Is the corkage fee really waived if you bring a wine key and open yourself?

[MillauFr]

One of the big benefits to DCL. They let me bring my own wine on board. I had no problem paying $20 a bottle for the server to open, decant my wine, and provide glasses. It was still a good deal and I got to drink the wine that I like. As someone else said the food doesn't even pay to keep the lights on and pay the staff. If it wasn't for the drinks and desert most restaurants would be out of business.

 

[declansdad]

Doing this to avoid the fee will get you branded as a jerk. I am sorry but.....,

Only by some.....

 

[OrangeCountyCommuter]

Only by some.....

And the some include your servers. Considering the service I got from Clueless and his sidekick I would have hated to upset them, then all we would have gotten to eat would be bread to go with our water

 

[sayhello]

And the some include your servers. Considering the service I got from Clueless and his sidekick I would have hated to upset them, then all we would have gotten to eat would be bread to go with our water

Did you report Clueless and his sidekick to the maitre d'?

Sayhello

 

[declansdad]

And the some include your servers. Considering the service I got from Clueless and his sidekick I would have hated to upset them, then all we would have gotten to eat would be bread to go with our water

The only people who would know are the people on Dis that the OP tells.

 

[Melissa S]

They will waive the corkage fee if the wine was given to you as a gift from GS. I asked my serving team and they said that was standard policy or else that free bottle of wine isn't really free lol.

 

[TwinPrincessMermaids]

We tipped our waiters with the OBC AND with extra cash. They were very happy waiters.

Who of us thinks one dime of that corking fee goes to the server??? Really? Yeah right!?

I'd rather drink my own wine and give them the tip. And they are happy with that!

 

[PizzieDuster]

This is unnecessary

No kidding. Answer the question without name calling.

I always thought this.... the staff couldn't tell whether you bought a glass of wine at the bar and walked in with it or if you bought it from your stateroom. How could you tell? I did it. We sat at a bar, ordered a glass, took it to dinner. I usually finish whatsever in my hand in the room LOL

I always never trusted that wine package thing. Me: "Are you sure this wine will follow me around?" Does anyone know how they keep these bottles? Especially if you only have 1 glass of red...1 glass of white. LOL Especially when dining at Palos. It always took so long to tell them we purchased the wine package and for them to find it, bring it...it was easier just to order a glass of wine there. Any experience from others on that? I can say that we took a full bottle of red and half a bottle of white back to our stateroom the last night.

 

[tinkerone]

And the some include your servers. Considering the service I got from Clueless and his sidekick I would have hated to upset them, then all we would have gotten to eat would be bread to go with our water

not my servers. I mentioned one night that we were almost late to dinner because I wanted to finish my glass of wine. I was gently scolded and told to bring the wine with me next time. I reminded him that it was wine I had brought from home and he said that was never a problem. I actually did this on one of the following nights and not an eye lid was raised.
again, this came straight from my waiter. I really feel as others do, the name calling is not necessary. I will bring a glass of wine with me anytime I am not finished it and I will not feel badly about it. you do what you do and we will do what we do and lets all agree to disagree. if your going to debate policy than you have plenty of policy to debate. dress code, adult area, kids clubs, formal night, chair saving.....the list goes on and on.

 

[Jey12]

not my servers. I mentioned one night that we were almost late to dinner because I wanted to finish my glass of wine. I was gently scolded and told to bring the wine with me next time. I reminded him that it was wine I had brought from home and he said that was never a problem. I actually did this on one of the following nights and not an eye lid was raised.
again, this came straight from my waiter. I really feel as others do, the name calling is not necessary. I will bring a glass of wine with me anytime I am not finished it and I will not feel badly about it. you do what you do and we will do what we do and lets all agree to disagree. if your going to debate policy than you have plenty of policy to debate. dress code, adult area, kids clubs, formal night, chair saving.....the list goes on and on.

Well said.

You bringing a glass of wine with you to dinner, someone else wearing shorts to dinner, younger and older kids in the club, taking up too many chairs at the pool and CC, etc.....none of this really affects my vacation one way or another. I am paying to enjoy my time on the ship, not being paid to enforce policy. I don't go to the pool at busy times and I will walk a bit further down the beach at CC to where it's less crowded. 2 issues solved. From reading these boards sometimes you'd think the ships are full of cranky cruisers.

