rebeccac

One small thing VV does for the crew is give them free internet. Most other lines make the crew pay for internet. I would imagine it means a lot to be able to keep in touch with friends and family back at home.

On my cruise in July, they want $500 for most of them. There was one location that was $400. Either way, not going to do it.

The real question is: will you drink enough to make the package a good deal at whatever the current price happens to be. Google Royal bar menus to get an idea of what drinks will cost. For myself and DH (neither of us being big drinkers), anything over $55 per person per day is not worth it. We will buy either the soda package (if it is a ship with the freestyle machines) or refreshment package and then pay for alcoholic drinks a la carte. On our last cruise (Carnival Mardi Gras), we did not buy the package even though it was under $55 because of our current finances and we ended up saving around $500 by not buying the package. DH had 1 or 2 cocktails per day plus some specialty coffees and I only drank 3 alcoholic drinks the whole week. On the upside, I only gained 1 lb. on that cruise. 😊

Another thing to keep in mind is that the prices of various packages seem to keep going up these days, so there is no guarantee that 50% off later will be less than 30% off now.