Despite the advertised low rates for many cruises, I’ve always thought that the extra fees for alcoholic drinks would make the final price rise far above the base cost. Even for a moderate drinker – a few glasses of wine or beer with dinner, a pina colada here, a strawberry daiquiri there – the cost for a few days of booze for two people on a cruise could come out to a couple hundred dollars over the course of a week.
So when I first read Jaunted’s headline that Celebrity Cruises was now offering several all-you-can-drink beverage options, I was intrigued. But upon closer inspection, it seems like you’d pretty much have to spend your entire cruise drunk in order to justify the cost.
For unlimited liquor, you’ll pay over $50 per person per night, and wine packages (which don’t state how many bottles the package entitles you to) start at $114 per night per package. An unlimited supply of domestic and imported beers is $34.50 per night per person. Which means for two people, you’ll need to drink $70 worth of beer in a single day. Though that’s about three 12-packs at your local liquor store, it’s the equivalent of 10-12 beers at Celebrity’s on-board prices.
As CruiseCritic points out, the package only makes sense if you’ll drink 5-6 beers per day. While lots of people could do that over the course of a day at sea, it doesn’t seem likely that many would do it every day of the cruise, and since you have to buy the package for the duration of your cruise…well, it looks Celebrity will be making quite a profit – or ending up with some really drunk passengers.