Dom Perignon?

[LACruiser88]

9 minutes ago, JimmyVWine said:

And I'm not at all sure how that translates to consumption on a cruise ship.  Do people follow the overall trend outcome when on vacation?

Speaking for ourselves, we consume much more alcohol on a cruise than at home.  And it does help that we always book with the Plus Package!  🍷🍷🍷

[JimmyVWine]

16 minutes ago, LACruiser88 said:

Speaking for ourselves, we consume much more alcohol on a cruise than at home.  And it does help that we always book with the Plus Package!  🍷🍷🍷

As I suggested, I'm not at all sure that nationwide consumption trends hold serve (pun intended) on a cruise ship where people carry medallions in their pockets in the space that car keys would normally occupy.  

[XBGuy]

1 hour ago, LACruiser88 said:

Speaking for ourselves, we consume much more alcohol on a cruise than at home.  And it does help that we always book with the Plus Package!  🍷🍷🍷

 

Our habits do not change much when we are cruising.  At home we have a glass of wine before our dinner, and, then, one or two with our meal.  Mrs. XBGuy is an almost exclusively white wine drinker and 95% of the time that means Chardonnay.  I am, mostly, a red wine drinker although if we are having a something like trout or shrimp pasta, I will open up a white. 

 

On a cruise it is not unusual for us to have a glass of wine in our cabin or on the balcony before dinner.  We are pretty easy to spot in the restaurants.  We are the couple with two bottles of open wine--a red on the table and a white on a nearby ice bucket.

 

We have never traveled with the Premier/Plus package.  It looks like it really wouldn't pencil out for us

[XBGuy]

3 hours ago, JimmyVWine said:

It's not your imagination.  For a while there, Princess had a very credible wine program with a savvy department head stocking ships with a nice variety of wines at prices that were far better than at any shoreside restaurant.  Wines ranged from "slightly more than I pay at Total" to maybe a 1.5x markup, and there were labels like Two Hands and Rombauer that might not be household names but were welcomed by those in the know, and enjoyed by people who were trying them for the first time.  Now, the quality of the wines has decreased while the prices have increased.  Princess seems to have regressed to the mean in terms of mass market lines.  When we first started cruising as a family, Princess' wine program (both onboard selections and generous corkage policy) was a huge factor in getting us to choose the brand over its competitors.  Not 100% sure I would arrive at the same conclusion if I were starting from scratch today.  

 

In the SHARE days, their wine list was remarkably consumer friendly.  They had Ridge Lytton Springs for, essentially, "street price"  Amazingly, Penfolds Grange was listed at BELOW "street price."

[NavyVeteran]

12 hours ago, Steelers36 said:

ETA:  Dom is one of only six labels on the entire wine list that comes out cheaper on board (including 18%) than buying at Total Wine and having to pay corkage.  The list would be smaller if not charged corkage - only 2 labels, one of which is DOM.

How would the list look with the 25% Plus discount? 

[Steelers36]

2 hours ago, NavyVeteran said:

How would the list look with the 25% Plus discount? 

It would look a somewhat more appealing to be buying bottles on board and not BYOW.  Depending on which labels you prefer.  A quick run at it indicates there would now be about 40 labels where total cost is cheaper on board, but still 99 labels where it is cheaper to BYOB. 

 

Not to mention one has paid considerable dollars for the Plus package and would want to be getting value from that spend.

 

83/99 save more than $5 as BYOB.  28/40 save more than $5 on board.

[Guest Snaxmuppet]

Perhaps I am the exception but I don't concern myself whether wine, or anything I buy on board really, is above or below what I could get it at when at home. I am on holiday. I am spending what a lot of people would call a small fortune on a trip and so I do not worry myself about nickel and diming the things I consume. I just accept that the price on board is likely to be more... sometimes a lot more... but if I want it when on board then I pay the on board price and enjoy. 🙂 

[JimmyVWine]

7 hours ago, Steelers36 said:

It would look a somewhat more appealing to be buying bottles on board and not BYOW.  Depending on which labels you prefer.  A quick run at it indicates there would now be about 40 labels where total cost is cheaper on board, but still 99 labels where it is cheaper to BYOB. 

But don't forget that in order to be entitled to that discount, you have to pay $60/$80 per person per day, and if traveling as a couple, that is &120/$160 per day for the right to secure the discount.  After factoring out the value of those packages that are not beverage related, it comes to around $70-$90 per day per couple to be entitled to save $25 on a $100 bottle (depending on how much monetary value one places on things like "prizes" and photos.)  Of course, if that $70-$90 per day is eroded by ordering other beverages such as coffee or cocktails, then one might be able to make it work.  If each person consumes $10 in coffee, and has two cocktails priced at $12 each during the day, and then orders the bottle of wine, then the couple will have used up $68 of that $60-$90 and the 25% off of a $100 bottle is a true savings.  Saving 25% off of a $50 bottle would not be close to a break-even.  And of course, if the couple does very little drinking other than consuming the purchased bottle, then the 25% discount is illusory as the cost to save $25 on a $100 bottle will be $70-$90.  

[Steelers36]

1 hour ago, JimmyVWine said:

But don't forget that in order to be entitled to that discount, you have to pay $60/$80 per person per day, and if traveling as a couple, that is &120/$160 per day for the right to secure the discount.

I did say that in my second paragraph, but did not bother to go into the math as you illustrated.  The math can get complicated as you inferred because the value of the package varies by guest according to their own preferences and proclivities.

[jwattle]

5 hours ago, JimmyVWine said:

But don't forget that in order to be entitled to that discount, you have to pay $60/$80 per person per day, and if traveling as a couple, that is &120/$160 per day for the right to secure the discount.  After factoring out the value of those packages that are not beverage related, it comes to around $70-$90 per day per couple to be entitled to save $25 on a $100 bottle (depending on how much monetary value one places on things like "prizes" and photos.)  Of course, if that $70-$90 per day is eroded by ordering other beverages such as coffee or cocktails, then one might be able to make it work.  If each person consumes $10 in coffee, and has two cocktails priced at $12 each during the day, and then orders the bottle of wine, then the couple will have used up $68 of that $60-$90 and the 25% off of a $100 bottle is a true savings.  Saving 25% off of a $50 bottle would not be close to a break-even.  And of course, if the couple does very little drinking other than consuming the purchased bottle, then the 25% discount is illusory as the cost to save $25 on a $100 bottle will be $70-$90.  

We get the value out of the package 😄