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Did you wish you’d purchased the Cheers package?


sweets2323
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I really wished we had gotten Cheers on our last cruise. It had been 7 years since our last cruise, and didn't really remember how quickly a bar bill can add up, and thought we'd never spend anywhere close to the cost of Cheers. Well, we ended a 7 day cruise with an almost $800 bar tab. We forgot how bad the lido coffee and iced tea was, ended up opting for specialty coffee (we love coffee and we both can drink 3 to 4 cups daily) and Honest Tea, drank a good bit of bottled water, a few sodas, drinking more Red Frog rum cocktails than we thought we would (my husband loved them and can put them away), and visited the Alchemy Bar after dinner almost every night, etc. I feel now we would have definitely gotten our money's worth out of it if we had gotten it. We are certainly going for it on our next cruise!

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I find that having the drink package, brings even more enjoyment to a cruise. When I have it, I am not concerned about how much a drink is or how many I have had so far. When I do get the package, I drink more and it ends up being a good deal. When I don't get it, I drink significantly less,but still have an awesome time. So I say, if you can afford it, go for it and have yourself an awesome time.

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Can you get the cheers once on the cruise like a few days later?

 

I also read that someone canceled there cheers package on day two.

 

 

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You can get Cheers through the second day but it is cheaper to order it online before.

 

It's non refundable according to the "rules".

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All the excursions I called told me I have to book thru carnival because of contracts. I thought we couldn’t bring soda or water on the ship anymore, just one bottle of wine PP.

 

 

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Not sure about the excursions- I've heard recently that a lot of the excursions who book with Carnival won't accept private excursions if you're on a Carnival ship... but there are still lots of good companies providing private excursions.

 

As for drinks you can bring onboard, you are allowed 1 bottle of wine pp, and up to 12 cans or cartons (12 oz) pp. You are not allowed to bring anything in a bottle other than your wine, so no bottled water. They do have a special price of 12 bottles for $4.50 you can order and have waiting for you in your cabin.

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Not sure about the excursions- I've heard recently that a lot of the excursions who book with Carnival won't accept private excursions if you're on a Carnival ship... but there are still lots of good companies providing private excursions.

 

 

 

As for drinks you can bring onboard, you are allowed 1 bottle of wine pp, and up to 12 cans or cartons (12 oz) pp. You are not allowed to bring anything in a bottle other than your wine, so no bottled water. They do have a special price of 12 bottles for $4.50 you can order and have waiting for you in your cabin.

 

 

 

Up to 12 cans so I can bring 12 cans of sodas?

 

 

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MY husband is not a big drinker at all. However, the last four cruises (RC & Carnival) we opted for drink packages. It was well worth it for us. Especially me, since I do drink. We budgeted prior to our cruise for the drink packages and we also booked all our cruises way in advance for a really good fare. In addition, we always book an interior room on the Lido deck. So the drink package is one of our "excursions" since we don't get off at every port (been there done that) or we just walk around at the port. My husband loves the coffees, milkshakes, sports drinks, etc while indulging alcoholic drinks he would never have at home. If you asked me 10 years ago if I would ever pay for a drink package, I would have said NEVER. Really, it's just a

relief about not thinking about our costs while on our cruise.

 

Not sure if this helped but just my opinion. Happy cruising.

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I find that having the drink package, brings even more enjoyment to a cruise. When I have it, I am not concerned about how much a drink is or how many I have had so far. When I do get the package, I drink more and it ends up being a good deal. When I don't get it, I drink significantly less,but still have an awesome time. So I say, if you can afford it, go for it and have yourself an awesome time.

 

I love your response. That is exactly how I feel.

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When we cruise we may have 2 drinks a day which total what, $10? That's $140 for the both of us for a 7 day cruise. Cheers would cost us over $700. No way. We're just not drinkers. Oh those 2 drinks a day are typically a Kiss On The Lips and a milkshake.

 

We may spend $100 in the Fun Shops on alcohol to bring home or other things. We take our own sodas on board with us and buy more in the ports we stop at. We never book Carnival excursions, always book them independently.

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I drank quite a bit more on the boat than I normally do. Pretty carefree atmosphere and no worries. So I cut loose. I hit 14 drinks every sea day and 10-12 on shore days. I had a great time. My two favorite bartenders memorized my folio number.

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I find that having the drink package, brings even more enjoyment to a cruise. When I have it, I am not concerned about how much a drink is or how many I have had so far. When I do get the package, I drink more and it ends up being a good deal. When I don't get it, I drink significantly less,but still have an awesome time. So I say, if you can afford it, go for it and have yourself an awesome time.

 

 

 

Yes, that’s exactly how I feel too! We had it in June for our Alaska cruise and loved it and felt it was worth it. Our cruise was very port intensive and almost everyday started by 6:30am but I I enjoy high end cocktails and love speciality coffee drinks, not to mention several bottled waters, energy drinks, and vitamin water.

Even though we enjoyed it we felt it was luxury we could do without and decided we would treat ourselves every other cruise. We were on the Glory over Thanksgiving and did not purchase it. We still had an awesome time and our bar bill was half of what Cheers would have cost...but we are looking forward to having it in March for our Spring Break cruise.[emoji846]

 

 

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I plan on bringing wine, and I’ll get maybe one fancy drink a day if that. And I’ll buy a Long Island when we’re in the club. I don’t drink coffee or sodas. Kids and husband will have the bottomless and he will buy a few beers here or there. We should be fine

 

 

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The problem with Cheers is that both adults in the cabin have to purchase it.

