Buying Alcohol on the criuse

[Lindys]

Leavin on the legend on Oct 4 and was wondering how much alcohol I can bring back and how cheap the prices were wanted to stock up my bar at the house if possible!!

[salty dingo]

Usually it is one liter per person. I think there are some exceptions, like if your ship stops in St. Thomas your limit goes up to three liters.

 

In practice, US Customs (if you declare it honestly) will waive duty on very small quantities of excess alcohol. This has happened every time for me. Even if they do assess it, there is only a couple of dollars a bottle, but it is not worth their time to collect small amounts.

 

If you are flying back, be very wary of bringing back alcohol. It's mostly available in glass bottles, and they BREAK in your luggage. It happend to me. Also, they weigh a lot and these days you pay for every bag and excess weight fees are going to kill any savings.

 

My advice if flying is just buy yourself the liquor after you get home. If driving it is not really an issue.

[cruisinlarge]

My personal experience is that if you have single digit bottles I have never been charged. I mostly by flavored rums and it is usually 1.80 per bottle duty . It is based on alcohol content according to a customs officer. It is still cheaper than at home by a bunch . I haven't had to deal with the airline thing as we live in FL and so far have only cruised from here .

[Sherman Oaks]

Leavin on the legend on Oct 4 and was wondering how much alcohol I can bring back and how cheap the prices were wanted to stock up my bar at the house if possible!!

Yeah you can bring back booze that is cheaper than what you can get locally. But IMO you shop and bring back what you cannot get locally.

The value potential is there, but the opportunity potential is better I tinks.

[semichigan]

We brought back 3 bottles of rum, two flavored Cruzan rums and one Captain Morgan's. The bottles are bigger than what we can purchase at home and cheaper too. Carnival has inflatable containers, similar to giant bubble wrap (about one dollar each, I think) that they blow up for you with the bottles inside. We had all three in those wraps, in our checked luggage and made it from FLL to Detroit - with a plane change in St. Louis and a stop in Chicago with no issues! (Also we always fly Southwest - no charge for checking bags - 2 per person!)