considering the AI package

[perthorchid]

We are on the Celebrity on oct 20th for 7 nights. I have been considering the AI package , which is £199 each.

 

That is roughly £30 a day in drinks costs. Im just not sure if its worth it.

 

Looking at drinks menus which other folks have posted it looks like Spirits are around £3.90 each . Does that include the mixers?

 

Wine and beer around the same cost . So it looks like we would need to be drinking 7+ drinks a day to make it worth while (if my maths is right)

 

Maybe on the sea day but im not so sure on the others .

 

Can someone tell me what happens with mixers ie gin and tonic on both the AI package and pay as you go . If it puts cost up to £6 each drink then that would be a deciding factor

[geomagot]

yes £3.90 includes the mixer

 

yes £199 is a lot imo thomson bar prices are quite reasonable...you have to 'go for it' to break even (7 drinks a day...everyday)?

 

the house wine is ga:eek::eek:rh!....half decent wine carries a surcharge

 

watch out for surcharges on some of the branded spirits too

 

some days they do 2 for 1 happy hours on cocktails and a cruise cocktail of the day at a slightly cheaper price:cool:

Edited August 12, 2014 by geomagot

[Little Nell]

Answered you on FB , Perthorchid :)

[WeeCountyMan]

I presume you mean Celebration, not Celebrity ?

 

You can purchase duty free from the shop and consume it in your cabin - we do that for pre-dinner drinks.

 

You can buy cans of mixers at the bar for £1.80 - I often have whisky, plenty of free chilled water from the buffet, ice is available near cabin locations.

 

I expect there will also be a happy hour(s) - house spirits and wine @ two for the price of one.

 

IMO the AI deal @£199 per person is way too expensive - especially as Thomsons have started offering a drinks package @ £10 each per day on certain cruises - and Fred Olsen offer the same on all sailings as far as I know.

 

Would you drink £28.42 worth of swally over 24 hours for 7 consecutive days ?

[CRUISIN LINDA]

I'm with WCM here :)

 

Our drinks bill is usually about £220 for a week for two of us, so certainly not worth it for us. Don't forget you will be off the ship most days. Tea and coffee are free 24 hours a day and many of the drinks now have supplements on them.

 

Just depends, I suppose how much you drink, but not for us (unless it's "free" for early booking :))

[kalos]

Just took these flights as an example. (Maybe they are your flights )

 

Glasgow Dalaman Mon 20-Oct-14 09:45 arrive 16:15

 

(Hint buy a bottle of water for your onward journey off the plane just before you land, Dalaman aint cheap )

 

Now wait for baggage ,do passport control which could take up best part of an hour in Dalaman and board coach .

Memory serves me right thats going to take over 1.5 hours to get to Marmaris .

Time to check in on the ship ,that should not take too long and before you start on the drink , getting your moneys worth ,...

now you have the ships drill to attend .

 

Now you can start getting your moneys worth in drink but look at the time thats passed on your first day ? :eek:

 

If your out off the ship for the day on trips ,would you still both get to catch up on the AI to make it pay at that price ?

 

 

Dalaman Glasgow Mon 27-Oct-14 take off 17:15 ... 20:00

Chances are your coach home will be around mid day back to Dalaman so not much chance of many drinks that morning.

 

So i think it would be more realistic to divide your £199 by 6 days

and ask yourself are you both going to down £33 pounds worth of drink each day , just to break even ?

 

I'm with Geo and W C M on this ..I would not buy it for us, not worth it and in some of the ports you may want to sit in a bar

that's a lot cheaper than the ship .:)

 

Whatever you choose . Enjoy :cool:

[nancyneptune]

Unfortunately I have come across a few people who have had their money's worth and it's not a pretty sight.

[kalos]

I'm with WCM here :)

 

Our drinks bill is usually about £220 for a week for two of us, :))

 

We also average around that figure as well Linda and as you say a Cuppa is free as well :):)

 

Unfortunately I have come across a few people who have had their money's worth and it's not a pretty sight.

 

Very true Nancy but I don't see too many at my breakfast time which is around 7- 7.30 as a rule :D

[CRUISIN LINDA]

Have you started the packing yet kalos or is that Mrs kalos' job?

