Sneaking Booze onboard - heard a new angle last night

[Paul Motter]

I was at a Christmas party talking to a young couple who took their first Carnival cruise a few months ago.

Not surprisingly, they were amazed at the level of food and service and loved the cruise. But they; along with a few other relatively new to cruising people asked me, "what about the onboard costs, I heard your final bill can be quite a surprise."

Well, its true, cruises are as cheap as ever but drinks are more expensive, and if you dine "out" and take a few tours it will really add up.

So these folks told me "we had some liquor in our suitcase"

"And they didn't find it?" I asked, and they told me...

"well, the guy at the pier who took our bags said 'I know you got liquor in there, everybody does it. For $5 I will be sure that gets on board" So they tipped him and it did get onboard. How? I don't know. They think they saw him put it in a certain line along with other people who also paid the $5 tip.

This was at L.A. pier. This is the first time I have heard this story - anybody else heard about it there or at other ports?

[aerospace]

Seems like the porter just wanted to make some extra nice tips and was able to have their bags skip screening. I would imagine he/she would get fired on the spot when found out.

I have taken to almost always doing b2b cruises and just buy a couple of bottles on the first leg in the ship shop. At the end of the first trip it's delivered to my room and I have all I can drink for the next trip(s). Limit my consumption the first few days and overdo it a bit on the next trip, works great and saves a ton over buying a package. In 4 weeks on board I spent under $50 on liquor but had 3 liters to drink....at the end of the trip I offered all you can drink to the studio cabins to empty my leftovers

[Paul Motter]

Cool idea - Aero. I think the drink packages where you can get liquor delivered to your room are good idea also.

Drinks have gotten pretty expensive - a glass of wine with dinner is going to be $7.50. That is the thing, it adds up quickly.

[storybookcruises.com]

That porter just wanted to make some extra cash because he just throws the bags in a bin and away it goes. He has absolutely no control whatsoever over the bags after that point irregardless of what he says.

By the way, we just got off a Carnival cruise today and the Rum Runners worked for us!

Pete

[Manuel]

Originally Posted by Paul Motter

Drinks have gotten pretty expensive - a glass of wine with dinner is going to be $7.50. That is the thing, it adds up quickly.

A glass of wine with dinner . Not me..

I order a bottle.

TM

[thecruisequeen]

Nope can't be bothered bringing booze onboard it's a hassle...

I'm on vacation I'll buy booze onboard. Not a bigger drinker anyway so if I'm buying a few drinks a day it's not breaking the bank...

That porter is looking to make some money on the side

[thecruisequeen]

Originally Posted by Manuel

A glass of wine with dinner . Not me..

I order a bottle.

TM

That's right TM that is how to do cruise ship dinner with a bottle of wine NOT a glass!! I love your comment it made me laugh!!

[Truck Cruiser]

a 12 pack of coke, a 12 pack of mountain dew...open carefully, remove sodas, add beer, put sodas where the carry handle is, add more beer and hot glue the 12 pack shut, put in suite case, bring rolling cooler with a 12 pack of water in it to keep beverages cold, works every time for me!

[Paul Motter]

Good one Truck... we won't tell the cruise lines to watch for this one. It is a good trick as long as they don't suspect it. I imagine that during peak hours they are more concerned with getting people onboard than catching a few cans of beer.

[storybookcruises.com]

We just went on the Carnival Glory and in a small suitcase that we carried onboard with us, we had three 6-packs of Sprite and Ginger Ale. The gal at security shook all 18 bottles to make sure there was soda in the them!! I had to laugh at her insistence to find alcohol. But we did use the Rum Runners in our check-in luggage and they worked great!

Pete

[Trip]

I hope you didn't try and open one for a while!

[storybookcruises.com]

It was too funny! Especially when she took the obviously sealed bottles of wine and shook them! I guess she wanted to see if they contained alcohol!! But in her haste to shake every bottle of soda, she failed to see the 16 ounce can of beer I had in there. Can't imagine what she would have done if she found that!

Pete

[Snoozeman]

That's a NEW one to me too. May be an organized deal or maybe the porter knew they weren't screening that day. It would be worth $5 to me, if I knew it would work.

The last 3 B2B's I did they would not deliver the bottles after 1st cruise. Of course you just wait until late on final day and purchase them and take to room.

There is a way to purchase and take away a bottle at anytime on your cruise, but we can't give out all our secrets can we?