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Advice on purchasing deluxe beverage pkg and internet


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Hi everyone,  I am new to this forum, but not new to R.C. Been on 2 cruises. I did not have beverage or internet on 1st cruise years ago, and had both on an extended family cruise this past year. I did not plan or purchase anything for that cruise thanks to my In-laws, so therefore I am looking for advice on what the best deals are for deluxe beverage plus one device for 2 people. I did just miss a Memorial day sale, but hoping there will be more sales. Our cruise is 5 nights of that helps you inform me on what a good deal is. Please advise.  Thanks everyone!

Edited by hodagamy
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I didn't pay close attention to the Deluxe + 1-device Voom on this last sale, but I have noticed with several prior sales that the combo package doesn't really change as much as the two items do separately. Most recent one I recall had the drink package down to $42 pp pd (from prior best of $45), but the drink + Voom package was only down around two bucks to $54 pp pn (from prior $56), meaning on this better "sale" you were paying a buck more per night for the Voom part than you were on the prior sale.

You may want to consider buying both separately, especially if you plan to have two devices total anyway. The two-device plan already incorporates a bit of a discount over two 1-device plans, and if you catch a sale on Internet you can get even lower. Plus you can then get the best price on two stand-alone deluxe packages.

You didn't mention which ship you'll be on, and that does play a part in the drink package prices charged. The larger/newer ships charge more than older/smaller ones, where the lowest I've seen for Oasis or Quantum class is around $42-$43 pp pn, but Vision and Radiance class ships have been as low as $39. You'll want to factor that in as well. Voom seems to be the same rate regardless of the ship and regardless of whether it has the newer / faster O3b satellite coverage, or is still on the older and slower system.

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1 hour ago, hodagamy said:

Hi everyone,  I am new to this forum, but not new to R.C. Been on 2 cruises. I did not have beverage or internet on 1st cruise years ago, and had both on an extended family cruise this past year. I did not plan or purchase anything for that cruise thanks to my In-laws, so therefore I am looking for advice on what the best deals are for deluxe beverage plus one device for 2 people. I did just miss a Memorial day sale, but hoping there will be more sales. Our cruise is 5 nights of that helps you inform me on what a good deal is. Please advise.  Thanks everyone!

I recommend buying now and watching for sales. You can always cancel and repurchase. I did that for a cruise last year when the cruise planner sales kept bringing the price lower and lower. The kicker is that you need to check fairly regularly and jump on it every time you see a price reduction.

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3 minutes ago, hodagamy said:

I also was meaning 2 internet, 2 deluxe beverage pkgs total.  Not one of us having 2 devices, if that's what you were understanding.

I should have clarified -- The 2-device plan is sharable between two people, so one person would buy it and then share the code that's provided when you board with the other person. Then each of you can have one device logged on and reap the benefit of the lower cost per device.

Just as an example, current price for Voom on my Anthem sailing in October is $15.99 per person, per day; but the 2-device plan is $30.38 ($15.16 each device) per person, per day. The 3- and 4-device plans get progressively better on a per-device basis, but obviously don't apply here.

On a decent sale, I've seen the 1-device plan as low as $11.99 per person, per day; and the 2-device plan drops to around $20.98 (about $10.49 each device). This is why I was saying that it's sometimes better when you have more than one person needing internet to buy the multi-device package and the deluxe drink package separately.

Hope this helps!

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When is your cruise?  July 4th will (likely) be another sale.

21 minutes ago, DunkelBierJay said:

I recommend buying now and watching for sales. You can always cancel and repurchase. I did that for a cruise last year when the cruise planner sales kept bringing the price lower and lower. The kicker is that you need to check fairly regularly and jump on it every time you see a price reduction.

^ This.  If you book it now and prices drop, cancel and repurchase at the lower price.

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56 minutes ago, JLMoran said:

 

You didn't mention which ship you'll be on, and that does play a part in the drink package prices charged. The larger/newer ships charge more than older/smaller ones, where the lowest I've seen for Oasis or Quantum class is around $42-$43 pp pn, but Vision and Radiance class ships have been as low as $39. 

I have yet to see anything below $50pp for the Majesty's deluxe drink package.  Maybe because it is a 5 nighter?

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Just now, RaleighTrout said:

I have yet to see anything below $50pp for the Majesty's deluxe drink package.  Maybe because it is a 5 nighter?

How far away is your sail date? Seems that specific ships don't seem to start getting good sales until somewhere between 120 and 90 days out.

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1 minute ago, RaleighTrout said:

82 days out

Hmmm, I'd think you should definitely be seeing something at this point. The Anthem cruise I'm on in October (136 days out) is a 5-nighter and I still got $42/night on a sale about a month ago now.

Only thing I can think of is that they've had good enough sales of the package before now on your sailing, that they don't feel any need to discount the price further. Either that or because Majesty is so small compared to the other ships in the line that they just don't see a reason to discount. IIRC, it's only a small percentage of passengers who buy the package before boarding on any given cruise, so maybe there just isn't a large enough potential market to make offering discounts (with the lower revenue per person) worth a potentially tiny uptick in buyers.

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2 minutes ago, JLMoran said:

Hmmm, I'd think you should definitely be seeing something at this point. The Anthem cruise I'm on in October (136 days out) is a 5-nighter and I still got $42/night on a sale about a month ago now.

Only thing I can think of is that they've had good enough sales of the package before now on your sailing, that they don't feel any need to discount the price further. Either that or because Majesty is so small compared to the other ships in the line that they just don't see a reason to discount. IIRC, it's only a small percentage of passengers who buy the package before boarding on any given cruise, so maybe there just isn't a large enough potential market to make offering discounts (with the lower revenue per person) worth a potentially tiny uptick in buyers.

I figured it was something about the particular ship.  Right now, it is $50pp, an advertised 20% off on-board price.  

Also, didn't mean to hijack the thread to ask about my situation.  Hopefully the OP got the information needed

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Just now, RaleighTrout said:

I figured it was something about the particular ship.  Right now, it is $50pp, an advertised 20% off on-board price.  

Also, didn't mean to hijack the thread to ask about my situation.  Hopefully the OP got the information needed

$53 right now on Majesty in September. 

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31 minutes ago, RaleighTrout said:

I have yet to see anything below $50pp for the Majesty's deluxe drink package.  Maybe because it is a 5 nighter?

September 3rd Majesty sailing it was $47 (+18% service charge/gratuity) during the sale. Think the one with Voom was $59 (+15% service charge/gratuity).

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Just now, RaleighTrout said:

Will do.  Thanks, and I appreciate the other Majesty prices for comparison.

Keep in mind what @DunkelBierJay mentioned earlier. 

1 hour ago, DunkelBierJay said:

I recommend buying now and watching for sales. You can always cancel and repurchase. I did that for a cruise last year when the cruise planner sales kept bringing the price lower and lower. The kicker is that you need to check fairly regularly and jump on it every time you see a price reduction.

 

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On my upcoming October trip on the Enchantment, I'm seeing:

$14.39 per day Voom 1 device -- This hasn't dropped a penny since I booked back in March.

$23.28 per day Voom 2 devices ($11.64 per device)

$53 Deluxe Beverage  - I got this on a sale for $47

$63 Deluxe Beverage + Voom 1 device combo (effectively $10 per device)

It's a 3-night trip, so they might be stingier on package discounts, but I keep checking pretty frequently regardless.  I probably won't bother with an Internet package this time because it's such a short trip and we get free data and texting at both destinations so we're really only going to be offline at night.  Last two trips, I only bought it for one device and we just took turns, which worked fine for us.

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