It was Joe E. Lewis who said it best,
I distrust camels, and anyone else who can go a week without a drink.
- The All-Inclusive
- The Unlimited Soda, and
- The Café Select
The All-Inclusive package includes unlimited drinks including cocktails, wine, beer, sodas, lattes, cappuccinos, bottled water and more. The cost is approximately $55/person per day. Any drink that cost over $10 is not included in the plan. There is also a 40% discount on bottled wine or champagne.
The Unlimited Soda plan offers passengers all the fountain soda, juices and fruity mocktails you can handle. The cost is about $5/day per person.
With the Café Select plan, even coffee lovers will have a hard time using all the benefits of this package. At a cost of about $33/card, you can enjoy 15 espresso-based specialty coffees including lattes, cappuccinos, coffee and much more. When you consider how often we drive thru Starbucks at over $5/stop, this is a real bargain!
In case you haven’t figured it out by now from our pictures, we purchased the All-Inclusive Plan. To lose money we would have had to pass on adult beverages and drink less than 10 drinks per day. We started out with a carafe of coffee each morning, had juice with breakfast, sodas or tea with lunch and large water bottles for exercise. At dinner we shared a bottle of wine or champagne which would have equaled 2 glasses each. Our wine at dinner alone covered half of the plan. In addition to that we each had a specialty drink at some of the activities.
There is one thing that I do not understand. All of your food is included in the price of your cruise. This includes smoked salmon which sells for $40/pound in Seattle, filet mignon, lobster, Eggs Benedict, omelettes, fresh fruit, ice cream and some game dishes. I’ve done my research and can’t find a satisfactory answer to this question. With the food menu offered on a cruise, why is it necessary to sell a separate drink package? Why can’t drinks be included as well? Do we all drink enough for the cruise line to make money off of these packages? The only thing I can come up with is those who do not partake of adult beverages may not want to feel like they are paying for everyone else to have a cocktail. Wish I had that answer for you!
Well, that camel didn’t have to go a week without a drink after all. But as for that straw… We may have broken a back or two.
It was 5 o’clock where we were!