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2914 - Implementation of the New Wine Policy

innlady1

By innlady1,
in Holland America Line

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Windsailer

Windsailer

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Posted
[quote name='sackman']This may have been addressed already, but Princess has the exact same policy.[/quote]

[FONT=Comic Sans MS][SIZE=3]I really don't know why people keep insisting that Princess has the same policy. Here's the policy:[/SIZE][/FONT]

"[FONT=Times New Roman]As provided in the Passage Contract, passengers agree not to bring alcoholic beverages of any kind onboard for consumption, except one bottle of wine or champagne per adult of drinking age (no larger than 750 ml) per voyage, which will not be subject to a corkage fee if consumed in the stateroom. Additional wine or champagne bottles are welcome, but will incur a $15 corkage fee each, irrespective of where they are intended to be consumed. Liquor, spirits or beers are not permitted. Please remember that luggage will be scanned and alcohol outside of our policy will be removed and discarded."[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman][/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman][FONT=Comic Sans MS]I would be very, very happy to pay the $15 per additional bottle so I can have decent and well priced wine. And will do so after this last cruise I have scheduled with HAL for May. [/FONT][/FONT]
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Boytjie

Boytjie

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[quote name='Windsailer'][FONT=Comic Sans MS][SIZE=3]I really don't know why people keep insisting that Princess has the same policy. Here's the policy:[/SIZE][/FONT]

"[FONT=Times New Roman]As provided in the Passage Contract, passengers agree not to bring alcoholic beverages of any kind onboard for consumption, except one bottle of wine or champagne per adult of drinking age (no larger than 750 ml) per voyage, which will not be subject to a corkage fee if consumed in the stateroom. Additional wine or champagne bottles are welcome, but will incur a $15 corkage fee each, irrespective of where they are intended to be consumed. Liquor, spirits or beers are not permitted. Please remember that luggage will be scanned and alcohol outside of our policy will be removed and discarded."[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman][FONT=Comic Sans MS]I would be very, very happy to pay the $15 per additional bottle so I can have decent and well priced wine. And will do so after this last cruise I have scheduled with HAL for May. [/FONT][/FONT][/quote]

What is interesting is that Princess says it will discard any prohibited booze brought on board; most other cruise lines say will return it the last night of the cruise. I actually can;t recall another that says it will discard it.
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cruz chic

cruz chic

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[quote name='jtl513']Not if they've reviewed the Know Before You Go as they should. Admittedly, most repeat cruises probably don't.[/quote]
Well then they have no one to blame but themselves. I think people need to take some personal responsibility. I can't say I read every single word but I do a pretty good scan of it.
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TiogaCruiser "Live from...." Rare

TiogaCruiser

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If significant amounts of people were to employ this strategy, it will delay everyone getting on the ship. Please, consider another way to express your dissatisfaction with the new wine policy.

 

I suppose if that were to happen a separate line would be created for those toting more than the maximum- or bringing their own on.

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taxmantoo

taxmantoo

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I suppose if that were to happen a separate line would be created for those toting more than the maximum- or bringing their own on.

 

Considering the way this policy has been was implemented, I wouldn't "suppose" anything. :rolleyes: The HAL brain trust in Seattle will once again leave the poor Filipino wine stewards on board bear the brunt for their decisions. They are the ones who will have to explain the new policy to unsuspecting guests at boarding time and deal with the negative reactions.

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jtl513

jtl513

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Posted (edited)
Actually the new and unimproved policy begins this Friday the 31st.
I've wondered for months whether 1/31 is the last day of the current policy or the first day of the new ... but it doesn't really matter, because there are no HAL ships starting a cruise on the 31st! (according to cruisetimetables.com) Was that planned, or happenstance? :D Edited by jtl513
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Kona921

Kona921

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No smokers Kona 921 ?? Lots of smokers on HAL ships.:eek:

 

Haha! No... I just meant that none of this brouhaha will keep me away. I love HAL...I will wear my fancy dresses, my husband will wear his tux, we will bring our nicest bottles and enjoy both the Pinnacle and Canneletto. We will enjoy our veranda even if someone is hacking up a lung next doer. We will even enjoy the casino...with its smoky haze. Cruising is still an absolute steal of a deal....and for me the most relaxing vacation I can take. And I can't wait!

 

 

3 Star Mariner on HAL

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pris993

pris993

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Posted
Many cruisers are rather limited in their cruising experiences and even more limited in their understanding of cruise industry finances.

It is very easy to say," Reduce the selling price by 50% and you will sell twice as many and make far more money".

