november_moon

Hello - I am new to the cruising board, but am a regular on the US and Europe boards.

I am researching a possible cruise for next year and am curious if sample beer and wine menus are available online for different cruise lines and if there are, where I would find them. I know that availability is highly dependent on a variety of factors, but it would be nice to get an idea of what is generally available.

Specifically, we are looking at either an Alaska inside passage cruise from Seattle or Vancouver or a Mexican cruise from LA or San Diego - Carnival, Princess, and Holland America seem to be the cruise lines that have these itineraries for the dates we are looking at.

qwovadis

cruisecritic.com ship reviews contact carrier for call brands

RCL for most party booziest has all the latest stuff

HAL for snooty winos more formal

Princess less snooty nice some family

Carnival skads of kids usually my least favs

Most folks with special desire pack it on to save...

Booze/Gambling can easily double to triple cruise cost

for the clueless party types who are not frugal.

Happy Hunting,

Eschew

Here are some links. Good luck!

http://www.guidetocaribbeanvacations...eShipMenus.htm

http://www.princess.com/learn/onboar...nus/index.html

november_moon

Thanks for the information. I was able to find some wine lists, but beer menus seem to be totally non-existent. How is the beer selection on cruise ships? Are beer drinkers limited to macro-brews like Bud and that sort of thing?

KVR

Try www.cruiseclues.com People take pictures of various things including cabins and menus and post.

Also www.CruiseCritic.com

Celebrity and Royal Carribean now have a pre-pay alcohol plan. Sorta like all - inclusive. You can find on thier individual websites or on Cruise Critic. Celebrity's plan includes more and costs about the same as Royal Caribbean. At first glance it looks expensive, but do the math. If you drink more than 4 cocktails/beer/soda/speciality drinks in a day you'll break even on it. I wish Princess would get on baird with this concept.

We are leaving in a few days for the Seattle round trip Alaskan cruise on Princess. Princess offers happy hour prices on beer and some drinks. I read it was after 8pm, but looks like they moved it to around 4-6. We'll soon find out. Princess also offers the buy 5 get 1 free beer bucket in a bottle for $23.00. To me, that's a rip off, when you can get domestic beer at our local store a 6 pack for $7.

Here's the link for what Princess offers:

http://www.princess.com/learn/onboar...lars/index.jsp

Eschew

November_moon, the beer choices are limited. The cruise lines have contracts and they would mean "exclusive".

We have always buy a beer at each port and sample the local beer, good bad or otherwise.

Typical beer price would be like a downtown hotel cocktail lounge, around $5.50 or there about plus tip (15% to 18% depending on cruise line) The bucket is the cheapest way to go. I find that Celebrity prices are higher.

november_moon

At least Princes has Dos Equis. Otherwise what I have seen looks grim indeed. Don't cruise lines realize that this is the 21st century?

So I guess the real question is, can I convince my husband to drink wine for a week?

Eschew

Good luck on convinicng any beer drinker to drink wine. Once a beer drinker, always a beer drinker. Cowboys drink beer, not wine. You have seen thsoe commercials: real men drinks "manly" beers

The cruise lines offer exclusive deals to brewers for a number of reasons. Actual only one: $$$. Exclusive deals means advertising and amrketing money, lower cost etc etc.

Tell hubby to drinks lots of local beer when you are ashore. Depending your ports of calls (Alaska or Mexico), some of the local beers could be wonderful.

By the way, drinks are a whole lot cheaper in Mexico than Alaska. (I don't mean the ships, they are all the same). You can pretend that you are shopping for jwellery in a store in Mexico and they will provide free beer for your bubby ...

jacketwatch

FWIW I recall Princess had a great brew, Alaskan Amber, on the Sapphire during our Alaska cruise. Like Eschew we also, at least my son and I do try to have a local brew in each port and some have been very, very good. One of the best was a Guatemalan brew called "Gallo" which I found at my local store but under the name "Famosa" which perhaps was due to the name "Gallo" used here for Gallo wines?? Anyway its pretty good.

november_moon

LOL - No, my husband is definite not a cowboy nor does he identify with them in anyway. He is really into beer though. We recently celebrated his 40th birthday with a 2-week beer pilgrimage trip to southern Germany and Prague. Last year we took a camping trip to the CA north coast and we visited 4 breweries on a 5 day trip. And at our house, beer is always drunk out of the correct glass.

He does drink wine on a reasonably regular basis, but beer is definitely his preference. Neither of us really go in for hard alcohol. And part of the lure of a cruise is the fact that you don't have to drive anywhere or really plan things out like you would on other vacations, so you can have as many drinks as you feel like having.

Eschew

I think I should have said real men drinks menly beer and make references to a sports jock than a cowboy ... I enjoyed a pilsner urquell from time to time. Love those pale lager form that part of the world. The locals don't even come close.

