Wine and Drinks on the Jade

[Teris50]

I have friends sailing on the Jade in June. They are asking about wine and drink prices. Does the Jade offer drink packages? They sail from Venice, can they carry on wine and if so, does anyone know of a place in Venice where they can purchase some prior to boarding? They are heavy drinkers.

 

Thanks for your help.

 

Teri

[KandJCruising]

I'd say your friends have several good options.

NCL has a soda option. They can also carry on all the non-alcoholic beverages they care to consume.

There is also the option for a bar setup in the cabin. The prices are kind of steep, but might still end up being cheaper than a bar tab.

Finally, NCL will allow as many bottles of wine as they'd like to bring, but with a $15/750mL blottle corkage fee (higher for larger bottles).

It's been years since I've been to Venice, so I don't know a good place to stock up before boarding.

[Teris50]

is there a corkage fee if they drink it in the cabin and bring their own corkscrew?

[bakerintn]

is there a corkage fee if they drink it in the cabin and bring their own corkscrew?

 

Yes.

 

Here is the NCL policy from the US website:

 

Wine & Champagne Policy

Guests may bring bottles of wine and champagne on board. When bottles are brought on board and served or consumed in any restaurant, public room area or in their stateroom, a corkage fee will be charged according to bottle sizes noted below.

 

750 ml Bottle: $15.00

1,500 ml Magnum: $30.00

 

Wine or champagne sent directly to the ship by travel agents, friends, family, etc. or from another retail source, are subject to the same fees. Box wines are not allowed on board.

 

The corkage is assessed as passengers go through security....if they put it in their checked bags, those bags will go to the "naughty room" and they will have to go there and open their bag for an inspection....wine will be charged the corkage fee at that time.

[English_in_Spain]

What price are the bottles of wine if you buy them on the ship? I am talking ordinary, lowest price, house wines in the restaurants or in the dining room.

 

Also, how much do they charge for a glass of wine in a bar?

 

How much for a bottle of wine in the cabin?

 

I will be boarding in Barcelona (if we decide to take the cruise we have an option on) and am trying to work out whether to buy the wine before boarding and pay the corkage or buy it on the ship.

 

Also, when sailing RCI from Barcelona, there is a wine store in the cruise terminal after going through ship's security checks. Is this the same for NCL?

 

[kernow]

We returned from the Jade last Wednesday.

 

We carried on 2 bottles of wine in our hand luggage expecting to pay $15 per bottle, our bags went through the scanner, no one said a word and there was no table for alcohol. We just walked onto the ship with our wine. The duty free shop was open after check in so you could also buy wine and spirits if you wanted(there was also duty free in Malaga).

 

We drank the wine in the cabin, I don't know if they would have charged corkage in the restaurant.

 

On the first day they sold a wine package which we bought, 20% off if you bought at least 8 bottles of wine from a list of about 20. The wines on the list were varied and ranged from $28 to around $65, we bought 8 bottles all around the $30 mark and all were pleasant. They give you a voucher for each bottle and you take it to any restaurant. BTW all these prices are plus tax.

 

My son also had the soda package, I think this was $6.50 a day.

 

I didn't see any other packages apart from the buckets of beer.

 

I don't know the price for a glass of wine but generally bar prices were similar to RCL.

 

Julie

[English_in_Spain]

Thank you Julie for that information.

 

We have a hold until Monday.

 

We have not been on NCL since early 1990s - I know it has changed since then.

 

We had a HAL cruise booked but have had to cancel it and are looking for something out of Barcelona in April to celebrate our anniversary. This looks like our best bet but can't decide.

 

I see you have been on RCI. How would you say the Jade compares with that?

 

[kernow]

Carol, this was our first time on NCL, we've never been too sure about the Freestyle but it was the only cruise that fitted our schedule and we thought we'd give it a try.

 

We did enjoy the cruise and there were some things that we really liked. The shows were excellent, the best we've seen on a ship, the food quality was pretty good and the cabin was nice(we had a minisuite), although all the cabins seemed a bit smaller than their equivalent on RCL.

 

 

The ship itself was OK, it didn't have the wow factor of the RCL ships for us.

 

The area where we really noticed a big difference was the staff and the service. There was no big incident to complain about but they were just not as friendly as on RCL, it seemed like people just did their job whereas on RCL they will go the extra mile for you if they can. We prepaid our tips as usual but it was the first time in many cruises where we didn't give any extra tips at the end.

 

We also decided that Freestyle is not really for us, the dress code wasn't a problem, lots of people including us still dressed up, but we missed having our own table and waiters every night. Lots of people do seem to love Freestyle though, so it may suit you.

 

Hope this helps, if you have any other questions just ask.

