Wine Package on the Eclipse?

[Trishbware]

We are embarking on our first cruise (Scandinavia and Russia) on the Eclipse on 18th August. Please does anyone have any experience of wine packages? Cant find anything on the web site. We have discounted the various drinks packages as we dont think we can do them justice, but someone said we should be able to pay for (say) 5 bottles and get seven??

[BEAV]

Here's a link to the wine package information on Celebrity's website.

http://www.celebritycruises.com/onbo...kages_wine_tab

[MicCanberra]

Originally Posted by Trishbware

We are embarking on our first cruise (Scandinavia and Russia) on the Eclipse on 18th August. Please does anyone have any experience of wine packages? Cant find anything on the web site. We have discounted the various drinks packages as we dont think we can do them justice, but someone said we should be able to pay for (say) 5 bottles and get seven??

I think you are referring to the beer specials where you buy a bucket of 6 Beers for the price of 5.

[West Windsor girl]

WE just returned from the Baltic cruise on the Eclipse and had a great time. I am a wine drinker and looked at the wine packages and determined I could do better by ordering bottles at dinner ( more choice of wine I knew) I was able to get very nice wines for around $45 -50 per bottle and they saved any I didn't drink for the next night. You are allowed to bring 2 bottles on board (only at embarkation) per cabin. I did not have a chance to buy any in Southhampton and when I tried to bring one on board in Warnnemunde, they confiscated it. That annoyed me since we had 4 cabins including a Royal suite. I thought that was bad PR and told Celebrity so, but what can you do. BY the way Warnnemunde is charming and the people who went to Berlin were disappointed - it is too far and you don't get to see much of Berlin. I highly recommend you do a private tour in St Petersburg. It is the same price as Celebrity and you see much more because you don't have to wait for 40 people. We used TJ travel, but people who used Alla and SPB were equally happy. They arrange the visas for you as part of the package. Enjoy.

[Trishbware]

Thank you! I do think $40 - 50 is rather pricey for wine. Do you have any idea of the price of house wine please? We thought we would give Berlin a miss - from the UK its probably worth a few days trip and see it properly. Our agent has booked us a 2 day tour of St petersburg with Cruising Excursions - hope they are OK!! Did you go to bruges from Zeebrugge? Not got my head around that one yet!

[essexhammer]

Zeebrugge is the port for Bruges. Its about 45 mintes by taxi/coach to get into Bruges. Its well worth the trip

[mrpie90]

Originally Posted by West Windsor girl

WE just returned from the Baltic cruise on the Eclipse and had a great time. I am a wine drinker and looked at the wine packages and determined I could do better by ordering bottles at dinner ( more choice of wine I knew) I was able to get very nice wines for around $45 -50 per bottle and they saved any I didn't drink for the next night. You are allowed to bring 2 bottles on board (only at embarkation) per cabin. I did not have a chance to buy any in Southhampton and when I tried to bring one on board in Warnnemunde, they confiscated it. That annoyed me since we had 4 cabins including a Royal suite. I thought that was bad PR and told Celebrity so, but what can you do. BY the way Warnnemunde is charming and the people who went to Berlin were disappointed - it is too far and you don't get to see much of Berlin. I highly recommend you do a private tour in St Petersburg. It is the same price as Celebrity and you see much more because you don't have to wait for 40 people. We used TJ travel, but people who used Alla and SPB were equally happy. They arrange the visas for you as part of the package. Enjoy.

hi.
how much did t j travel charge and how would i contact them.
thanks.
ian.

[the wandering two]

Back to the subject of wine. Assuming the pricing policy is common fleet wide, we gifted ourselves 6 bottles for our upcomming Hawaii cruise on Century. Works out at £17.50 per bottle, there were some cheaper ones available, compared to the cheapest package of three bottles for £71. The link is hard to find on Celebrity's web site, we assume it is intended for gifting to friends/relatives for birthdays etc. You have the choice of delivery to cabin or restaurant on any day of the itinerary.

Mark

[lindaship]

Wine is precey aboard unfortunately. I checked out St. Petersburg on my latest cruise, what a grandiose city, absolutely recommend that tour!

