7 Day Bahamas Cruise

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I see posts from time to time about people wondering if it is worth buying a drinks package. I just got notified today that Norwegian is changing the name of the Ultimate Beverage Package (UBP) to Premium Beverage Package (PBP?). Some people manage to get the Adult Beverage Package as a free perk on their cruise. Most people seem to agree that the Adult Beverage Package is the same thing as the UBP (or PBP). The normal cost of this package is $99 per person per day and had to be purchased for every adult in your room plus you must also purchase the child's beverage package for every child in your room if you purchase the UBP/PBP. Even with this package you still have to pay the 20% service charge / gratuity and taxes above and beyond the $99 per person per day. There is a less expensive package for $65 per person per day that only includes beer and wine. Both packages include soda and various other non-alcoholic beverages. There are other limits beyond that too. Drinks can't be more than $15 each or you pay the difference. If you buy a bottle of wine you only get 15% off. If you participate in a spirits or wine tasting event you only get a small discount, usually like 15% off for the event. So even with the very expensive drinks package you'll still end up paying gratuity and taxes plus for whatever alcohol tasting events you attend. My wife and I were on a 7 day Norwegian Escape Bahamas cruise last week. I thought I'd just provide our drinking experience and costs in case it might help others decide whether or not to buy a drinks package. During the 7 day cruise my wife and I split a total of 7 bottles of wine, that averages one bottle of wine per day. We also purchased 3 glasses of wine in addition to the bottles. We had a total of 5 cocktails and 1 glass of beer over the 7 days. But in addition to that we also attended 2 wine tasting events. At each event we had 6 glasses of about 2 oz pours for a total of 12 oz each, or about 2-1/2 glasses each at each of the 2 wine tasting events. We also attended a Whisky and Beer Tasting Event. At home the most we'll usually drink is just splitting a bottle of wine (about 2-1/2 glasses) each day. So this was quite a bit more drinking each day than we normally do. The total cost of all this drinking for 7 days came to less than $600 for the 2 of us and that included all tips and taxes! If we had purchased the UBP/PBP it would have cost us $99 X 7 or almost $1400 plus 20% service charge / gratuity plus taxes. That would have been a total of at least $1700 after the additional mandatory fees. The Tasting Events would not even have been included in that except for a small discount. So for us the drinks package would make no sense. We drank as much as we wanted to drink on the cruise, way more than we normally do when not on a cruise, and the total cost to us came to less than $600. That compares to $1700 or more for the drinks package. You'll have to judge for yourself based on what you think you will be drinking as to whether the package is worth it for you. But if you are a couple, $1700 covers a lot of drinking one glass or one bottle at a time even with the high price of drinks on the ship. Even if you buy the most expensive $15 drinks allowed in the drinks package, you would have to buy 100 drinks over 7 days (or about 14 drinks per day, 7 drinks each) to break even. Maybe one can squeeze in 7 drinks on a Sea Day (without getting wasted?), but there are a lot of shore days where I certainly could not manage to squeeze in 7 drinks in the few hours on the ship on those days. If someone sees something I'm missing in my calculations, I'm certainly open to being corrected. Of course, if you are getting the drinks package as a free perk, you can't beat that. We are getting it for the first time as a free perk on our next cruise. But already I'm fretting over not being able to buy wine by the bottle without having to cover most of the cost above and beyond this free perk. I was on the Horizon TA last year too and had no problem with the internet at all. Did you happen to check how good a WiFi signal you had in your room? The WiFi signal was excellent for me. The new cruise ships (and even the older ones like Splendor) have hotspots throughout the ship and should provide an excellent or at least a good signal from every cabin and every location on the ship. But just because you have an excellent WiFi signal doesn't mean you can reach the internet of the outside world. It only guarantees that the ship's Mobile App and features should work fine anywhere on the ship. I just got off from an NCL Escape Bahamas cruise on Sunday and had excellent internet on that cruise too. All my cruises over the last 2 years have had very good internet except for the Splendor 14 day Hawaii cruise which had pretty close to no internet. We had cabin 6366 on that trip. We liked that room so much that we've rebooked that exact same balcony room for the 24 day Transpacific cruise Los Angels to Singapore in October 2019. We had an excellent WiFi signal in that room but that isn't of much help if the ship does not have a good internet uplink to the satellites. (New equipment needed! Splendor satellite equipment is probably more than ten years old). It really should no longer matter where your cabin is located. You should have a good WiFi signal from everywhere on the ship. The ship provides WiFi hotspots throughout the ship just so their Mobil App will work from everywhere. I remember the bad old days when I'd make sure I booked a room right above or below the Internet Cafe in hopes that I could use my computer from my room and not have to spend so much time right in the Internet Cafe. That no longer matters. There is good WiFI throughout most ships now, at least on Carnival and Norwegian, even the older ships. But again, just because there is good WiFi throughout the ships, that does not mean you can get on the internet. That is more dependent on the age and quality of the internet satellite equipment on the ship. Most of the world now has good internet satellite coverage, especially navigable waters, so it should not matter where in the world the ship is located. It should have good access to an internet satellite. But if it has older internet satellite equipment, it might not have good bandwidth and might not be compatible with all the satellites, especially newer satellites over large bodies of open water. I think that may be the problem with the Carnival Splendor. Most likely they are going to upgrade that equipment in the refurbishing in Singapore, but that doesn't do those of us on the Transpacific trip to Singapore any good. By the way, there is no reason the lower decks like 1 and 2 should have a worse WiFi signal unless Carnival decided to cut costs by not putting as many hotspots on those decks as throughout the rest of the ship. Maybe because you are closer to the engines, fuel, and other mechanical equipment, there is just so much metal that the WiFi signals have difficulty propagating on the lower levels. Actually I think it is a miracle the ships are able now able to provide good WiFi throughout the ship considering all the walls, floors and ceilings are made of metal, even the walls between each cabin. i have no idea how they manage to get the WiFi signal into every cabin with all that metal shielding. I don't think they went as far as hiding a WiFi hotspot in every cabin. But I have an App that can measure all the WiFi signals around me. On my next cruise I'll take a look at the readings and see where the hotspots are located around me. Since it shows the strength of every hotspot it is great at figuring out where each hotspot is located.

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