Deluxe Beverage Package Expensive

[Shanethegriff]

Hey guys,

Oasis of the Seas booked for Feb 2024 and I've been watching the prices and "deals" for the DBP. It seems very expensive since we went earlier this year, (also February), I'm hoping the deals offered during Black Friday are much better than what are going now...

Any thoughts on this?

[Matt]

 

[OCSC Mike]

5 hours ago, Shanethegriff said:

Any thoughts on this?

Any thoughts? Prices for almost everything are higher than they used to be. All you can do is keep checking and decide if the prices you see are worth it.

I hope I'm wrong but I'm not expecting many(any?) amazing deals for Black Friday.

[Ampurp85]

While there will be a few deals. Keep in mind the retail tricks. One being to mark everything up end of September, beginning of October and then come November say it's a black Friday deal. Often times prices will be better before any black Friday deals. So advice is to buy at a price you are comfortable with and if a sale comes along, reprice.

[Shanethegriff]

4 hours ago, Matt said:

 

Thanks Matt, I've watched almost all of your videos at this stage!!  

So far, I've not seen a single price I'd be comfortable paying for the deluxe beverage package. Unless it comes down to a price similar to earlier this year I won't be purchasing it.

I guess the reason for my post was to see if others had noticed a significant increase in this price...

[Pattycruise]

There has been significant increases in price and if your sailing is a school break and/or almost sold out the odds of a larger discounted price tend to go down.

You may need to evaluate how much you plan to drink to determine if the higher cost still holds value.  Mixed drinks are now $14 plus the $18% gratuity putting them at roughly $16.50 per drink.

font forget you can carry on a standard size bottle of wine per adult and soda/water within the restrictions.

https://www.royalcaribbean.com/faq/questions/food-drink-onboard-policy

[Xaa]

My advice @Shanethegriff in addition to what you've already learned goes something like this.  If you know you need the DBP, you need it.  If you are unsure, you probably don't and should self fund.  By that I mean if DBP is $80 pp/pd so $94.4 pp/pd after gratuities, and your cruise is 7 days, you're looking at $660.80.  You need that only for reference.  Then go on your cruise, drink everything you want, try drinks that you aren't sure you even will like.  Discard drinks if you don't like them.  Full on vacation mode.  At the end, add up your drink spending and the amount less than $660.80 is what you save by self funding.  That amount that you spent divided by 7 days and then divided by 1.18 is about the place where you would need the advertised price for the DBP to be for future cruises.

There generally are deals on BF, but you sound like a candidate to self fund your drinking package.

[Shanethegriff]

2 hours ago, Xaa said:

My advice @Shanethegriff in addition to what you've already learned goes something like this.  If you know you need the DBP, you need it.  If you are unsure, you probably don't and should self fund.  By that I mean if DBP is $80 pp/pd so $94.4 pp/pd after gratuities, and your cruise is 7 days, you're looking at $660.80.  You need that only for reference.  Then go on your cruise, drink everything you want, try drinks that you aren't sure you even will like.  Discard drinks if you don't like them.  Full on vacation mode.  At the end, add up your drink spending and the amount less than $660.80 is what you save by self funding.  That amount that you spent divided by 7 days and then divided by 1.18 is about the place where you would need the advertised price for the DBP to be for future cruises.

There generally are deals on BF, but you sound like a candidate to self fund your drinking package.

I don't think we need the DBP but if it becomes cost neutral or better for us we'll go for it...so far, the prices we've been offered have not met that criteria as opposed to earlier this year.

Something I've noticed is that when I've received the email from RC quoting their new offers in USD, when I log in to purchase, the price in Euro (we're in Ireland) is significantly more expensive than the dollar price. It's like they price it different for our market...

I'll 100% use a US travel agent next time like we did on our first cruise so that we get the US prices.

[Shanethegriff]

Thanks for the replies

[CrznTxn]

For years we would self fund as we would not use the amount charged even when it was $52/pd. It will be up to you as to your wallet pain threshold and whether you will indeed use the minimum daily amount required to justify the charge. Only you can make that decision. Personal opinion is now that the sailings are 100%+ booked there will be little incentive to lower the price as there are quite a few who will fork out the money. When the purchase numbers drop then they will evaluate and adjust the pricing to entice passengers to buy. Supply and demand.

[Atlantix2000]

12 hours ago, Shanethegriff said:

Something I've noticed is that when I've received the email from RC quoting their new offers in USD, when I log in to purchase, the price in Euro (we're in Ireland) is significantly more expensive than the dollar price. It's like they price it different for our market...

I'll 100% use a US travel agent next time like we did on our first cruise so that we get the US prices.

The price in Euro likely already includes the 18% gratuity.  Go through the motion of purchasing it through the cruise planner all the way to the final step and see if any gratuity gets added.  This is definitely how they do things for a European sailing (like out of Southampton or Barcelona).  I'm not sure what they do with a US cruise paid for in European currency.

However, I can say for certain that any price you see in US dollars does NOT include the 18% gratuity.  If you attempt to purchase it in cruise planner, you would see 18% added before checkout.

You should take the US price from your email, add 18%, and then convert to Euro and see how that compares to the price you see in Euro.  The last time I suggested this, someone in another European country found the prices were identical within a few cents.

