you didn't have the drinks package they would still go over board with the drink and be annoying with other passengers, that's who they are even on land, you see them all the time staggering around the streets and they didn't get the drinks package at the local on land but they still got drunk. People don't want to be forking out all the time when on holidays and if you can pay for the packages before you go that is one thing less that you have to be checking on as it is already paid for even if you don't drink more than what the package is worth.

As for a glass of alcohol being a rip off, they could sell it duty free, that's what they used to do and the lines would still make a profit.

so drink package or no drink package you will never stop people going stupid and drinking to excess. My word to those that get drunk all the time, drink to enjoy not to be stupid.

so drink package or no drink package you will never stop people going stupid and drinking to excess.

Which is why such decisions do not seem to have anything to do with "limiting people." It's all about getting as much money off them as possible.

If you know they'll pay anyway (and that they can drink a lot), why have packages? It's all about revenue management.

Hi

I would normally purchase the soft drinks package and the last time i was on a cruise i would have been lucky if i had no more than about 10 glasses for the 13 day cruise i was on. So the cruise line made a profit, so it evens things out along the way. It didn't worry me that i didn't get my moneys worth. It's more about knowing that you can relax on your cruise and not be worrying about how much the bill is going to be at the end.

if you have kids on a cruise and you have to pay per glass," boy" it can sure shake the credit card and I'm sure it doesn't cost the lines that much for the sodas.

As for the alcohol, i don't think it has anything to do with people getting drunk it's more about getting these people and anyone else who just wants a glass to pay through the nose for it, but they will still get drunk and at the end can't pay their bill due to their stupid drinking on board. you hear about it a lot from other cruisers who have seen it happen.

want to stop heavy drinking. have a rule, if you are caught being over intoxicated then you lose the drinks package for the rest of the cruise, so again cruise line makes profit.

it's all about making a dollar, sure the lines need to pay for the glamorous ships they are building but we as customers are entitled to some savings as well like the drinks package. if they remove the drinks package then they should replace it with something else like free bingo etc.

a bit of give and take. every time i read a review from people it's about some cruise line they have been on cutting back on things like staff for example. without these fantastic staff it wouldn't be a holiday. next thing you know you will have to make and tidy your own cabins or you want something to eat, go make yourself a hamburger, oops they already have that on the ships. so we are heading in that direction.

so my advice to the cruse lines that are trying this on and they know who they are. you can only penny pinch so far and with the penny pinching goes the quality of service and your customers will then backlash with bad reviews and if your ranking goes to low then know one will go near you and it will end up costing you a hell of a lot more to get them back and to build up confident just because you wanted to see if you could make a few more dollars out of your passengers.

The cruise lines should have more bar staff to stop the over crowding at the bars also the staff can keep an eye out for over-intoxicated passengers as at the moment they are too busy to notice anything.

Cheers

It also has to do with the drinking culture. In Australia you do not ASK about prices in a bar. You won't find beer prices anywhere, in any of the bars/pubs, and if you ask about the price it's considered quite weird. You are meant to just order and pay whatever is asked without thinking twice. And that is how people drink.

In light of this it's hardly surprising to just have people sign off on every drink, knowing a lot more money can be generated from them this way.

In the US or UK people are much more price-conscious, it's normal to know the price of something beforehand. But in Australia it seems taboo.

I've never been to a bar of pub that didn't have a wine/drinks list ("menu") with prices sitting on the bar or available if you ask. It's not McDonalds so they aren't going to post big signs behind the bar with prices.

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Hi

 

As for the alcohol, i don't think it has anything to do with people getting drunk it's more about getting these people and anyone else who just wants a glass to pay through the nose for it,

On our Sun Princess cruise we found the drinks prices to be very reasonable. We drank as much as we wanted, were able to enjoy premium wines most nights, and our drinks bill averaged out at around $85 per day for two of us.

On Rhapsody of the Seas the drinks prices were so high that we ended up getting the drinks packages, thus making our daily average almost double that of our Princess cruise, plus there was not a great range of premiums wines by the glass so we were not able to enjoy the same variety as on Princess.

I've never been to a bar of pub that didn't have a wine/drinks list ("menu") with prices sitting on the bar or available if you ask. It's not McDonalds so they aren't going to post big signs behind the bar with prices.

That is much easier, but I have never been to a pub in all of Australia, in any city, nook or cranny, where you will ever find beer prices shown or listed. It's taboo to list them or ask for them - do that and you get the "what starship beamed him down?" look as the person behind the bar wanders off on a mission to find the answer...

About packages, I do agree that there is less pressure to take them on Princess due to the more reasonable pricing. And as mentioned before me, getting them on the likes of RC does cause a spike in one's daily consumption. :)