Thought's About Purchasing a Beverage Package or Not - Explore 4 Thoughts??????

I have never purchased a beverage package, was wondering what everyone thinks of it.

For me when I am on a cruise, I like a glass of wine with my dinner, maybe a second one and may also purchase a drink or two during the day along with some sparkling water, would the beverage package be worth it for me, ya or nay?

Also, one other question, the Explore 4, ya or nay on that as well. I normally book my cruise way ahead of time and on occassion the cruises have gone down, I call my TA and she gets me the lower price. Now if the cruise were to go down with my future cruise and I booked the Explore 4, I assume I would not be able to combine both Explore 4 with the lower cost, am I correct?

Thanks, I appreciate everyone's experience with these two things.

There was only one time the Explore 4 made sense for us. Our fare went up only a few hundred dollars/pp on a 14-day cruise. But later our fare went down so much it made more sense to refare our booking and drop the Explore 4. With what we saved we could easily buy any drinks we wanted!

Just look at the cost of the cruise, each person is different. It may work for you, it may not. On another booking we have the cost of our cruise went up $1100/pp when Explore 4 was added. It was a no-brainer that time. :D

Suppose you book a cruise with the Explore4. Then the price of that cruise drops and the Explore4 is still offered as a promo, you should be able to get the new lower price.

You might want to quantify the costs of your drinks on a daily basis. For example, for us, we feel our cost is ~$30/day and that's being generous. Therefore, it does not make sense to purchase a package that costs ~$51/day (including gratuity). Based on what you described as your beverage habits, I would say that the package is not worth it to you.

As to your second question, yes, you would probably lose the E4 perks with a price drop. It depends on if the E4 promotion is still on at the time of the price drop. Only you can weigh whether the price drop is worth the loss of the E4 perks. In our case, the price drop usually wins.

With this new E4 promotion, the price of our Sep/18 cruise is actually lower. But we would lose other perks that have more value to us (and are worth more than the price differential) while gaining the E4. We kept the higher price and better (to us) perks.

I'm trying to understand the value and the limits. Am I correct in that the package covers 15 drinks including soft drinks, juice and bottled water? So, in a day, if I have 3 specialty coffees, 1 juice, 4 bottles water, 2 beers, 2 liqueurs, 3 glasses wine (lunch, pre-dinner and dinner) I'm maxed out. What am I missing?

I'm trying to understand the value and the limits. Am I correct in that the package covers 15 drinks including soft drinks, juice and bottled water? So, in a day, if I have 3 specialty coffees, 1 juice, 4 bottles water, 2 beers, 2 liqueurs, 3 glasses wine (lunch, pre-dinner and dinner) I'm maxed out. What am I missing?

True except for the juice. No charge for juice. :)

I'm trying to understand the value and the limits. Am I correct in that the package covers 15 drinks including soft drinks, juice and bottled water? So, in a day, if I have 3 specialty coffees, 1 juice, 4 bottles water, 2 beers, 2 liqueurs, 3 glasses wine (lunch, pre-dinner and dinner) I'm maxed out. What am I missing?

You're missing that you'll spend way too much time in the loo.:D

We do not drink a lot.

The one time we did have the Explore4 package, I kept track of the drinks we had each day.

We would lose money if we bought the package.

I'm trying to understand the value and the limits. Am I correct in that the package covers 15 drinks including soft drinks, juice and bottled water? So, in a day, if I have 3 specialty coffees, 1 juice, 4 bottles water, 2 beers, 2 liqueurs, 3 glasses wine (lunch, pre-dinner and dinner) I'm maxed out. What am I missing?

Just pay for whatever is the cheapest. You can just ask to have the $2.50 coffees charged directly if you need to save some of your 15 drinks for things that cost more. Also, you can get 1.5 liter bottles of spring water. They're $3.95 and covered by the beverage package if that's what you want.

I have never purchased a beverage package, was wondering what everyone thinks of it.

 

For me when I am on a cruise, I like a glass of wine with my dinner, maybe a second one and may also purchase a drink or two during the day along with some sparkling water, would the beverage package be worth it for me, ya or nay?

 

Also, one other question, the Explore 4, ya or nay on that as well. I normally book my cruise way ahead of time and on occassion the cruises have gone down, I call my TA and she gets me the lower price. Now if the cruise were to go down with my future cruise and I booked the Explore 4, I assume I would not be able to combine both Explore 4 with the lower cost, am I correct?

 

Thanks, I appreciate everyone's experience with these two things.

As far as the beverage package it's a numbers or hassle issue. If you don't drink more than 2-4 covered drinks every day the package is not worth it. If you do drink more than that and don't want to put up with the hassle of reviewing your receipts and bill then the package may be worth it for you.

As far as the limit, you'll have to do some work to hit the 15 drink limit every day. ;)

Dan

Thanks everyone, that's exactly what I was thinking, its not for me, I'd rather the lower cabin price.

We like the SBP, as a perk or purchased. You have to consider several things, if your cruise is port intensive it may be hard to get your "money's worth". You might be gone most of the day and retire shortly after dinner, not leaving a lot of time to consume $51.00 worth of beverages. On a cruise with a lot of sea days and early sail always from port, it's easy to at least break even. We love having the SBP in the Caribbean,because it's such a party atmosphere. It's not hard for us to benefit from the package, a specialty coffee to take to breakfast, a bloody Mary poolside, a coke or cocktail with lunch, a mid afternoon beer or cocktail, before dinner drinks in the Ocean Bar, wine with dinner, cocktails before retiring and a bottle of water to take to the stateroom. Sounds like a lot, but it is vacation, after all. You get my idea. Sometimes the cost of

Explore 4 is very high, so booking at a later date, after the promotion is over, it may be beneficial to book and purchase the package on your own. There are many factors to consider.

