Drinks anyone?

[canals68]

I've been reading through some postings and notice a large number of people discussing bring their own water, beer, booze etc.. I can understand formula and juice boxes for the kids, but is this stuff being brought on board out of necessity(not sold on bord), or to cut a couple bucks off of and potentially inflated room tab. If I choose to absorb what I'm sure are some steep prices, I know park concessions can be a killer, everything I should want should be available on board,no?

 

[dianthus]

Some items are not available, or very expensive. We brought gingerale, caffeine free Pepsi & Diet Vanilla Pepsi on our cruise, as only Coke products are served. 7 Day mugs/stickers are $38. We brought bottled water for the stateroom & excursions- they sell it for $2.50 a bottle on the ship. A 12 pack was $4.00 in Publix.

We also brought a couple of bottles of wine to enjoy on our verandah for $17 $ $22 a bottle. If those wines were available, they would sell for $35 & up easily... We ordered wine with dinner & paid the inflated prices...

By spending about $60 for everything above, we probably saved 3 times that over ship prices & nothing we brought onboard was available.

It's a matter of personal preference. It's a pain to schlep on, but nice to have while you cruise & you don't have to cart it off as you've consumed most of it. You must have it in a covered bag of some kind to get it on the ship. We used the empty bag to cart home all the things we purchased on the trip! The money we saved on the consumables paid for all the pics we bought in shutters!
Hope this helps!

 

[inkkognito]

I don't really find the onboard prices to be all that bad. I'm not a soda drinker, but I would just drink it at dinner (when it's free) if I was. The only way I'd bring that on board is if I really liked a type that's not available. For alcoholic beverages, we just buy them on board, and I like to indulge in smoothies too. We do bring a six-pack of bottled water, but that's more for convenience. Once we drink it, we save the bottles and keep refilling them with water from the drink station.
Barb
Visit the Platinum Castaway Club at: www.castawayclub.com

 

[floridaminnie]

The yummy drinks on the ship are much cheaper than the ones at WDW. Go figure!

 

[ThreeCircles]

Yes, I agree that drinks onboard are comparable to those that you would buy on land.

An alcohol-oriented beverage can range in price from $2.50 to $7. This would include all of your mixed drinks, some wines by the glass, and beer. I would say that this is more than comparable to restaurants on land.

A glass of Coke runs about $2 and is also comparable to that on land. Last weekend I paid $1.85 for a glass of Coke at Don Pablo's. Of course, this also included refills.

Wine by the bottle can be pretty expensive, more so than on land at least. But, wine by the bottle is usually a better deal than by the glass. If you do want to bring your own wine onboard and consume it at dinner, DCL has a $15 (plus gratuity = about $17.25) corkage fee. I have yeat to find a bottle of wine sold onland that is still cheaper than the same bottle sold onboard after figuring in the corkage fee. But, if you don't plan on bringing it to dinner and just want it for the stateroom, it would end up a better deal.