I have a beer trivia for you. What is the top selling (and consumed) beer in the world since 2008? Teh answer may surprise you. Hint. It's not American or European.

I have to remember suggesting the beer pilgrimage to DW when we decide on our trip for next year. I doubt that she will go for it though, but it will be a good bargining position for me.

I understand the logic of not having to drive and therefore one can drink a bit more,but the clostof alcoholic beverages on a cruise ship is expensive, like a typical convention center hotel, and not cheaper like your local watering hole.

Celebrity sells an alchol package but is is over $50 per person per day plus tips so it would be more like $400+ for a week each.

If you are new to cruising. you should know that you can ask your server to keep your unfinished bottle of wine for the next meal or the next day. Since there is usually only the 2 of us, a bootle of wine would cover us for at least 2 meals as we only have a glass of wine for each per meal.

Typically we will hsve a couple bottles of wines going (sometimes even 3), we ask for whichever bottle we want after we decidewd on the food. from time to time, we even have a desert wine going (A Spatlese, Icewine or a late harvest Sauternes) and ended up with 4 bottles.

If you timed it right, there should be no left over wine on the last day. If not, it is always fun to try to finish them all off and paired differnt wine for each course.

november_moon

I love that - have a couple of bottles of wine going. Great tip about having the server to keep the unfinished bottle.

As for the trivia question, my guess is Fosters. It is Austrailian and I know the Austrialians can really put beer away, and I have seen Fosters all over the place. My husband's guess is Corona, but I don't think he is right.

Eschew

The answer to the trivia will surprise you. It is called "Snow Beer". Sold only in mainland China and not for export. 16.5 billion pints in 2010. Bud lite comes in a distance second, at only half the volume. Snow Beer is a joint venture between a local Chinese company and SABMiller.

Below is the link to the news:
http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/08/24/...-selling-beer/

Most ships will keep the wine for you at the dining room only so you can access your unfinished bottle in the Dining rooms, and not at the bars or clubs.

You can also asked to take it with you to your cabin and generally, they will accomodate. Usually we would finish a bottle within 2 days so we don't worry too much about quality deterioration.

Some cruise line sells a wine package and they could be a bargain if it happens to be the type of wine that you like, as well as matching the food you order.

There are also wine sampling (for a fee) and they would typically have a very generic one and then a higher-end one later. They would charge maybe $10 for the low end one and about $25 for the high end one. The high end tasting is a better deal. I can't afford to buy wine at those price range so a sampling for $25 is reasonable for an adventure. You may get 5 or 6 different wines, a sample of 1 to 2 oz. each. They will thrown in some canapes as well.

You will find wine prices typically marked up similar to convention hotels. A bottle you can pick up in store for $10 would be about $30 and maybe higehr depending on cruise lines. You will find bargains from time to time. We found a French Pouilly Fuisse on the wine menu for $35 on our last trip.

china_cat

We were on Coral Princess to Alaska this past summer, I was actually impressed by their wine list. I didn't find the markup to be as bad as hotels on land. It seemed to have a very wide selection of moderately priced ($30-50) wines that were well chosen and quite good. It wasn't $30 for $10 plonk which I admit is what I expected.

They had a full range of Alaskan brews too, as jacketwatch mentions. We had the Amber, the IPA, and I think another. I don't remember what other beers they had, because we ordered the Alaskan all week. Particular on deck with the Princess pizza. The pizza was soooo good.

The list that was posted above, with a link to the Princess Cellars...they do have far more selection than that on board. At least for wine and liquor. I suspect that is a list that is common to all ships, and there there are other things that a particular ship might have.

KVR

We just returned from the Golden Princess Alaskan cruise. We are beer drinkers and they had a special of 5 beers in an ice bucket for $19 or $4.25 a piece for Coors Light. We did have wine at dinner twice. It's much cheaper to buy the bottle. We had Beringer White Zinfindel. It was $7.25 buy the glass and $27 for the bottle. Martinis were $7.95.

We drank the Alaskan Summer Ale in the ports and it was $6.00 a glass.

The ship had several free alcohol tastings. There were vodka, liquor, martini and champagne. There were also 2 wine tastings for a fee. One for $25 per person and 1 for $9.50 per person. We also went to the return passenger cocktail party and free cocktails were served. So we found if we were in the right place at the right time, there are several opportunities for free alcohol.

Eschew

Chian_cat and KVR, I echo your assessment on Princess's wine selcction and pricing. The Pricness wine list is more reasonable priced than the Celebrity's, as an example.

We find that we drank more wine on a Pricness ship than when we were on a Celebrity ship, and we eneded up spending more money on wine. Funny how it works. Celebrity up their prices to try and make more money and the customers ended up spending less.

november_moon

After we answered the trivia question, we looked it up - neither of us even thought about Chinese beer, but it does make sense. With a billion people in their country, they can consume quite a lot of beer.

Eschew

It was a trick question ...