[GaryT-UK]

I've just had the £15 per day drinks package on the Majesty (I booked early) and I easily got my money's worth. I've only once paid full price thinking it would be convenient, but like you say I needed to drink 7 or 8 drinks a day to get my money's worth and after a couple of days I really didn't want to drink at all, and then felt like I had overpaid! They have also changed the cards from AI to DP because the "all inclusive" drinks are house wines (I liked them), draught beers and one or two of each type of spirit, but a lot of things over that like bottled beers and different brands of spirits have a supplement on top of the drinks package. I was happy with basic beer & wine, but if you only drink a certain brand you may find you still pay on top of the package. It does include a lot of draught soft drinks and non alcoholic cocktails too though, so you don't always have to be drinking alcohol. Of course the great thing about the DP is it's paid for and you don't have to think about whether to have that extra drink or not then.

[gillhalfpint]

We only take the drinks package if it is free or around £10 a day for the reasons given above. On Dream in the Caribbean we were ashore most days, only 2 sea days in the 14, so we would not have the hours on board to make a package worth it, and although we like a drink with dinner, one or two will do. Would not be wanting to work out if we were getting our money's worth. The free water and coffee in the buffet was fine for us during the day on sea days with the odd cocktail thrown in. Too hot to fill up with alcohol all day. Our bar bill was around £200 over the 2 weeks and we had enough to drink when we wanted it. We had the free package on Majesty in May, and stuck with our usual routine without going over the top, same on Island Escape which is all in for everyone now. We managed without paying supplements too.

[WeeCountyMan]

So it looks like we would need to be drinking 7+ drinks a day to make it worth while (if my maths is right)

 

That would only be a "break even"(ish) calculation.

 

Our bar bill is around the £200 mark similar to others above.

 

There are other drinks packages which you can purchase on board which may be more attractive to you - various combination of bottles of wine, or bottles of wine plus pints of lager/beer.

 

We particularly like the happy hour in the late afternoon 5pm-6pm which is ideal after a day ashore, and before dinner.

[geomagot]

So it looks like we would need to be drinking 7+ drinks a day to make it worth while (if my maths is right)

 

That would only be a "break even"(ish) calculation.

 

 

good point wcm....a break evenish calculation is not good enough, the point is to save money so you would have to better that:p

 

if you are just going to break even then you might as well go on payg and drink the decent stuff

 

if the ai is half price or free then yes, its a good deal:cool:

 

but

 

never any free or discounted ai on dream in caribbean:(

 

so

 

some payg tips:

 

fruit juice is free on the buffets untill lunchtime

 

iced water is free at the bar(s)

 

at christmas & n/y they give away free glasses of fizz & bucks fizz (and at the captains reception)

 

daily 2 for one specials, cheaper cocktail of the day specials

 

discounted wine/beer packages available

 

keep a bottle of duty free in the fridge for pre dinner drinks (soft drinks/bottles of beer/cider/water are cheap in the supermarkets/bars ashore)

 

the steward will deliver a bucket of ice if you ask him

 

I have known people to take a britafilter to keep in the fridge and fill their water bottles with (cold) filtered tap water :cool: (or fill them from the machines in the buffet.....but that isnt very hygenic)

 

tea coffee is free all day, if you like capuchino? take your own (£2.99 for 20 sachets in b&m)

[Jim The Scot]

We must be the exception to the rule as our bar bill is quite a bit higher than £200/£220 quoted by some and were not as nancyneptune put it one of these people who have had their moneys worth and not a pretty sight.I actually find that comment quite condescending

 

As for being ashore most and all day.There are many who are not ashore most days or all day especially if its a port they have previously visited

[davecttr]

Those discounted beer/lager packages are worth looking at as an alternative to the DP. Are they only available on Majesty/Spirit ,the two Louis run ships?

[campolady]

We must be the exception to the rule as our bar bill is quite a bit higher than £200/£220 quoted by some and were not as nancyneptune put it one of these people who have had their moneys worth and not a pretty sight.I actually find that comment quite condescending

 

As for being ashore most and all day.There are many who are not ashore most days or all day especially if its a port they have previously visited

 

Couldn't agree more! We get more than our moneys worth - on mostly non-alcoholic drinks.

