So here is my update after my 15 day cruise. I’m glad that I purchased the Plus upgrade.
Every morning we enjoyed having speciality coffees delivered to our cabin. It was fun to try the different speciality coffee varieties.
I don’t drink many alcoholic beverages, at most two a day. I enjoyed trying different drinks that I hadn’t ever had before. My cabin mate likes to drink Bailey’s before bed, so we had Bailey’s delivered to our cabin at night.
We drank a lot of Perrier and bottled water, and some sodas.
We enjoyed sampling speciality desserts, although there were plenty of baked goods and sweets available without a Plus upgrade.
After the eclipse servers walked around the deck serving a special eclipse drink (alcoholic) which was quite good. Available at no charge with Plus upgrade, and it was fun to celebrate the eclipse with others in our area.
We could order Mimosas with breakfast too.
I really enjoyed the juice bar, but wouldn’t have paid $8 for freshly squeezed juice or $12 for a smoothie if it wasn’t included with the package. I had two juices every day and my cabin mate had smoothies.
When I figure in the cost of WiFi and gratuities I think the Plus package was a good value. The WiFi was actually very good, and while I realize many or most people want to go offline during cruises I needed to connect my laptop for a few minutes every day to check my work emails. The price I had to pay for taking 17 days off during a busy time at work. Besides my work laptop, it was nice to be able to send pictures to friends and family so I did like using WiFi.
So did it make sense financially? I didn’t count, and don’t intend to go back and add it up. I was on vacation, and having the Plus package made my vacation more enjoyable.
Besides, if looked too closely into the financial aspect I might question whether I should actually spend the money to take a cruise at all, instead of using the money to pay down my mortgage or pay off my vehicle 🙂