 

Julie

[tamzinangel]

We were on the New year Jade cruise also. Have to say we were not impressed at all. The food was mediocre to say the least. Wine averaged 30usd or 6.25 per glass PLUS 15% auto gratuity. It felt that NCL tried to take your eyeballs out at every opportunity. Everything was subject to the 15% that on top of the 12 usd service charge. There are only 2 standard restaurants and the rest have a cover charge of between 10 and 20 dollars. The photographers were everywhere and the charges for the photos not less than 9.95 for 1 photo. In this age of recycling I would have thought that it would be possible to find a better system than printinting all of these photos that people do not buy and I presume are binned after each trip. Surely if the photos were charges at a nonimal fee more people would pay for them. Buyer beware. If you have another option other than NCL then I would take it.

[English_in_Spain]

I now do not know what to do.

 

From what you are both saying, together with what I have read elsewhere, I am not sure this is the cruise for us.

 

Our favourite is HAL, second favourite is RCI (Voyager class ships). We are in our 60s/70s.

 

We had a cruise booked with HAL (Caribbean and Transatlantic) for our 40th anniversary in April. I have now been advised by my doctor not to do the long flight to Miami. We have replaced our HAL cruise with an October Med cruise.

 

That still leaves us with what to do for our actual anniversary. I have put a hold on the Jade Canary Island cruise but DH is not sure. I am now beginning to have doubts.

 

Unfortunately, there are not many cruises to choose from in April. We would like to do a RCI again but nothing fits our timings.

 

We live in Spain, so maybe we will just take a few days holiday somewhere here. The trouble is, I do like my cruising :o

[Fishbait17]

If it makes you feel better, we have sailed on the Jade three times and absolutely LOVE the ship and it's crew. To be fair, we always sail in suites, have never sailed HAL, and generally don't dine in the main dining room (there are just too many great options for too few days!). It is a lovely ship, well appointed without all the bells and whistles of some of the brand new ships, but plenty to do!

 

As to your original question - We generally buy several bottles of wine in any European embarkation port and bring them on, paying corkage fees. This gives us the chance to try many new kinds of wine for less money, as even cheaper wines are usually very good in Spanish and Italian cities (definitely more hits than misses!). We are also advocates of paying for a bar setup, so that we can enjoy a cocktail in our cabin without having to go to the bar.

 

Robin

[English_in_Spain]

If it makes you feel better, we have sailed on the Jade three times and absolutely LOVE the ship and it's crew. To be fair, we always sail in suites, have never sailed HAL, and generally don't dine in the main dining room (there are just too many great options for too few days!). It is a lovely ship, well appointed without all the bells and whistles of some of the brand new ships, but plenty to do!

 

As to your original question - We generally buy several bottles of wine in any European embarkation port and bring them on, paying corkage fees. This gives us the chance to try many new kinds of wine for less money, as even cheaper wines are usually very good in Spanish and Italian cities (definitely more hits than misses!). We are also advocates of paying for a bar setup, so that we can enjoy a cocktail in our cabin without having to go to the bar.

 

Robin

 

To be fair, you only seemed to have cruised NCL so it is difficult for you to compare to other cruise lines like RCI or HAL.

 

I am just not sure whether the freestyle type of cruising is for us. I wonder if we would find it just too casual. We actually like the formal atmosphere of the MDR.

 

[kernow]

Carol, we too like a formal atmosphere and dinner to be the 'main' event of the evening and that just doesn't happen on NCL. Quite often dinner was over in an hour, whereas we are normally quite happy to sit for 2 hours or more chatting to our tablemates and the waiters. That was something we really missed.

 

We tried the Teppanyaki and Italian restaurants and enjoyed the food in both, but even then dinner took no longer than 1 and a half hours.

 

I guess this doesn't really help you though:)

 

Julie

[Esperanza7]

Well, this will be our first time on NCL and we are really hoping it will be good. We were on an RCI cruise in October and actually found the standards had dropped since our previous cruise with them. We decided to take a chance and book the Jade as 1) we prefer a slightly smaller ship to the RCI one 2)It's a good opportunity to try the freestyle whilst we are on our own and 3) It leaves from Málaga which is just up the road from where we live. Reports, as for all the cruise lines, are pretty mixed but all being well, if we enjoy this one we are hoping to book a Med cruise with NCL in September/October with friends. By the way we are both in our 60s but do like to have a good time :)

[tamzinangel]

Have you looked at the Thomson one which also goes around the Canaries and Funchal. We did that one last year and found it to be much better all round than the nc lJade we have just done. Food was superb, entertainment excellent and it was possible to pay a supplement to make it into an allinclusive and to me the bonus was no service charges or autogratuities they were all included.Hope this is of some help. Sometimes in life you just have to take a chance. Best wishes for your anniversary

[English_in_Spain]

Have you looked at the Thomson one which also goes around the Canaries and Funchal. We did that one last year and found it to be much better all round than the nc lJade we have just done. Food was superb, entertainment excellent and it was possible to pay a supplement to make it into an allinclusive and to me the bonus was no service charges or autogratuities they were all included.Hope this is of some help. Sometimes in life you just have to take a chance. Best wishes for your anniversary

 

We looked at Thomson but there was not a departure that fitted our needs.

