Taking Wine Onboard

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Brian

Guest
We are scheduled to leave on the summit in 2 1/2 weeks and are thinking about taking some wine onboard with us. I know that there is a corkage fee for drinking the wine in the dining room.
How do you get the wine onboard?
Do you turn it in when you board the ship and go through security?
Can you have it delivered to your cabin during the day?
Can you take it on deck by the pool?
What are the rules for taking wine onboard?
Is it best to carry the wine on the airplane rather than pack it and checking it as luggage?

Thanks,
Brian.
 
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BarbaraK

Guest
We usually take a couple of bottles with us to drink on our balcony. :eek:)
I know many others take them for the dining room.
We pack them in bubble wrap and then put them into large ziploc bags in the suitcase and we have never had any problems . Have a wonderful cruise :)
 
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wayneair

Guest
Celebrity has one of the best policies for bringing your own wine on board. I carried my wine on to the ship similar to any other carry on luggage. We were able to keep it in the room and drink as we wanted. The bottles we requested to have at dinner, we simply gave them to our cabin attendant and she had the bottles delivered to the table. They would also chill the bottles of white wine in time for dinner. We also carried on vodka and security did not question us on this.
 
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Petert

Guest
Hi Brian,

I am not a big wine fan but enjoy an occasional glass with dinner. On occasion I have found an interesting bottle of wine on a port call, and have brought a bottle or two back to the ship. I have never had a problem bringing it aboard nor have I seen anyone else be questioned about bringing wine aboard.

Peter
 
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Shipsbelle

Guest
Taking wine on at the embarkation port is no problem. We just returned from a 24 day back to back and also had no problem bringing a couple of local wines back to our cabin at the ports of call. What Celebrity monitors more closely is the hard liquor and they will have a table set up to "put it in a secure" place till the last night. The Caribbean itineraries seem to be the ones that are more likely to take your port purchases for safe keeping.

The way the cruiseline handles your checked bags begs for the carry on method!! Our table mate had wine broken in his checked bag even though it was well padded and in the middle of his suitcase. We have found that our luggage gets more damage from the cruiselines than the airlines.

Taking any personal wine or liquor to the public areas is frowned on.
 
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Henry009

Guest
Will someone please answer the original question???

Original post:

"I know that there is a corkage fee for drinking the wine in the dining room.

How do you get the wine onboard?

Do you turn it in when you board the ship and go through security? "
 
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Shipsbelle

Guest
Henry009 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Will someone please answer the original
> question???
>
> Original post:
>
> "I know that there is a corkage fee for drinking
> the wine in the dining room.
>
> How do you get the wine onboard?
>
> Do you turn it in when you board the ship and go
> through security? "
>
>

It's safer for the health of your wines to pack them in your carry ons and go thru security.

They do not stop you at security to take your wine--mostly they take your hard liquor and keep it till you are ready to debark at the end of your cruise. I have never known of anyone having wine taken from them when embarking.

You take the wine to your cabin and send it to the dining room by way of your cabin steward, or carry it down yourself and give it to the wine steward when you are ready to enjoy it with dinner, or you can drink it in your cabin. There is no corkage fee for drinking it in your cabin, only when you get the service from the wine steward. You cannot bring your own opened bottle of wine to the dining room, or carry it around on the ship with you.

Did that cover your questions? If you have any more just holler!
 
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Henry009

Guest
Thank you :)

I too was unsure what happened to the wine when boarding. Since this is my first cruise, I speculated to myself that they collected the wine when embarking, stored in a locker and brought it from there.

But your explanation makes much more sense. In particular, that I can enoy a few glasses in the quiet of my room if I choose to.
 
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BarbaraK

Guest
Henry I had already answered part of the question .
We always pack our wine bottles in our suitcases.
In fact when ever we travel we always pack our wine in our suitcases and we have never had one broken.
We usually pack one red and one wine bottle.
As we haven't taken any wine to the dining room I couldn't answer the corkage fee question. Maybe I should have made something up :grin
 
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stargazerm31

Guest
I have been on 12 cruises. I have taken wine on most of them. On the long ones I have taken up to 8 bottles. I always pack them in a suitecase. I use bubble wrap around them. I have yet to lose a bottle to breakage. The corkage fee used to be $12, but I've heard that it is now $20. Still a bargin. I can take an $8 bottle of KJ Chard, pay the $20 for a total of $28 and it is still cheaper than the $36 on board price plus 15% gratuity.for $41.40 cost of a bottle they buy in mass and don't pay duty on.
 
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Shipsbelle

Guest
stargazerm31 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The corkage fee used to be
> $12, but I've heard that it is now $20. Still a
> bargin. I can take an $8 bottle of KJ Chard, pay
> the $20 for a total of $28 and it is still cheaper
> than the $36 on board price plus 15% gratuity.for
> $41.40 cost of a bottle they buy in mass and don't
> pay duty on.
>
> John
>

Celebrity attempted to raise the corkage fee from $12 to $20, but because of the outcry from their regular clientel they compromised and only raised it to $15. We just got off Galaxy a week ago and the new $15 corkage fee was charged.
 
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BSeabob

Guest
1.)Take your wine aboard Celbrity in a Case/Box supplied by your "Wine Guy" as carry on. You may have to open it at security check in.
2.)Make a list of what you have or at least what you wish to have for dinner ( we always forget what's left)
3)Send the case or what's left after you remove what you may wish to drink in your room with your room guy to your onboard wine guy at your table.
4)Order a nice bottle of wine the first night from the menu and then go to step 5..

5)Make easy communication arrangements with him/her so that there is time for him/her to get the correct bottle to you for your dining pleasure. Usually that means checking ahead on whats for dinner and getting the info to him/her/ through the pipeline you opened above.
6) Don't blink at the corkage first time and make sure he/she trys the wine and you may see some of that corkage drop as the cruise continues.
 
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Shipsbelle

Guest
BSeabob Wrote:
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> 6) Don't blink at the corkage first time and make
> sure he/she trys the wine and you may see some of
> that corkage drop as the cruise continues.
>

We gave our wine stewards tastes of all our special wines, including the $200 bottle, but we still got the corkage fee on each bottle. We had different stewards on each leg of our back to back and they each charged, as advertised. We are Elite Captain's Club members, too, which they could see when they took our card for the fee the first night, so that doesn't carry any weight either!

I don't mind paying the corkage fee for wines we can't get on board, but I wouldn't take any wines that I knew they had on the wine list just to save a couple of bucks.
 
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Henry009

Guest
stargazerm31 wrote:

>I can take an $8 bottle of KJ Chard, pay the $20 for a total of $28 and
>it is still cheaper than the $36 on board price plus 15% gratuity.for
>$41.40 cost of a bottle they buy in mass and don't pay duty on.
________________________________________________________________________________

I agree. I think the wine list (cruiseclues.com) is priced to encourage people to buy the wine in the first place, however, it's overpriced for what you get.

For example, I'm OK with spending $40 for a bottle of wine when dining out. So if you net out the $15 corkage fee (not $20), you still have $25 to spend on a bottle of wine instead of getting the $8 bottle of Kendall Jackson on-board for the same price. Most times there's a world of difference when buying wines in $20 - $30 range.

The real savings come into play when drinking superior wines if you intended to splurge on vacation. A $50 - $100 retail bottle of wine would only cost $65 - $115 when adding on the corkage fee versus the likely $150 - $250 if purchased on-board for the same/similar wines.

Think of all those dry vodka martinis you can drink with the savings :)
 
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