Yep, agreed. In my case, DW rarely has even a glass of wine. I have bought the soda package for her in the past, but I don't think she drank enough from that to make it a deal. Plus they served little glasses of soda from the tap rather than full cans. A la carte is most economical for us.

 

I do wish Carnival would reconsider the policy... basically cruisers traveling solo can buy a solo package but when I travel as a couple, I cannot buy a solo package. Seems unfair to couples.

 

One loophole I can think of... if a couple is traveling with kids and they get two staterooms, the cruise line generally wants an adult booked in each room, even though they don't stay that way. Since the package purchase is based on each adult registered in the room, in this case there would be just one, and a solo drink package could be bought.

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This is our first cruise, we typically stay at all inclusive resorts. For this reason we opted for the Cheers program, as we don't like to get a surprise bill at the end of our trip.

 

It's true, most people don't consume 15 boozy drinks/Starbucks coffees a day at home. But this is supposed to be a vacation, and for us that means mimosas with breakfasts, frozen drinks by a pool, wine with dinner, and port or lemoncello night cap. :hearteyes:

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I drink occasionally. And don’t think I will drink 7 drinks a day (including alcoholic and non alcoholic) but then I don’t know if I’m being realistic with myself and once I get on the ship it may be a whole different story. I’ve never been on an 8 day cruise. Not sure how it will play out. I’m traveling with my kids so I don’t plan on drinking that much.

 

What was your experience?

 

 

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We had it for our Mon-Fri cruise this summer and I loved it. No surprises at the end of the trip. I prepaid for it so I got that discount, plus I used my 10% off gift cards. If I tried a drink I didn't like I ordered one I did to replace it. It was fun to try new ones. If one melted down then I quickly ordered a fresh one. We grabbed bottle water constantly. I wish I had tried a milkshake but just didn't have time. My hubby is a soda drinker (I'm not) so he felt free to get them in the dining room (unlike last time when we didn't have the package.)

 

I know a longer cruise will be more expensive but you may have time to try more things at that rate. As one poster put it several months ago, it "enhances" your experience. It's vacation. Go for it!

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I drink occasionally. And don’t think I will drink 7 drinks a day (including alcoholic and non alcoholic) but then I don’t know if I’m being realistic with myself and once I get on the ship it may be a whole different story. I’ve never been on an 8 day cruise. Not sure how it will play out. I’m traveling with my kids so I don’t plan on drinking that much.

 

What was your experience?

 

My experience is that we drink less than we thought when port days are factored in. I do not think over the entirety of the cruise that I could ever make Cheers worth the price. Same with bottomless bubbles, when we do the real numbers only sea days are a good buy. An adult has to drink like six cokes a day to break even and we are better off just buying a coke when we want one.

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I drink occasionally. And don’t think I will drink 7 drinks a day (including alcoholic and non alcoholic) but then I don’t know if I’m being realistic with myself and once I get on the ship it may be a whole different story. I’ve never been on an 8 day cruise. Not sure how it will play out. I’m traveling with my kids so I don’t plan on drinking that much.

 

What was your experience?

 

 

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You already know you are at the break even threshold for one day. And you probably wouldn't be able to even do THAT day 2 through <7>.

 

Cheers would still be option 3 for me. First is to bring my own, still always successful, with the second being buying a bottle through BonVoyage on the day when they ever figure out how people get their booze on.

 

It's a good thing Carnival is not in charge of building the border wall.

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I am cruising with my 21 year old son so I felt purchasing the Cheers package would keep me from counting how many drinks he was having and make my cruise more relaxed and carefree. :') We are only doing a four day with one port day so that helped solidify my decision. Were we on a longer cruise with a port intensive itinerary I may have opted not to purchase.

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We purchased it for our honeymoon and will probably even purchase it from our upcoming cruise with our kids. It is nice to just pay the chunk of money and then relax and enjoy ordering whatever you want. We would have a drink with our show in the evening and a glass of wine with dinner. Maybe grab something when we walked through the pool deck. If we didn't have the package I would have felt guilty if I wanted a drink and it would have just stressed me out about money. I would say go for it. (also it was nice being able to try new drinks knowing if you didn't like it you hadn't wasted money)

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It's true, most people don't consume 15 boozy drinks/Starbucks coffees a day at home.

[ProgRockCruiser looks around the room suspiciously...]

 

"hmmm...once again, I'm not most people!"

 

I keed, I keed...sort of.

 

At home, we will consume 6 or 7 drinks each on a non-work day where we are being social from lunch time on: a couple beers at lunch, one more before dinner, glass or two of wine with dinner, and probably another glass after while we watch TV or whatever.

 

So with the complete freedom of cruising, we can easily have about 10 drinks each per day without even blinking. The Cheers package is very much something we will do every time we cruise (at current pricing/limits).

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I have purchased it on the last 3 cruises and didn't regret it - even though I really don't think I got my money's worth. I liked getting what I wanted (including specialty coffees) without worrying about it.

 

On this next cruise it's a Premier Casino Cruise (7 days on the Miracle) and I'm not planning on getting CHEERS. I will start out with free drinks in the casino and don't think my orders outside the casino will equal $50 plus a day. I purchased $200 in CCL's Cash Bar (I know a lot of people think that's a stupid move) but it will cover the 2-3 drinks and a coffee I will have each day outside the casino without me having to pay over $400 for CHEERS.

 

I liked the Cash Bar because it covers everything alcoholic and also the specialty coffee shop, so this way I will half the amount I'd spend on CHEERS.

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