Anyone with basic math skills can demonstrate why that doesn't work.

If it did work, you can bet that General Motors, Coca-Cola, and McDonalds would have started doing it many years ago.

 

McDonalds sells you a quart of Coca-Cola, badly made from syrup, in a paper cup half filled with ice, that costs them just a few pennies to make. You pay more than a dollar for it. That's quite a substantial mark-up. One might even claim it is downright theft. Is anyone complaining?

 

Starbucks makes you stand in line - twice - to get a paper cup of coffee that costs just a few pennies to produce. You are quite happily paying $32.00 per gallon for it. Does that seem like some kind of total ripoff to you? I don't hear anyone screaming..............

 

Have you visited an American movie theater lately? Try to buy a chocolate bar or a box of popcorn in the lobby. You may need to get a 2nd mortgage to afford them. People do complain, but they keep on buying..................

 

Last year, Americans paid over $14 BILLION for bottled drinking water. Most of that water came from city taps in Atlanta and Dallas. Chances are that the tap water in your home is better quality - and costs you basically nothing. Nobody seems to care. They keep on sucking on those trendy bottles - and throwing them in land-fills all over America..

 

By the way, Americans paid just $12 BILLION for gasoline that same year (something you cannot make or get at home for a few pennies) and screamed bloody murder at the high prices.

 

I stayed at the Hilton Hawaiian Village recently. A 12 oz can of coke from a vending machine there is now $3.25. Hilton pays less than 50 cents for that coke. A 650% markup. The machines are often empty because so many people are using them. Are people really that dumb?

 

The cruise line execs ARE paying attention - and learning a great deal about you, from the points listed above.

 

Let's look at costs and profits. Many people do not understand them.

 

A land-based Bar in North America hopes to have an average beverage cost of 8% to 12% in order to stay profitable.

Simply put, if the drink costs them 8 cents to make, they charge you a dollar for it. It's actually a bit more complicated than that, but you get the picture.

 

A cruise ship works a bit differently. Most major cruise lines try to keep their beverage costs under 20% most of the time. Transportation, handling, breakage, and theft push their costs higher. The old urban myth of duty free costs keeping their costs down is just that - an old urban myth. Most cruise lines today find is cheaper to buy alcohol from major distributors (tax included), then pay a fortune to fly it halfway around the planet, and pay some local union another fortune to break/steal part of it and deliver the remainder to the ship. Going "Duty-Free" through a government bonded warehouse is far more expensive, time-consuming, difficult - and just not worth it.

 

So if a cruise line drink costs them 20 cents to make, they charge you a dollar for it. Pretty simple so far, no?

But so far we are talking only about "drinks" - and not wines.

 

Suppose a cruise line wants to sell a lot of wine.

They need to maintain their 20% cost (or lower) to remain profitable.

The bottle of wine costs them $5. Selling price needs to be $25 to make the 20% cost.

 

I haven't seen a bottle of wine with a $5 cost on a ship in quite some time.

The cheapest bottle on my ship today costs us just over $8. It's not very good. Nearly half the cost was flying it from California to Hong Kong to get it onto the ship.

That requires a selling price of just over $40 to maintain a 20% cost.

 

Let's look back at that bar on land.

His costs are generally lower and he needs a smaller cost percentage to stay profitable.

He doesn't have to pay the interest on a $750 MILLION mortgage, and his monthly fuel bill is substantially below the $2 MILLION (and rapidly climbing) that I pay every month.

 

Of course, he doesn't get to sell cruises to make a profit.

But guess what - my company also makes no profit selling cruises. We sell them at cost most of the time, and below cost to fill those last 50 cabins every week.

 

He also does not sell much wine.

Most Americans are not wine drinkers; it is mainly just people living on the California Coast, a few areas in the Northeast, and South Florida. Those are the big three wine markets in America; the ONLY big wine markets in America.

 

But he is also very lucky. Wine almost always has a higher cost of sales. The more wine he sells, the higher his costs go - and the lower his profits fall.

He can easily sell whiskey, vodka, and even beer with costs below 8%. But not wine.

Does he want to sell wine to you? No.

 

My onboard beverage manager has the same problem - but even worse. His costs on spirits and beer are a bit higher than the land-based bar, but not by much. That's why my ship can sell you a cocktail for about the same price you pay at a Holiday Inn, and still maintain a reasonable +/- 20% cost of sales.

But his wine costs are much higher than those paid on land - mostly due to transportation and handling costs.

