columbus_cruiser

Other cruise lines don't seem to have an issue with knowing drinking habits, and pricing the package at one price before you step onboard. I find the Royal process of buying, watching for a sale, cancelling, purchasing, and repeating tedious. But, as a sale can have a significant cost savings I do it. I would much rather know that for my upcoming Serenade voyage the price is $XX.XX per day vs checking daily on sales. I also wonder what type of transaction costs they have to eat because people do this; on my last Transatlantic voyage we purchased and cancelled the beverage package five times, because rates would drop, and it was a better deal.

It's what other lines do, and makes the pre-cruise purchases much easier to plan and execute.

I am one of the people that purchased it for $18.00 a day, and I thought it was low until I saw that it was a Special Offer. With the amount of sales, price changes, and varied pricing that comes into play with the cruise planner I honestly wasn't sure. Will I be irritated if they cancel - no. However; their handling has been less than stellar. Keeping the price on the cruise planner for hours, mixed information provided to multiple different parties. It's like a master class of how not to respond to an issue of your own making. I don't expect Royal to be like Cathay Pacific but, their way of handling their pricing issue is above and beyond. Lastly - other cruise lines don't discount their drink packages, the price is the price, and I would much rather see Royal do an across the board price adjustment to list one price per ship for their drink packages rather than the incredibly irritating buy, find a cheaper price, cancel, purchase, wait for a refund, and potentially repeat the entire process over and over again until you sail.