OP had a very valid question I think. I'm glad they asked because I too had seen some posts regarding how to get around the corkage fee. Best to double check instead of taking bad advice. If your server decides not to charge you for serving you your own wine, you're not going to argue with them about it. I'd say thank you and add more to their tip.

 

[MillauFr]

We tipped our waiters with the OBC AND with extra cash. They were very happy waiters.

Who of us thinks one dime of that corking fee goes to the server??? Really? Yeah right!?

I'd rather drink my own wine and give them the tip. And they are happy with that!

Agreed. A gave the server or assistant server a 5 every time they opened my wine. More than a few corkage fees disappeared or never appeared on my bill.

 

[jjgarv]

...
I always never trusted that wine package thing. Me: "Are you sure this wine will follow me around?" Does anyone know how they keep these bottles? Especially if you only have 1 glass of red...1 glass of white. LOL Especially when dining at Palos. It always took so long to tell them we purchased the wine package and for them to find it, bring it...it was easier just to order a glass of wine there. Any experience from others on that? I can say that we took a full bottle of red and half a bottle of white back to our stateroom the last night.

We typically end up ordering about three (or so) bottles of wine throughout our 7-night cruise, as we don't usually finish the bottle at one meal. Our servers re-corked/sealed the bottle, and they put a tag on it with our name/stateroom/dining room table number/etc. and they store it. We never had any major problems with them 'finding' our bottle the next night. Often, it was already either on the table or in an ice bucket next to the table when we arrived for dinner the next night. I can't remember if we ever asked for an already opened bottle during Palo dinner or not...

 

[over50visits]

I understand the policy about brought on board alcohol. But how would DCL know if I bought a glass of wine at the bar, vs bringing a glass of wine from my stateroom?

I can see a difference between someone laying down next to the pool with a six pack of bud...

DCL would not know. You would know, and your kids would know.

 

[TwinPrincessMermaids]

DCL would not know. You would know, and your kids would know.

This rule was never once stated to us in the dining room or in the stateroom. No rules were ever stated to us.

 

[dunnhorn]

Who of us thinks one dime of that corking fee goes to the server??? Really? Yeah right!?

I'd rather drink my own wine and give them the tip. And they are happy with that!

Amen!

We just went on RCCL two weeks ago and had reservations at Chops. We uncorked our bottle of Trader Joes "Two buck chuck" in our room and took it with us to Chops - we never paid a corkage fee for our $2.99 bottle of wine. The rednecks are a-cruisin!

As an aside, we've never done this on DCL...

 

[dunnhorn]

DCL would not know. You would know, and your kids would know.

I should hope my kids wouldn't know about a wine corkage fee.

And... if the OP was going to Palo, the kids wouldn't be there. Just sayin.

 

[sahara910]

My kids DO know about wine corkage fees

But that's because dh is CDO for a big restaurant chain and we don't drink often, when we do we bring a bottle with us and ask about corkage. We learned over Thanksgiving in CO that it is illegal to bring wine in no matter where. (We were at a Riz Carlton!! ) We had no idea. We found it especially funny as they had just passed the law making marijuana legal LOL.
OK now that I have officially gone off topic x 1000 thank you for the answer

 

[PizzieDuster]

We typically end up ordering about three (or so) bottles of wine throughout our 7-night cruise, as we don't usually finish the bottle at one meal. Our servers re-corked/sealed the bottle, and they put a tag on it with our name/stateroom/dining room table number/etc. and they store it. We never had any major problems with them 'finding' our bottle the next night. Often, it was already either on the table or in an ice bucket next to the table when we arrived for dinner the next night. I can't remember if we ever asked for an already opened bottle during Palo dinner or not...

I would love to have it at my table chilled. That was cool they did that for you.

 

[Bunless]

We've never had problems with bottles finding us after they've been corked.

Pro-tip... a magnum has the same corkage fee as standard size.

 

[luke]

We were given a bottle of wine on our last cruise by the hotel manager, which we took to dinner and name dropped him so didn't have to pay the corkage fee