Drink Package Clarification for a New Celebrity Cruiser

[AZ Ocean Lover]

Well, not brand new but it’s been a while.  They used to have a big, better, best deal that allowed you to pick the drink package and one other perk included with the cost of your cruise.  Now it looks like you have to pay a pretty big up charge to get the two perks.  Am I reading this correctly?  And, if so, do they ever have sales that would include the drink package similar to Princess’s Sip and Sail?

 

Thanks in advance for any guidance.

[jelayne]

The previous pricing which included 1 or 2 perks was not popular with those that don’t want the perks but were paying for them with the bundled pricing, The new pricing allows those that don’t want any perks to book without perks although there is a non-refundable deposit.  

 

Think of the 2 perk price as what you would have paid under the 2 perks included pricing.  They were not free just built into the price.

[Bo1953]

.... also, X does have sales promotions on Perks and Excursions, from time to time, up to 50% off, usually around 30% though.

 

bon voyage

[NantahalaCruiser]

2 hours ago, jelayne said:

The previous pricing which included 1 or 2 perks was not popular with those that don’t want the perks but were paying for them with the bundled pricing, The new pricing allows those that don’t want any perks to book without perks although there is a non-refundable deposit.  

 

Think of the 2 perk price as what you would have paid under the 2 perks included pricing.  They were not free just built into the price.

And the price with a refundable deposit was always more expensive than the price with a non-refundable deposit - typically about 5% higher. So let's look at a price comparison to see what you are getting for your money.

 

For an example, I arbitrarily choose a 2B cabin on a 7-night E. Caribbean cruise on the Equinox departing 2/1/20.

 

For this cruise, the current price with zero perks and a non-refundable deposit is $1484 pp, while the price with two perks and a refundable deposit is $1799 pp (both prices not including taxes and fees.) We can think of the price differential of $315 as consisting of three pieces: an up charge for the benefit of a refundable deposit and the cost of two perks.

 

5% of the non-refundable rate is about $75 - so we can use it as a reasonable estimate of the up charge for a refundable deposit. Thus $315 - $75 = $230 is a reasonable estimate of the cost your are paying for your two perks. If you were to pick the $150 OBC and the Classic Beverage Package as your two perks, you would effectively be paying only $230 - $150 = $80 for the Classic. At only $11.43 per day, this is only 16.1% of the $70.80 daily standard price for the Classic ($59 plus the now 20% gratuity.)

 

So the two-perk pricing versus zero-perk pricing gives you an excellent effective price for the Classic Beverage Package.

[AZ Ocean Lover]

Wow!  Thank you all for the posts.  It makes total sense now.

[Tourist1292]

When I booked my cruise 6 months ago at the time they have the Go Better and Go Best option pricing, There was (and is) no perk option (but with refundable deposit) through my bigbox TA even at that time. The Go Better (2 perks) option basically costed me $500 more per cabin. It is pretty much the same as what they have now except for the non-refundable deposit at the lowest price.

[jimzgoldfinch]

The classic drinks package for 7 day cruise pp is $495 including 20% gratuity.

Compare the cost of no perk with 2 perk deal. Taking the costs indicated in the post above, no brainer by taking 2 perk deal (assuming you want the drinks package.)