[CRUISIN LINDA]

You are a man after me ownheart Geo :D:D

 

As our friend said the other day, when I accused him of being tight, "I'm not tight, I'm carefull" :p

[GaryT-UK]

So it looks like we would need to be drinking 7+ drinks a day to make it worth while (if my maths is right)

 

That would only be a "break even"(ish) calculation.

 

I think that's the best way to look at it, its the calculation I always do. You can then decide if the number of drinks makes sense, based on how much you personnally would drink, and therefore if it is worth it.

Edited August 13, 2014 by GaryT-UK

[Broughton]

Was on Celebration last year and paid the £199 each for the AI (or DP as it is called now). Never counted up actual drinks cost consumed. However I'm pretty sure that even though we had plenty of drinks we never totalled that.

This year on Majesty got the package for £98 each. Drinking similar amount to last year (again not actually counting up) it was definitely a saving.

As mentioned previously one good thing about having the package is that the money has been paid up front and unless you go for premium priced items there is no more spend.

Have not seen anyone seriously worst for wear on either cruise.

[delapsthrowingarm]

Those discounted beer/lager packages are worth looking at as an alternative to the DP. Are they only available on Majesty/Spirit ,the two Louis run ships?

will be on majesty this october,can anyone give details of drinks packages available onboard..cheeers

[GaryT-UK]

will be on majesty this october,can anyone give details of drinks packages available onboard..cheeers

A few weeks ago they had the normal drinks package, a wine package, 35 pints of lager for £100ish - sorry I didn't really pay attention to all the details as I already had mine. I did buy the 7 day water package which had 14x 1.5ltr bottles for £16 (after the DP discount) - you just picked them up from the bars as you wanted them and it worked out about £1.15 per bottle, compared to £1.90 in the cabins. You could also mix still & sparkling. They have a table with all the packages set up onboard on day 1.

[Mower Lady]

Another consideration is how busy the ship is as we've just come back from the Dream which was full to capacity. This resulted in really slow drinks service, especially in the Theatre where it was hard enough to even get 1 drink, let alone enough to make paying for AI worthwhile.

[Jim The Scot]

Another consideration is how busy the ship is as we've just come back from the Dream which was full to capacity. This resulted in really slow drinks service, especially in the Theatre where it was hard enough to even get 1 drink, let alone enough to make paying for AI worthwhile.

 

Could be down to less staff cut backs.Our first two cruises on the Dream no probs getting a drink anywhere on the ship when full to capacity.The last twice was almost collapsing with dehydration in the Theatre waiting for a drink so much so we went and got our own

 

On the Majesty this year full to capacity, plenty of staff and you couldn,t finish one drink without a member of staff asking if you,d like another.Excellent service

Edited August 13, 2014 by Jim The Scot

[Broughton]

Could be down to less staff cut backs.Our first two cruises on the Dream no probs getting a drink anywhere on the ship when full to capacity.The last twice was almost collapsing with dehydration in the Theatre waiting for a drink so much so we went and got our own

 

On the Majesty this year full to capacity, plenty of staff and you couldn,t finish one drink without a member of staff asking if you,d like another.Excellent service

 

Agree with you Jim on the speed of service in the Theatre on the Majesty this year. It was excellent. Had no gripes anywhere else on the ship either. On Celebration last year it was not nearly as good although we did find a friendly barman on the open deck outside Liberties which seemed to speed things up.

[kalos]

Would also like any up to date info on the drinks packages that Dave mentions .

 

Geo ...Mrs Kalos says thanks for the heads up on the coffees which no doubt she will be packing in our bags .:cool:

 

Also Little Nell enjoy your cruise and all the best for your BIG Birthday ! :):)

 

 

Have you started the packing yet kalos or is that Mrs kalos' job?

 

I'm not let anywhere near the cases and once on-board ,thrown out of the cabin whilst Mrs K unpacks .

So I have to explore the bars.... which is fine by me .:D