Drink prices

[Balsam12]

Hi All,

 

My other half and I have only cruised with RCI previously, but have seen an Australian cruise with Carnival that looks like a good deal. 

 

Our question relates to drink prices and drink packages.  

 

With RCI, we pay about AUD 72, and this covers all drinks up to $12 or $13 onboard. If you order a drink that costs over the package limit,  you only pay the difference plus gratuity. We have never ordered a drink that wasn't covered by the package. 

 

From what I can find,  the equivalent package with Carnival costs $119. If I used the onboard drink prices from RCI, that would make the package uneconomic, and we would just pay as we go. 

 

I like a drink,  but don't want to be worried about "getting my money's worth" from a drink package.  With RCI, three or four alcoholic drinks per day is the break even. Easily done while on vacation. The Carnival one looks like eight or nine alcoholic drinks to break even,  which would be ok on a five night, but not on an eleven night.

 

Does anyone have either a recent onboard drinks menu,  or a link to one so I can do the math? 

 

Cheers, 

 

Balsam

[Bostwick girl]

I can only tell you the cost of a couple drinks I paid for on my November cruise on Liberty. I had a Bacardi rum and Diet Coke, it was $7.75 ( drinks include a 15% gratuity). Sometimes have a pina colada, runs about $9.50, same for Kiss on the Lips. My husband had 1 Bloody Mary and it was $12.50!  Anyway, hope this helps in your calculations. These prices are in US dollars.

Edited November 18 by Bostwick girl
Spelling correction

[ksmcdonald]

Is the $119 you refer to a day?  Or for the whole cruise?   Carnival is only $51.95 per day when including tax and gratuities around $61 a day.   Not sure where you are getting $119.  Typically, the same as RCI, on Carnival you need to drink 4 drinks a day to break even.  And it includes drinks valued at $20 or less.  You must wait five minutes between drink purchases and have a 15 drink limit per day.

 

 

[JaxsMama]

34 minutes ago, ksmcdonald said:

Is the $119 you refer to a day?  Or for the whole cruise?   Carnival is only $51.95 per day when including tax and gratuities around $61 a day.   Not sure where you are getting $119.  Typically, the same as RCI, on Carnival you need to drink 4 drinks a day to break even.  And it includes drinks valued at $20 or less.  You must wait five minutes between drink purchases and have a 15 drink limit per day.

 

 

It's an Australian cruise and that is the correct price per person.  It's crazy it's that expensive. 

[SDPadreFan]

2 hours ago, Bostwick girl said:

I can only tell you the cost of a couple drinks I paid for on my November cruise on Liberty. I had a Bacardi rum and Diet Coke, it was $7.75 ( drinks include a 15% gratuity). Sometimes have a pina colada, runs about $9.50, same for Kiss on the Lips. My husband had 1 Bloody Mary and it was $12.50!  Anyway, hope this helps in your calculations. These prices are in US dollars.

Have you ever tried Diet Coke with Bacardi Limón. Quite tasty in my opinion.

[Balsam12]

6 hours ago, JaxsMama said:

It's an Australian cruise and that is the correct price per person.  It's crazy it's that expensive. 

 

Yep... 119 per person, per day.

 

Until recently,  Carnival didn't even offer drinks packages on Australian cruises.

 

119 AUD is about 80 USD, but that's still nearly double what we pay with RCI. The breakeven point would therefore be about 7 or 8 drinks per day. I might be able to sustain that,  but my partner definitely wouldn't. 

[daisymay1960]

7 hours ago, ksmcdonald said:

Is the $119 you refer to a day?  Or for the whole cruise?   Carnival is only $51.95 per day when including tax and gratuities around $61 a day.   Not sure where you are getting $119.  Typically, the same as RCI, on Carnival you need to drink 4 drinks a day to break even.  And it includes drinks valued at $20 or less.  You must wait five minutes between drink purchases and have a 15 drink limit per day.

 

 

I am sure break even is much higher then 4 drinks 

[coevan]

6-7 alcoholic drinks at $8-9, add good coffee, waters, sodas, and gatorade and you're way ahead of the game

[livinginyellow]

I wrote a blog post that breaks this down exactly, including the math (so you don't have to do it!). Includes pricing, pricing by cruise line, and even helps you understand what pricing would look like based on the kind of drinks you enjoy. Take a look: https://www.anyadventurewithyou.com/cruise-drinks-package-should-you-buy-one/

Edited November 19 by livinginyellow

[Balsam12]

3 hours ago, livinginyellow said:

I wrote a blog post that breaks this down exactly, including the math (so you don't have to do it!). Includes pricing, pricing by cruise line, and even helps you understand what pricing would look like based on the kind of drinks you enjoy. Take a look: https://www.anyadventurewithyou.com/cruise-drinks-package-should-you-buy-one/

 

Great blog post and thanks for the link.

