18 Allowed to Drink Beer & Wine

[3Blessings]

I didn’t know about this until we got on the ship and went to the bar in the buffet so I thought I would share for those who may benefit from it.

 

Norwegian allows 18 years old to drink beer and wine with their parent’s permission. A parent and the 18 year old must bring their driver’s licenses to Guest Services to get it set up. And they’re able to use the drink package for the beer and wine and an adult is not required to be with them while they’re drinking.

[wolft927]

6 minutes ago, 3Blessings said:

I didn’t know about this until we got on the ship and went to the bar in the buffet so I thought I would share for those who may benefit from it.

 

Norwegian allows 18 years old to drink beer and wine with their parent’s permission. A parent and the 18 year old must bring their driver’s licenses to Guest Services to get it set up. And they’re able to use the drink package for the beer and wine and an adult is not required to be with them while they’re drinking.

I always new about the beer and wine but never knew that they could utilize a drink package. 

[ColeThornton]

This isn't applicable for all sailings.   Alaska and Hawaii are excluded.   Full details are available in the FAQ section on NCL.com

[BirdTravels]

18 minutes ago, wolft927 said:

I always new about the beer and wine but never knew that they could utilize a drink package. Hi

Young Adults with a waiver used to be able to pay for the Corks and Caps package. Somewhere I thought that NCL was going to do away with that package, but obviously it still exists. 

Edited January 1, 2023 by BirdTravels

[MCMC100]

Used this for my 20 yr old a few years ago. At the time, they marked her cabin card with PC (parental consent?) and cut a notch out of one corner. It only works at sea. In port you have to abide by local law, but it was a nice perk for her. 

[Russiamomm]

We did this for our son before he turned 21.  Unless something has changed, they cannot get a drink package.  You pay by the drink.  If they have FAS, they get the soda package.

[mjkacmom]

16 minutes ago, Russiamomm said:

We did this for our son before he turned 21.  Unless something has changed, they cannot get a drink package.  You pay by the drink.  If they have FAS, they get the soda package.

That’s how it worked with my 19 and 20 year olds.

[KeithJenner]

1 hour ago, ColeThornton said:

This isn't applicable for all sailings.   Alaska and Hawaii are excluded.   Full details are available in the FAQ section on NCL.com

And for many non US sailings there is no need for a waiver. 

[Davechipp74]

Oh great unsupervised drunk teenagers, what can possibly go wrong? 

[KeithJenner]

31 minutes ago, Davechipp74 said:

Oh great unsupervised drunk teenagers, what can possibly go wrong? 

Not much.

 

This isn’t a new thing, and on a forum where people love to grumble, comments about drunk teenagers are few and far between.

[eileeshb]

1 hour ago, Davechipp74 said:

Oh great unsupervised drunk teenagers, what can possibly go wrong? 

You do realise that most of them are drinking long before they turn 21, right?

The USA is an outlier in having alcohol restrictions to 21, most other countries with a formal restriction have age 18 and others have none at all.  The USA students that I met on study abroad in Ireland were usually u21 and enjoying legal access to alcohol while they were here. The really smart ones would time their semester abroad so that they’d either turn 21 here or shortly after they got home.  In my experience the young people who abused alcohol the most tended to be from families that were extremely restrictive in allowing them to drink. I was still u18 starting college and the only thing my parents asked me to avoid drinking was cocktails. 

[Russiamomm]

1 hour ago, Davechipp74 said:

Oh great unsupervised drunk teenagers, what can possibly go wrong? 