When we cruise, we do drink more alcohol than when at home but still not enough to make the beverage package a value.

We may enjoy a beer or two with a casual lunch on sea days, otherwise it's primarily water. Maybe a mimosa/bloody Mary at breakfast, again only on a sea day. Always one or two pre-dinner drinks and then a nightcap before retiring. We still come out ahead paying cash over the package.

We did have the SBB last March as an Explore 4 perk..but our cruise price only went up $89pp to get that PLUS free gratuities, Pinnacle dinner and $200 internet credit - a truly great value for us. I kept track, and had we paid for the package it would have cost us about $300 more than the cash price.

the price allowed has gone up. It is now $9.00 & below per drink (drink prices must have gone up)

See below:

Explore4 2017 Terms & Conditions

*Fares and Explore4 offers are based on Promo(s) KA/KC/JA/NX/NP/UU.

Signature Beverage Package has a daily limit of 15 beverages, which includes all beverages priced at US$9.00 or lower. Guests must order beverages one at a time and must be 21 years or older for alcoholic beverages. Sharing is not permitted. Beverage management reserves the right to revoke the package if misused and refuse service for any reason, including service of alcoholic beverages to intoxicated guests. Package excludes purchases made in Signature Shops, Mini Bar and In Room Dining, or beverages on Half Moon Cay.

Note: the bolding, underline an red print is mine!

You should also figure Happy Hour drinks (buy one get second of same for $2, no restriction on original drink price) into any cost/benefit analysis. If you like the happy hours, it makes the drink packages a little harder to justify.

You should also figure Happy Hour drinks (buy one get second of same for $2, no restriction on original drink price) into any cost/benefit analysis. If you like the happy hours, it makes the drink packages a little harder to justify.

Thank you for mentioning that! I forgot to include HH in my response above. If we have a drink, it's usually at HH. And now that we qualify for a discount on wine packages, I get a package for wine with dinner since the wine under the SBP isn't very good, IMO. So also include any Mariner discount for wine packages, if you're a wine drinker.

We had the free drink package on our recent cruise, but adding Explore 4 last year when we booked reduced our cruise price by about $65. We counted up how many drinks we had, and found out that we will have to buy the drink package next time.:D We had 3 days we were off the ship most of the day. Ymmv.

Just pay for whatever is the cheapest. You can just ask to have the $2.50 coffees charged directly if you need to save some of your 15 drinks for things that cost more.

That is good information as we tend to have quite a few soft drinks and coffees during the day and then have pre-dinner drinks, few glasses of wine with dinner followed by a liquor coffee. How easy is it to pay?

We are booked on NA for a Sept Alaska, an email showed up today touting a big price drop for Neptune suites and I was like "oh, darn, we should have waited to book"... until I added up the bottom line. We booked under last years Explore4 which included the gratuities, the current one does not so we are still $220 cheaper then the price drop.

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Sorry hit the wrong button and posted before I was done with my comment. I priced everything out when I booked and bottom line for us at the time was about (IIRC) $60 per person cheaper to take the Explore4 promotion. I factored in the larger amount of OBC we got for paying a fare that was a bit higher. After we booked the gratuity went up so that added a bit to our savings. Beverage package worked for us because it was part of our "free" Explore4 but we would likely buy it anyway, 3 or 4 glasses of wine with meals, 2 or 3 cocktails in the evening, a couple fancy coffees and you've already covered the daily cost. But if you don't drink alcohol at all it's a waste, most of the other drinks are either free or not that expensive.

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That is good information as we tend to have quite a few soft drinks and coffees during the day and then have pre-dinner drinks, few glasses of wine with dinner followed by a liquor coffee. How easy is it to pay?

Just hand your stateroom card to the bar person or coffee person and tell them to charge you because you don't want to use one of your beverage package beverages. Keep track though, because if you are not using all 15 of your beverages, you don't really want to play for coffee or water.

Just rebooked our April 30, 2018 cruise in Med with explore 4. We got to keep our signature experience (we are in a Neptune suite) but we added 200 on board credit, signature beverage package and free pinnacle dinner. The cost of our cruise came down ten dollars per person. Not a big savings in price but the perks are great.

Question for the group... if its not such a good deal to buy the package for some folks, and some people don't want the hassle of per item receipts and accounting.. then... Why not buy a HAL card with a cash value on it? Less hassle for the occasional fancy coffee or glass of wine.. controlled spending? I ask because I chose this option :halo:

Question for the group... if its not such a good deal to buy the package for some folks, and some people don't want the hassle of per item receipts and accounting.. then... Why not buy a HAL card with a cash value on it? Less hassle for the occasional fancy coffee or glass of wine.. controlled spending? I ask because I chose this option :halo:

Nothing wrong with that option.

Dan

Question for the group... if its not such a good deal to buy the package for some folks, and some people don't want the hassle of per item receipts and accounting.. then... Why not buy a HAL card with a cash value on it? Less hassle for the occasional fancy coffee or glass of wine.. controlled spending? I ask because I chose this option :halo:

It's a good plan to do that. I don't have an issue with the multiple charges on the bill because, when it comes down to it, we really don't drink that much so it's easy to check the bill. You might want to order a couple of beverage cards so that each of you has one (in case you are thirsty while not together). Just a thought.