Comments on: Which Cruise Lines Allow You to Carry On Wine?

By: charlietuna

charlietuna — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 00:56:33 +0000

we sail in august to alaska, l’m bringing 2 magnums l red-l white,that meets princess’s
limit of one bottle per person,and a magnum is a very shareable size,and they are not
2 buck chuck. hard liguor is harder to share,better off just to bring a few minitures for personal
pleasure. happy cruising.

By: Tina Brush

Tina Brush — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 23:44:31 +0000

Hi, I really enjoyed you comments. I was told on my last Princess cruise to Hawaii that if you bring your own ‘brands’ that the restaurant serve, as. ie., Kendall Jackson (of which I love), there is not a cork fee or a service charge, is this true? If this is true, do you know of the other fine wines that they consider ‘off limits’ also. I have head that Princess also considers Byron, Pknot Noir, as acceptable also. Any truth in this? Also the French, Beau Jolais Villagies. I am going on a Tahitian Princess trip to Tahiti and the Maques Islands the end of October and any info you can give me as to bring my own wines, and not have to pay the exorbant prices they charge would be very well appreicated.
Respectfully,
Tina Brush

By: Josh

Josh — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 01:15:57 +0000

Jefe,

Yeah we checked out the glacier. Beautiful stuff, though they only let you hang out for 35 mins or so. My one regret is that I wish I could have gotten better pictures on that particular excursion.

Michelle,

Good points. I didn’t want to recommend that anyone do anything *against the rules*, but we also figured out ways to get some slightly better wine on board (gift baskets sent to ourselves). Thanks for the heads up!

Winesmith,

Good to see you blogging again Alan. I take it you don’t have much of an affinity for cruise lines. Let me tell you though, a cruise is far and away the best way to experience the Alaskan frontier. Everthing is so remote and spread out that there really is no other way. Its also much more affordable than you might think (especially if you use mileage points for your airfare like we did).

Richard,

Thanks for the comment. I have to hand it to you, yours is by far the nastiest comment I’ve gotten in over a year and a half of writing pinotblogger,

The unfortunate thing is that you make a pretty good point about leaving a very young child “alone” for 7 days, but your concern is buried under a mountain of snarkiness and just plain old meanness.

To your point: we debated long and hard about taking this vacation, asked trusted councilors, child care professionals and talked with our family. In the end we felt confident that leaving Jack with both his grandparents for a week would make for a good bonding experience for everyone involved (us, Jack, and the ‘rents).

We are fortunate that we are able to take our son to work with us, so we have been blessed to spend nearly every hour of every day for the last 10 months either taking care of or, literally, within shouting distance of The Boy. It’s been fantastic, but its also been tiring.

It took a lot of courage for Candace to tear herself away, and it certainly wasn’t easy or done lightly, but it was without a doubt worth it both for our relationship, as well as for Jack and his grandparents.

Anyway, that’s the story. Hope you enjoyed your rant!

By: Richard Grace

Richard Grace — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 08:19:28 +0000

That’s great. I love the fact that you and your wife got to leave YOUR TEN-MONTH-OLD-CHILD for a cruise to Alaska. What GREAT parents you must be. You sound like the COOLEST people.

Who gives a damn about ***children*** that you gave BIRTH to when you can have overpriced WINE on a CRUISE? And then BLOG about it?

What is that little thing - a BABY - f’Chrissakes - supposed to do while you indulge yourselves with “your dear friends?” and are two thousand freakin’ miles away?

Excuse me. I must be missing something here. A 10-MONTH-OLD???

You two really need to figure out what your priorities are. Go suck up to your presumably rich friends until you figure out what those are.

By: Winesmith

Winesmith — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 04:08:30 +0000

I’m not likely to take any cruises any time soon. But do you know which airlines would let me carry-on a bunch of 3 oz. bottles of wine wrapped in a clear, 1-quart plastic bag?

By: Michelle

Michelle — Sat, 26 May 2007 12:17:28 +0000

We took a Royal Caribbean cruise two years ago and took the “College” approach, you might say. It was all about sneaking around. We are accustomed to all-inclusive resorts, so finding out that a cruise does not include our cocktails and wine was a shocker. We bought a couple bottles of bourbon and sealed them in plastic travel bottles. (It’s our favorite mixer for a cocktail.) We also buried several bottles of wine in my overpacked suitcase. Woe to the security person who could get that suitcase unzipped AND rezipped without clothes bursting out all over.
Once onboard, we bought those large plastic lidded mugs in which they give you free soda all the time. This mixed well with the bourbon in my beach bag. In the evening, we’d often pour wine into the same plastic cups and go wandering the boat. For dinner, I would often just have water with my meal. What was interesting was that we won a bottle of champagne in a shipboard contest. They gave it to us and we still weren’t officially allowed to open it. However, if I slipped wine into my backpack and poured some out on the deck, the employees simply turned a blind eye.
We also bought some Taittinger at a duty-free in the Bahamas and they confiscated it the minute we stepped foot back on the boat, but gave it back the morning of departure.

By: El Jefe

El Jefe — Sat, 26 May 2007 02:24:16 +0000

hi Josh - we did that cruise on Princess just two years ago and it is an incredible trip. At the time we were told by Princess that we could bring as much wine as we wanted as long as we hand carried it onboard ourselves. And we were never charged corkage but we’re decent tippers and perhaps that was the waiter’s discretion.

Hope you did the helicopter flight to the glaciers behind Juneau!!!

By: Josh

Josh — Fri, 25 May 2007 22:23:19 +0000

John,

Yeah I was blown away at the ineptitude of her personal PR. If you are going to be brutally honest, you have to at least be balanced with your criticism. Otherwise you come off as a transparent shill, which is what she is.

Thanks for the comment. Look forward to reading more of your blog John.

By: John Koetsier

John Koetsier — Fri, 25 May 2007 22:05:46 +0000

Hey, a little offtopic, but I came via your comment on Guy Kawasaki’s blog … on the PR post. Great comment … I was really turned off as well by most of the reasons being the fault of the client ….

By: Josh

Josh — Thu, 24 May 2007 14:57:05 +0000

Tyler,

Thanks for the link! If the decision is purely an economic one, then it is a very, very bad one. A 15 dollar corkage fee per bottle for carry one wine is a pretty good incentive in itself, but when you also factor in the goodwill the cruise lines will be accruing with wine lovers for letting them indulge in their passion while on vacation, to me it seems like a slam dunk.

James,

If I go on a cruise in the next few years it will most likely be a Disney cruise. I’d love to know how it goes.

Thanks Mike!