Sorry, but I don’t appreciate this post.  Personally I’ve found the “adults” with a drink package to be a bigger problem than the young adults on the ship.  This policy was the reason that we started sailing NCL.  My then 18 YO son wanted to be able to go to the nightclubs.  He couldn’t if he couldn’t drink.  I can’t blame him.  A cruise ship for an 18-20 YO is an awkward place to be.  You don’t want to hang with the younger teenagers, and they understandably don’t want to hang with their parents all the time.  This gives them more options.  The only issue we had was that my son was buying beer for his friends.n Without a drink package, that got expensive fast and we put an end to it quickly.  😂.  But I’m with the others that say it’s the kids that aren’t allowed to do anything that are the ones that go nuts. Personal opinion, of course, but I think most 18-20 year olds are mature enough for this.  I know my son was - absent the buying drinks for friends thing.  😂

[Davechipp74]

I have never once seen aboard a vessel whether it was a U.S. military, private military, international cargo transport, cruise, or even a fishing boat where teenagers were drinking and we were without incident more times then not it was a serious incident. I base my opinion having been aboard all kinds of ships in all kinds of situations.   

[KeithJenner]

21 minutes ago, Davechipp74 said:

I have never once seen aboard a vessel whether it was a U.S. military, private military, international cargo transport, cruise, or even a fishing boat where teenagers were drinking and we were without incident more times then not it was a serious incident. I base my opinion having been aboard all kinds of ships in all kinds of situations.   

And I base my comments on lots of NCL cruises where I have never seen one single issue with teenagers drinking.

 

As this is a forum about NCL ships, I'll take my experience on those ships over someone else's experience on military ships and fishing boats as a more reliable measure.

[eileeshb]

19 minutes ago, Davechipp74 said:

I have never once seen aboard a vessel whether it was a U.S. military, private military, international cargo transport, cruise, or even a fishing boat where teenagers were drinking and we were without incident more times then not it was a serious incident. I base my opinion having been aboard all kinds of ships in all kinds of situations.   

So in your experience there should be major incidents on every cruise ship with teens aboard sailing European itineraries … there aren’t. In *my* experience “mature” men are by far the most likely to be aggressive, stupid obnoxious drunks compared to their younger counterparts and I’ve seen plenty of both. I work in a shop in a tourist town, in 2019 the local golf club hosted a major tournament and we had to close early every day due to the supposedly mature men coming in with their drinks in hand and then getting irate if we asked them not to spill them all over the apparel. 

[Davechipp74]

5 minutes ago, eileeshb said:

So in your experience there should be major incidents on every cruise ship with teens aboard sailing European itineraries … there aren’t. 

I may have conveyed that wrong aboard U.S. and private military ships as well as cargo carriers it almost always comes with incident, perhaps less on cruise ships. I have spent considerably more time aboard ships that were not "cruise" ships, I may be jaded.    

[KeithJenner]

24 minutes ago, eileeshb said:

So in your experience there should be major incidents on every cruise ship with teens aboard sailing European itineraries … there aren’t. In *my* experience “mature” men are by far the most likely to be aggressive, stupid obnoxious drunks compared to their younger counterparts and I’ve seen plenty of both. I work in a shop in a tourist town, in 2019 the local golf club hosted a major tournament and we had to close early every day due to the supposedly mature men coming in with their drinks in hand and then getting irate if we asked them not to spill them all over the apparel. 

In my experience there are lots of problems with teenagers drinking, certainly in UK towns and cities, with groups of them all acting up for their mates. To the extent that many such places are not particularly nice places to be at night.

 

However, cruises (except maybe some short cruises or spring break ones) are not similar in any way. Teens there are more often than not with their families and things are a lot different in those circumstances.

Edited January 1, 2023 by KeithJenner

[14ersco]

6 hours ago, Russiamomm said:

We did this for our son before he turned 21.  Unless something has changed, they cannot get a drink package.  You pay by the drink.  If they have FAS, they get the soda package.

For our upcoming summer Europe cruise NCL is offering nothing under FAS for anyone under 21.  No soda package and no parental consent beer & wine.  If our kid wants anything beyond what is gratis in the dining venues we will need to pay.

[northwoodsmom]

We were on the Escape 12/24-12/31.  I can't tell you how many very very young trashed kids there were in Spice H20 once the parties started.  We saw a drunken stumbling teenager running across the pool deck vomiting all over people.  Drunk teens in the aft elevator ever single day.  It was so sad.