What is 'The Wine Package'

[john storey]

I keep reading about the 'WinePackage', what is it & what does it involve, & most importantly IS IT Worth doing?

 

[musicgirl]

They offer the wine package for dinners. When you buy a package, you will be able to select from a list of wines for each night. Of course, the more expensive the package, the higher quality of wines to choose from.

My sister did this on the 3 night and really enjoyed it. We are not wine drinkers, so we passed.

They offered it to us in the halls during boarding and in PC at the buffet.

7 night Classic $158

Premium $249

Sorry, I didn't see anything in my past navigators for the 3 night.

Lorie

 

[izzinmac]

The package saves about 25% compared to buying individual bottles of the same wines. Each package has a variety of choices. We are not wine experts but enjoyed the packages.

On the 7 day packages, you get 7 bottles of wine. The program is very flexible. If your party wants different selections, you can have multiple bottles open at the same time. Anything you don't finish one night will be saved by your servers and made available the next night. If you go to Palo, you can use your package there. And if by some chance you do not use all 7 bottles by cruise end, you can take home any un opened bottles.

Our last cruise we had a group of 22 people and ended up going through about 5 packages over the 7 days. Each night we had multiple bottles in use and as soon as all 7 were used we started a new package.

I think Barb has the list of wines available in each package on her website (castawayclubdotcom)

 

[thevolcanogod]

Speaking as an oenophile, the wines you get with those packages are, for the most part inexpensive wines you would find at chain restaurants such as olive garden etc. Most, if not all of the wines in the Basic Package, you can buy at most any liquor store that sells wines for around $8 a bottle. The premium package might have a few more expensive ones (the Caymus, the Jadot PF) but nothing more expensive than, say, $17 a bottle or so.

If you are looking to feel elegant by simply drinking a bottle of wine and the quality doesn't matter and you can't manage to carry on a few bottles in a cooler to protect from heat damage, the wine package might be OK. If you are looking for a great wine experience, try some tastings at your local wine stores, but the wines offered in these packages won't really excite you.

Just my opinions.

 

[izzinmac]

Originally posted by thevolcanogod
Speaking as an oenophile

Can't you get arrested for that!

Originally posted by thevolcanogod

If you are looking to feel elegant by simply drinking a bottle of wine

Heck, We just did it for the fun of it!!

 

[thevolcanogod]

Heck, We just did it for the fun of it!!

Perfectly fine reason for doing anything IMHO - but noone should expect to get a good value or experience mind-blowing wines for either package.

If you do this package, do it for the fun or the experience, not for the value.

Oenophile = wine buff (but I know you were joking )

 

[firsttimemom]

You can also go to any of the lounges or even order a glass of 'your' wine from room service.

We got the premium package on our 4 night but not sure if we'll do it again. There were a couple times I wanted one of the evening cocktails before dinner but felt I should have wine because we had ordered the package.


HTH!

Liz

 

[Yankee914]

They have two different wine packages. THe more expensive one is for the premium wines but we took the less expensive package. The wines on that list were very good. We were traveling with another family so we had a bottle with dinner every night. If you don't finish a bottle, don't worry. They will keep if for you until the next night. They even had our wine for us at Palo the night we were there. We got to take one bottle home that was unopened -- so we got together a few weeks later with the other family, opened the bottle of wine, and showed our trip videos and pictures! Taking the wine package was definitely worth it.

 

[christinou]

Both my husband and I enjoy wine, and the did the package on the 3 night and then on the 7 night cruise, and really enjoyed it. It is very flexible, you can have multiple bottles open at once, and they will "follow" you to each dining room, we also opened a bottle in the dining room, and then brought it back to the cabin with us, so that we could have wine in the evening with our cheese platter. At the end of the cruise we had 1 bottle left, so we brought home a bottle of the sparkling wine, it was fun to have it at home, months after the cruise and remember the cruise.

 

[JFS]

We previously enjoyed the package for the 7-day. What is the price for a 3-day package?

 

[dbond]

We just returned from a 3-day. The lower end wine pkg is $69. We bought that one. Sorry I don't remember what the higher priced pkg was. The wines in our list were mostly recognizable to us, a few that we were not familiar with, but most of them we see regularly on wine lists and we buy them regularly so we know what we pay for them at home. Of course, the price that we could purchase them for retail is much less, but we did not take the time beforehand to go wine shopping. They don't mind you bringing your own wine to the dining room, but there is a corkage fee, it's minimal but adds up if you bring a bottle every night. If your really trying to keep your costs to an absolute minimum, it's probably worth the effort to bring your own on board and pay the corkage fee. If you just want a reasonably priced bottle of wine with your dinner, we thought the prices for the pkg were very reasonable compared to what we would pay for the same wine in a nicer restaurant at home. If you buy the same bottles of wine on board separately and not part of the pkg, you will most definitely pay more. We always share a bottle of wine at a nicer restaurant so it was a great deal for us to pay for the wine pkg up front and our wine server asked us for our request at the beginning of dinner each night. There are also suggestions of what wine to choose with which entree on the menu. They almost always coincided with the wine list from the pkg. Very nice touch.

 

[Deweysgirl]

Also, something else you can do which is what I did. Because I am the only wine drinker in the family my server suggested I purchase one bottle on the first night then each night I had a glass or two at dinner and then the following night my bottle of wine "followed me" on my rotation and I finished it up on the last night. Worked out perfect! It saved $$$ and I had a nice chilled glass of wine waiting for me every night at dinner!

 

[jeanneg]

I thought the 7-night Classic package was $145.........someone just said they paid $158........recent price increase?

 

[tvguy]

We decided to just buy by the bottle, went through 4 bottles in 7 days for less than the cheapest package.