[Bmac]

When we think about the drink package it seems that the only thing considered is drinking cocktails. If you factor in the cost and also convenience of having other beverages such as specialty coffee/tea, bottled water...available the package starts to make sense if purchased at a fair price. We're doing a ten day Vancouver to Hawaii in two weeks and I was able to get the package at $61.99 per person it is currently priced at $71.99. Taking into consideration the way we typically view the drink package, for this cruise we break even at 4.5 drinks per day w/tip not including any other beverages. At $14 + 18% gratuity each cocktail comes to $16.52 each, that x4 a day it would be $66.08 if bought al a carte, if you go one more drink it brings the daily total to $82.60. What we do is whenever we get a cocktail we ask for two waters each so we have in water our cabin at night and water for excursions in ports so for us the drink package works. I also hate dealing with the bill at the end and it just makes things more convenient. I know that the tap water is fine to drink but it does have an off taste to it.

[OCSC Mike]

27 minutes ago, Bmac said:

so for us the drink package works

Everyone has to decide what works for them based on a lot of the stuff you mentioned.

In the end, people have different values and preferences. As long as they're happy purchasing something, they should, it's their money.

[Xaa]

48 minutes ago, Bmac said:

I also hate dealing with the bill at the end and it just makes things more convenient.

From your entire post, it sounds like the beverage package is for you, but a person can self fund and still avoid the bill at the end and have it be just as convenient.  Instead of adding the drink package to a cruise, just take that amount and then next month when their CC is due, send that amount to their card or another account.  Then use those funds to pay for the onboard expenses.

Again, the way you appear to use it, it seems like you need/want the package and will end up ahead by getting it so you should.  The bill at the end thing though is just a smoke screen because you can self fund it the moment you would have to pay RCI.

[Riley]

On 9/10/2023 at 5:45 AM, Shanethegriff said:

I don't think we need the DBP but if it becomes cost neutral or better for us we'll go for it...so far, the prices we've been offered have not met that criteria as opposed to earlier this year.

Something I've noticed is that when I've received the email from RC quoting their new offers in USD, when I log in to purchase, the price in Euro (we're in Ireland) is significantly more expensive than the dollar price. It's like they price it different for our market...

I'll 100% use a US travel agent next time like we did on our first cruise so that we get the US prices.

Heh - as someone who has drinking experience in Ireland, I'd price it higher too... 

[TheMaxRebo]

I definitely noticed prices going up and even noticed the price of the package increased for our sailing since we booked

 

We initial got the deluxe drink package for 20% off ... well, just checked and they no had "buy one get one 50% off" - so in effect 25% off each for 2 people - but when I priced it out that extra 5% only came to a few dollars as the starting point went up from our initial purchase

 

Definitely don't buy anything you aren't comfortable with as it will make you uneasy or just not happy about each drink you get as you feel you are just trying to get your money's worth or just associating it with an unhappy purchase

 

You can just bring a bottle of wine per person and then get the occasional drink and enjoy it all vs buying something you aren't all in on 

[TravisMA81]

The biggest I've experienced is 35% off my base price.  My base price for my upcoming is $100.  It's always been buy 1, second 50% off, except for for a couple of days it was 30% off so I bought that.  Has anyone seen it 40% off or more recently?       

[KJ777]

Funny story...RC made a big snafu and the deluxe drink package was extremely discounted.  We ended up getting the drink package for 8 days for maybe $500, if that.  RC sent out an email to everyone that bought the package during the frenzy saying that they would honor the mistake.  Pretty sure someone was demoted over that one.... Unfortunately, this was pre-covid and the cruise that was scheduled for 2020 was cancelled.  But damn that would have been pretty cool!

[Mark_A]

my limit on the DBP is under 75.00 a day.  any more than that I pass, and just use my diamond vouchers and pay for any additional drinks....

[KevinJ]

Since we've made Diamond and now Diamond + I only got the DBP once, last October on a family cruise, it was only $55 and I used my Diamond drinks for other family members. I definitely bring wine on board. I get the soda package and will put a couple ounces of wine in some sprite for a nice spritzer. I also found that I drink a whole lot less. With the package 10-15 a day. Without I've rarely purchased out of pocket. When I sail with my wife she doesn't drink so I have more than enough. 

[Shanethegriff]

16 hours ago, KevinJ said:

Since we've made Diamond and now Diamond + I only got the DBP once, last October on a family cruise, it was only $55 and I used my Diamond drinks for other family members. I definitely bring wine on board. I get the soda package and will put a couple ounces of wine in some sprite for a nice spritzer. I also found that I drink a whole lot less. With the package 10-15 a day. Without I've rarely purchased out of pocket. When I sail with my wife she doesn't drink so I have more than enough. 

We're still only gold and will require one more cruise after this one to even reach emerald status so we're a bit away from free drinks. We had considered booking a GS rather than a JS at time of booking which would have given us some free drinks in the lounge but as were travelling with another non suite room, we wouldn't have been able to take advantage.

The DBP is currently $92.33 per person, inc grats, on a buy one get one half price offer which is equivalent to 25% off the base price.

I'm considering locking the current deal in now and possibly rebooking if it drops further but really my comfort zone would be closer to $85 per person including gratuities.

[Xaa]

You probably should, if $7/day is your delta, that is 1 drink every 2 days additional.