At home Diana and I drink both water and soda pop.  We don’t drink a whole lot of alcohol, maybe one bottle of wine every one to two weeks when the mood hits us.  On the cruise we wanted to enjoy ourselves with alcohol a little more often.  The idea was to continue with what we do at home and embellish with alcohol where appropriate.  To save you money they offer packages.

If your a big soda drinker like I am… be sure to sign up for a soda package!  Oh, and on the first day of the cruise.  This will save you a fortune… for about $48 for the entire week you can walk up to any bar on the ship, even any of the dining areas and flash the little sticker they put on your SeaPass (I talked about this in a previous post.).  No receipt process is involved with this little sticker and saves you time and money.  Just walkup and ask for a soda, flash the card and your golden.

If your a big water drinker like Diana is back home, be sure to signup for the water package.  On the second day of the cruise they’ll bring you huge bottles of water straight to your cabin.  Use the mini fridge to keep them cold and take with you on every excursion off the ship… even around the ship to save tones.  This package only costs $42 for 12 20oz bottles… yes more expensive than home but much much cheaper than buying them individually around the ship.

Unfortunately there is no such thing as an alcohol package.  Nope… don’t even bother asking, we did and were told they used to have that but due to underage drinking or something like that they were forced to get rid of that one…

The one package they do have as far as alcohol goes is a Wine & Dine package.  For about $140 you will recieve 5 bottles of wine for the week which you can use at your choosing.  More bottles are available.  This package gives you a choice of a few dozen types of wine at any meal.  We purchased the 5 bottle and during our main dining area meals we had them bring us one bottle on 5 different days.  On one of those days we even ordered wine, and had them bring us a soda as well… and because of the soda package we had… that was “free”.

The main idea here, is there are ways to save money.  Think ahead and bring about $300 for packages plus what you might order for mixed drinks… They run anywhere from $5-9 each.  So be careful here, they are very happy to provide you with a mixed drink where ever you are… pool deck, dining hall, shopping promenade, shows, etc…  We opted for only getting the drink-of-the-day which included a fancy souvenir glass.  We collected 4 of one kind and two of another.