Every time he sells you a glass of wine instead of a whiskey, his costs go up and his onboard revenue and profit goes down.

The bulk of his salary comes in the form of an incentive bonus that is based on cost of sales, and overall revenue.

Does he want to sell wine to you? No.

Would he ever suggest lowering the wine prices so that he can sell more, completely sabotaging his costs, killing his monthly salary, and rather quickly losing his job? Not a chance.

 

Would his Corporate Beverage VP ever want to lower wine prices? No way.

The result would cost the company millions in additional costs and lost revenues.

 

Would he ever propose having you pay a $20 corkage fee to bring your own wine onboard?

No way. That gives you 4 or 5 drinks for $20 revenue and no cost.

But selling you a bottle of wine - or even better - 4 or 5 cocktails, would get him more revenue and more profit despite the costs.

 

So now we know the REAL reason why ALL the cruise lines cannot manage to sell even one bottle of wine per passenger per cruise.

We really don't want to. We simply cannot afford it.

The passengers who drink other beverages are subsidizing your cruise.

 

So, all you wine mavens out there (myself proudly included), how much do you think the cruise lines really value your business?

 

Not much or else they would not have changed the wine policy.

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PunkiC

PunkiC

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Posted

The new wine policy has caused us to scratch HAL off our list of possible cruise lines. Too bad, because we really enjoyed our crossing in October and all of the wonderful wines we picked up in Italy, Spain and Portugal.

 

Wine shopping in port is a significant source of entertainment for us on cruises and one we are not willing to sacrifice.

 

Hopefully, they will eventually modify their new policy to allow wine to be brought on board with a $15 corkage fee, like Princess so we can continue to consider HAL cruises in the future..

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pris993

pris993

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The new wine policy has caused us to scratch HAL off our list of possible cruise lines. Too bad, because we really enjoyed our crossing in October and all of the wonderful wines we picked up in Italy, Spain and Portugal.

 

Wine shopping in port is a significant source of entertainment for us on cruises and one we are not willing to sacrifice.

 

Hopefully, they will eventually modify their new policy to allow wine to be brought on board with a $15 corkage fee, like Princess so we can continue to consider HAL cruises in the future..

 

We are with you, we have cruised the Mediterranean a dozen times, find shopping for wine in port a very enjoyable way to connect with locals. We shop for other local items as well. Our TA in April very well may be out last on HAL, if we did not have it booked in advance, would not have done so til HAL's wine policy mirrored the options we find on Princess, Celebrity and Cunard. Glad we have other options. We are booked on Celebrity for the fall and Princess for 2015 already. We are not willing to settle and drink poor quality wine for high prices. We have tried wines on all the cruise lines, just can't find ones we really enjoy.

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smoothsailors

smoothsailors

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Absolutely agree with PunkiC and pris993...it is a great deal of fun, and a good way to meet locals, to search for an interesting bottle of wine in foreign ports. We've always happily paid the corkage fee and shared our "finds" with tablemates in the MDR. Not allowing this is the true weak spot in HAL's new wine policy.

 

mightycruisequeen: we do not "schlep" fine wine onboard but do enjoy bringing special bottles unavailable on HAL...and are willing to pay for the privilege. I appreciate that the new wione policy will not change your mind about future cruises, but please appreciate that it very well may change mine.

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boards Holiday Sharing Rare

boards

Posted
Posted
The new wine policy has caused us to scratch HAL off our list of possible cruise lines. Too bad, because we really enjoyed our crossing in October and all of the wonderful wines we picked up in Italy, Spain and Portugal.

 

Wine shopping in port is a significant source of entertainment for us on cruises and one we are not willing to sacrifice.

 

Hopefully, they will eventually modify their new policy to allow wine to be brought on board with a $15 corkage fee, like Princess so we can continue to consider HAL cruises in the future..

 

I don't see any reason for them to change their wine policy based on the number times you have been on Hal prior the new policy. Apparently the old policy didn't encourage you very much.

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sail7seas

sail7seas

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Posted
Haha! No... I just meant that none of this brouhaha will keep me away. I love HAL...I will wear my fancy dresses, my husband will wear his tux, we will bring our nicest bottles and enjoy both the Pinnacle and Canneletto. We will enjoy our veranda even if someone is hacking up a lung next doer. We will even enjoy the casino...with its smoky haze. Cruising is still an absolute steal of a deal....and for me the most relaxing vacation I can take. And I can't wait!

 

 

3 Star Mariner on HAL

 

 

Great attitude !! :cool: :)

 

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