[tallcva3344]

Originally Posted by Trishbware

Thank you! I do think $40 - 50 is rather pricey for wine. Do you have any idea of the price of house wine please? We thought we would give Berlin a miss - from the UK its probably worth a few days trip and see it properly. Our agent has booked us a 2 day tour of St petersburg with Cruising Excursions - hope they are OK!! Did you go to bruges from Zeebrugge? Not got my head around that one yet!

Call tour TA and have a few bottles of wine delivered to your room. There is no limit. You can get $25.00 Red Zin (I think I remember) and a $28 Cab that has been set aside for your TA to give you a bottle for your cruise. He gets it for 10% off so one of the above is $22.50.

RCCL has an agents gift wine for less than $15.

I am going on a Celebrity B2B and will have several bottles delivered to my room. Being Elite we have a pitstop wine session from 5 to 7 every evening. Time set up to discourage attendance. H

[steve ch]

Can anyone explain the point of buying a wine package?

It seems to work out at around the same price per bottle as buying that wine "as you go", while limiting your choice to those included on the package list.

[gdpups]

I bought a 3 bottle one for our cruise next week just so I could prepay and there are several on the list I probably would have ordered anyway just to try, they work out to about $45 per bottle.

I figure we'll order more onboard, but the cost of the 3 bottles is taken care of. Just my obsession with not having a huge bill at the end!

[Lsimon]

In the past the wine packages have offered a small discount in exchange for pre-purchasing (either in advance of, or actually on, the cruise) a number of bottles of wine from a relatively narrow selection of similarly priced wines. If the group of wines you can choose from suits your needs then the packages might be right for you. But if you prefer a wider variety of wines to choose from then they might not be a good idea.

I choose to forgo the packages, and the small discount they offer, in exchange for being able to order from the entire wine list on the ship so we can choose from a much larger and varied selection of bottled wines.

Here is a link to a thread which lists the entire wine list, as it was last winter (changes since then are likely to be minor). The thread includes a post which outlines the selection of wines available under the packages.
http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1566983

One more interesting twist. While I haven't done the homework to check this out, I read in one thread that depending on which wines you choose the packages might not provide any discount at all.

[steve ch]

Originally Posted by Lsimon

One more interesting twist. While I haven't done the homework to check this out, I read in one thread that depending on which wines you choose the packages might not provide any discount at all.

That's what I worked out from my maths. The classic package works out at about $35 per bottle, the same price as each of the wines on the list cost separately.

[Trishbware]

Originally Posted by Lsimon

In the past the wine packages have offered a small discount in exchange for pre-purchasing (either in advance of, or actually on, the cruise) a number of bottles of wine from a relatively narrow selection of similarly priced wines. If the group of wines you can choose from suits your needs then the packages might be right for you. But if you prefer a wider variety of wines to choose from then they might not be a good idea.

I choose to forgo the packages, and the small discount they offer, in exchange for being able to order from the entire wine list on the ship so we can choose from a much larger and varied selection of bottled wines.

Here is a link to a thread which lists the entire wine list, as it was last winter (changes since then are likely to be minor). The thread includes a post which outlines the selection of wines available under the packages.
http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1566983

One more interesting twist. While I haven't done the homework to check this out, I read in one thread that depending on which wines you choose the packages might not provide any discount at all.

Thats really interesting - thanks!

[Trishbware]

Originally Posted by tallcva3344

Call tour TA and have a few bottles of wine delivered to your room. There is no limit. You can get $25.00 Red Zin (I think I remember) and a $28 Cab that has been set aside for your TA to give you a bottle for your cruise. He gets it for 10% off so one of the above is $22.50.

RCCL has an agents gift wine for less than $15.

I am going on a Celebrity B2B and will have several bottles delivered to my room. Being Elite we have a pitstop wine session from 5 to 7 every evening. Time set up to discourage attendance. H

What's Tour TA please?!!

[steve ch]

Originally Posted by Trishbware

What's Tour TA please?!!

TA = Travel Agent

[Trishbware]

Thanks very much. Have sent ourselves a gift!
Nice one.

[tallcva3344]

Originally Posted by Trishbware

Thanks very much. Have sent ourselves a gift!
Nice one.