 

I've written similar things specifically for RCI, especially reminding people to take non-alcoholic drinks into their calculations.

 

My concern is the pricing you have for the Carnival package. You list it at $52 US per day, and even with your most expensive Mix 4 it is only borderline on value by your calculations.

As I noted above, for us it is $80 US per day, so at that pricing it would certainly not be value unless the pricing for pay as you go drinks is different on Australian cruises. (or if I do a lot more drinking 🍷).

[Hunter69]

Most Cocktails on Carnival Australian cruises go for $12.95 AUD. (there would be 2 or 3 units of Booze). 

Most Spirits are around $8-$9 Dollars

Beer is $7 -$9 (it's what I drink) I get 4 beers in a bucket for $31. these are 500 mls each & either are 5% or 6.2% strenght..

Wine goes for about $8.50 a glass.

There are other cocktail in Alchemy bar & large cocktail called fishbowls also..

 

[ksmcdonald]

16 hours ago, daisymay1960 said:

I am sure break even is much higher then 4 drinks 

 

 

My drink of choice, Cucumber Sunrise at the Alchemy Bar, $10.95 plus tax = $12.91 per drink.  Four of those is around $52 dollars.  To me, that is close enough to break even.  A couple sodas, specialty coffee, glass of wine with dinner and a bottled water added to these 4 drinks is way past breaking even.  

 

 

[amyj23]

On 11/18/2019 at 9:15 AM, Balsam12 said:

Hi All,

 

My other half and I have only cruised with RCI previously, but have seen an Australian cruise with Carnival that looks like a good deal. 

 

Our question relates to drink prices and drink packages.  

 

With RCI, we pay about AUD 72, and this covers all drinks up to $12 or $13 onboard. If you order a drink that costs over the package limit,  you only pay the difference plus gratuity. We have never ordered a drink that wasn't covered by the package. 

 

From what I can find,  the equivalent package with Carnival costs $119. If I used the onboard drink prices from RCI, that would make the package uneconomic, and we would just pay as we go. 

 

I like a drink,  but don't want to be worried about "getting my money's worth" from a drink package.  With RCI, three or four alcoholic drinks per day is the break even. Easily done while on vacation. The Carnival one looks like eight or nine alcoholic drinks to break even,  which would be ok on a five night, but not on an eleven night.

 

Does anyone have either a recent onboard drinks menu,  or a link to one so I can do the math? 

 

Cheers, 

 

Balsam

Here’s pics of some of the menus from my cruise I got off of yesterday. Not all the bar menus, but hopefully this helps. 

[Balsam12]

4 hours ago, amyj23 said:

Here’s pics of some of the menus from my cruise I got off of yesterday. Not all the bar menus, but hopefully this helps. 

 

 

 

Hi Amy,

 

Awesome, thanks for that.

 

Are those prices in USD or AUD?

 

Where was the cruise from?

 

Cheers,

 

 

[hockeyguru32]

On 11/19/2019 at 7:28 AM, Hunter69 said:

Most Cocktails on Carnival Australian cruises go for $12.95 AUD. (there would be 2 or 3 units of Booze). 

Most Spirits are around $8-$9 Dollars

Beer is $7 -$9 (it's what I drink) I get 4 beers in a bucket for $31. these are 500 mls each & either are 5% or 6.2% strenght..

Wine goes for about $8.50 a glass.

There are other cocktail in Alchemy bar & large cocktail called fishbowls also..

 

buckets of beer are not included in cheers

[amyj23]

9 hours ago, Balsam12 said:

Hi Amy,

 

Awesome, thanks for that.

 

Are those prices in USD or AUD?

 

Where was the cruise from?

 

Cheers,

 

 

USD. We were out of Baltimore. You’re welcome!

Edited November 20 by amyj23

[daisymay1960]

23 hours ago, ksmcdonald said:

 

 

My drink of choice, Cucumber Sunrise at the Alchemy Bar, $10.95 plus tax = $12.91 per drink.  Four of those is around $52 dollars.  To me, that is close enough to break even.  A couple sodas, specialty coffee, glass of wine with dinner and a bottled water added to these 4 drinks is way past breaking even.  

 

I was only going on what I had read from other posters , We don't think its worth it for us , as we may have the odd day of having a few drinks , I doubt it will average out to many a day , I don't drink sodas or the coffees although the other half does . I may have a drink in the day , but 4 out of 7 days are port days . I am just aiming to hope I dont exceed what I would have paid if I had bought the package .....I will however cry everytime  I have to pay over $12 for a drink though !