 

We want to sail from Barcelona as anywhere else is difficult/expensive for us to fly to. It is the April that is a problem. Seems to be a bit early for most cruise lines.

 

We also want cruise only not fly/cruise as we are already in Spain.

[Single Cruiser]

Having Done RCI Freedom class just over a year ago and then NCL last year. Bar prices are about the same. For me NCL seemed to attract a younger average passenger, one less bothered by the formalities of fixed time events like dining. Both have their pluses I'm hoping to get a late last minute deal on Jade in the next few weeks!

[Esperanza7]

What price are the bottles of wine if you buy them on the ship? I am talking ordinary, lowest price, house wines in the restaurants or in the dining room.

 

Also, how much do they charge for a glass of wine in a bar?

 

How much for a bottle of wine in the cabin?

 

I will be boarding in Barcelona (if we decide to take the cruise we have an option on) and am trying to work out whether to buy the wine before boarding and pay the corkage or buy it on the ship.

 

Also, when sailing RCI from Barcelona, there is a wine store in the cruise terminal after going through ship's security checks. Is this the same for NCL?

 

Hi Carol,

 

We have decided to take our own wine on board (in our hand baggage)and pay the corkage. As you know we can get some pretty good wines here at very reasonable prices and even adding on 15$ to the price, we reckon it will be a better deal for us. Also it's great because you can drink it anywhere on the ship, so I understand. We're going in March so as to be back for the Easter break which we like to spend with the family. Whatever you decide hope you have a great time.

[Hank99]

Hi Carol

 

We've been on two cruises... Only two, so we are not experts :D )

 

But, coming up is our Jade test trip. Our first cruise was on Ocean Village 2 and it was fun, lively, pretty casual, had a couple of nice touches for a couple in their 30s with a laundry room which was appreciated (not that anyone wants to live their life in that part of the ship of course, but a trip once there to load up a machine and a couple to swap to dryers and a quick iron of a shirt was ok)

 

The second cruise was amazing. RCI: Independance of The Seas. We loved it. We really enjoyed the MDR and enjoyed the relationship we formed with the waiting staff. The style of the ship, the formal dress was nice and we went to town on it like many other guests on board. Sure, not everyone did, but enough to make it special and I would say 90%+ in the MDR did rise to the occasion most nights.

 

So Jade... Like you, time of year and we so wanted some sunshine (the North of England with the darness until we get to work and the darkness before we get to leave work)... The wind and rain and the cold today... Only a couple of weeks until we are in the Canaries :D

 

Thompson did not do it for me. A relative has been on an all inclusive, but said the ship was tired and there was a lot of plastic about it. Not sure exactly how I would see it if we had gone for it, but to me NCL is somewhere between Ocean Village and RCI.

 

So that's what I am hoping for and I have seen people post saying it was good and bad. Everyone is different and also we all have occasional bad experiences of any service which can be a let down.

 

I don't post here too often but I will write a review when we get back. BTW, I'm in my 40's now (so Ocean Village is not for me for sure!), I definitely prefer the comforts of RCI and it will be interesting to experience NCL.

 

I'm hoping that the Guest Services London phone service is not an indication of what the service on board will be like.

 

I emailed NCL to ask about a Bar Set Up with my requirements. They said they can do it, but I need to phone them. Can I get through? NO! Over 5 minutes to their 0845 number today on my mobile and all I get is the music and sales chatter, no humans. Whatever option I pick, no humans. Not a good start!

[kernow]

Hank99,

 

your post about the laundry just reminded me of something I liked on NCL, if you ring housekeeping they will let you borrow an iron and board to use in the cabin, that's something I wish RCL would do.

 

To all those who have booked, if you go with the attitude that you're going to enjoy it I think you will, while it may not have been our favourite cruise it certainly wasn't a bad one.

 

Julie

[Esperanza7]

Hank99,

 

your post about the laundry just reminded me of something I liked on NCL, if you ring housekeeping they will let you borrow an iron and board to use in the cabin, that's something I wish RCL would do.

 

To all those who have booked, if you go with the attitude that you're going to enjoy it I think you will, while it may not have been our favourite cruise it certainly wasn't a bad one.

 

Julie

 

Thanks Julie that's really good to know about the iron - I don't need to do lots but sometimes the linen things could do with a freshen up.

 

I'm definitely going with a positive attitude - and am really excited about the cruise and itinerary. It is a completely new concept for us and you know what - if I don't like it I won't go again! My personal thoughts are you'll never know if you don't try :) esperanza