Booze Smuggling = Higher Cost?

[bcs819]

No one has chimed in yet as to why they wouldn't buy the booze from Carnival for their room. You have to buy it somewhere so why not from them. Easier than bubble wrapping, newspaper placing, ziploc bagging, clothes wrapping, and sitting on the Lido for 3 hours wondering if a bottle broke in your bag ruining your clothes. :eek:

 

Why not use this option if it is for the convenience of having drinks in your room?:confused:

 

I did answer this, but this crazy board is double posting some responses, and not posting others, so I'll say it again.

 

We did look into this option, and what we drink was not on the list. The list did not include everything that was available in the shops on board - which I found mind-boggling when we arrived.

 

Also, I would PREFER to order drinks from room service - and we did. Once. We paid 15 buck plus tip for drink that took over a half hour to arrive and were undrinkable. Sometimes it took that long by the pool, but the drink didn't get made and then sit a half hour. They always arrived cold and frosty. The ones we got from room service wer so melted you could see the layers of ingredients that had separated.

 

If Carnival wanted to make more money, they should have a quick delivery bar service to the rooms. We would spend another few hundred dollars per cruise to enjoy Goombay SMashes and Dirty Bananas on our balcony. Since I refuse (and I did seriously consider it) to bring a blender, we can't enjoy those types of drinks on our balcony because I refuse to throw any more money away.

[manhattenup]

I notice on a post from early last year on one of the Capers that they listed a wine and dine package...anyone have info on that?

[mrdood]

You are allowed to bring fine wine on board. You are not allowed to bring hard alcohol. I also dont believe that you can find fine wine in a box. Totally cheap wine yes but not good wine.

 

Sorry, but I have had some really good stuff out of boxes, and some truly rancid tasting, expensive wine out of bottles...

 

Fine is in the eye of the beholder, not in the construction of the container.

[19snapshot]

OK...just looking at it a different way. My husband is in the hospitality business. Roughly 30% of revenue is spent in payroll. That is 30 cents to every dollar and they only clean the rooms once a day. It is by far the biggest expense. On a cruise ship, there is little variance in payroll from week to week. They can't really cut hours to adjust for low occupancy. Maintaining a high percentage of "heads in beds" and a high average room rate are the only real way to offset payroll costs. If smuggling booze makes the trip affordable for some, I understand why the cruise line looks the other way. Food and Beverage are good revenue streams and I am sure there are enough passengers that overdo it to make up for the small amount of smuggling that happens.

[ParrotRob]

They are also buying liquor for like $1/fifth in the Caribbean. How many $6 cocktails does that make?

 

That's the second time you've said that. If you think ANYONE is getting their liquor ANYWHERE for $1/750, you are not just confused, you are completely insane.