23 hours ago, ksmcdonald said:

 

 

[ksmcdonald]

1 hour ago, daisymay1960 said:

 

I was only going on what I had read from other posters , We don't think its worth it for us , as we may have the odd day of having a few drinks , I doubt it will average out to many a day , I don't drink sodas or the coffees although the other half does . I may have a drink in the day , but 4 out of 7 days are port days . I am just aiming to hope I dont exceed what I would have paid if I had bought the package .....I will however cry everytime  I have to pay over $12 for a drink though !

 

 

I know what you mean!  We go back and forth every cruise whether we should get the Cheers or not.  My husband drinks a lot of soda (no coffee) and that with the bottled water kind of make our decision for us.  We've even got the spiked milkshakes at the Shake Shack, which we love!  I guess it comes down to us just not having to have that stress you mentioned everytime we want to order a $12 drink.  It feels more like a vacation when everything is included.  Also, when we don't have the package, I tend to tell myself, "you don't really need that frozen drink by the pool" whereas when we have the package, it is stress free when deciding about that drink!  It just give a different vibe to our cruise, even if we just break even at the end, we are still ahead because we didn't stress about it!

 

 

[ricew001]

Some thouhgts: 

I just got off the Valor on Monday. I know without a doubt my husband got his money's worth. On Sea Day I heard the bartender say this is #10. He drinks Crown and Coke - an easy drink to keep drinking.

 

I was adventurous and tried anything - and a lot I didn't like. But I didn't feel guilty when I ordered something different because it was paid for. I drink frozen drinks by the pool - they can melt down fast so it's nice to get a new one.

 

I bought the package before we got onboard so I had a discount for that. I also used gift cards I'd purchased for 10% off. So my per day cost was less than the 51.95/day. I enjoyed not getting a bill for drinks at the end of the cruise.

 

I still find this spreadsheet the most helpful that someone out here created and I saved. 

Carnival Vista Cheers Evaluator 2018-08-02.xls

[pacruise804]

2 hours ago, ricew001 said:

Some thouhgts: 

I just got off the Valor on Monday. I know without a doubt my husband got his money's worth. On Sea Day I heard the bartender say this is #10. He drinks Crown and Coke - an easy drink to keep drinking.

 

I was adventurous and tried anything - and a lot I didn't like. But I didn't feel guilty when I ordered something different because it was paid for. I drink frozen drinks by the pool - they can melt down fast so it's nice to get a new one.

 

I bought the package before we got onboard so I had a discount for that. I also used gift cards I'd purchased for 10% off. So my per day cost was less than the 51.95/day. I enjoyed not getting a bill for drinks at the end of the cruise.

 

I still find this spreadsheet the most helpful that someone out here created and I saved. 

Carnival Vista Cheers Evaluator 2018-08-02.xls 91.5 kB · 5 downloads

 

I'm curious about the trying different drinks/replacing unfinished drinks.  Do you remember how many drinks you left unfinished and if you came close to 15 any day this way?  I'm generally a fast drinker and stay in the shade, so melting isn't an issue for me.  I also don't order anything I'm pretty sure I wouldn't like and have had very few drinks that I wouldn't finish (one of the Alchemy samplers was close), so I'm struggling to wrap my mind around it.

 

I'm glad the package worked for you and your husband - it definitely can be a deal for some.  Do you know if he was at 10 most days, or was it a day at 10 then a day at 2?  Trying to rethink some things.

[ricew001]

37 minutes ago, pacruise804 said:

 

I'm curious about the trying different drinks/replacing unfinished drinks.  Do you remember how many drinks you left unfinished and if you came close to 15 any day this way?  I'm generally a fast drinker and stay in the shade, so melting isn't an issue for me.  I also don't order anything I'm pretty sure I wouldn't like and have had very few drinks that I wouldn't finish (one of the Alchemy samplers was close), so I'm struggling to wrap my mind around it.

 

I'm glad the package worked for you and your husband - it definitely can be a deal for some.  Do you know if he was at 10 most days, or was it a day at 10 then a day at 2?  Trying to rethink some things.

He was definitely a 10 every day no doubt and the day with the most he was at 14.

 

This is on the spa deck where I had two unfinished drinks within 20 minutes. I went on to have probably 6 or more drinks plus several bottles of water that day. I had enough pineapple juice this cruise to last me for a long long time.

 

[coevan]

get your foot off the table

[Joe817]

23 minutes ago, coevan said:

get your foot off the table

Hahahahahhahahahaha! Too funny! 

[Nightrythm]

I keep considering the Cheers! package thinking it might be easier. However, I've done the math after each cruise. My spouse and I just don't drink an average of $50 dollars worth of beverages daily. So until that math changes, no Cheers! for me.