This is such a niche topic, but can we combine our knowledge about the drinks packages on cruises? For those of you who are where I was ten minutes ago: it seems that cruises charge extra for drinks such as soda, interesting coffee (anything other than pouring it from a Church Fellowship Urn and adding your own cream and sugar), and booze. You can pay for those drinks individually, again and again all day long, or you can buy a “drinks package” where you pay a lump sum per day to cover a whole bunch of those drinks (usually unlimited in the case of soda and coffee, limited-but-nice-high-limit in the case of alcohol). The price is PER DAY, but cannot be different from day to day (that is, if you only drink on weekends, you cannot opt to pay for the alcohol package only on the weekend days). Which means it is ACTUALLY per-week.

There are LEVELS: I am not totally clear on this, but the gist seems to be that the lowest-price level is all the soda you can drink; the second-lowest is all the soda and specialty coffees you can drink; the third lowest is all the soda and specialty coffees and virtually all the lower-priced wine/cocktails you can drink (a nice high limit on the alcohol drinks, like 15/day); and the most expensive is all the soda and specialty coffees and virtually all the lower/higher-priced wine/cocktails you can drink (again, a nice high limit on the alcohol drinks, like 15/day). My assumption is that the alcohol drinks on cruises are NOT AT ALL strong, if the limit is 15/day. But I don’t know; I could be wrong. This is one of the many areas where the experienced among us could offer their expertise.

I am someone who enjoys drinking, especially on vacation/holidays, and also I find it very difficult to pay $8/$10/$12/$16/whatever for a drink. (One of the ways Paul Served My Interests on our recent road-trip is by continually encouraging me to order a drink at dinner, and even a SECOND drink since he was driving, and further indulging me by saying things like “Sure, you’re right, this is too expensive for Usual—but we don’t usually do this. This is a special situation.”) So FOR ME, there is significant value in buying a drinks package that means I have an auto-Paul and DON’T HAVE TO THINK/FRET ABOUT IT. FOR ME, the no-brainer option is the drinks package, EVEN IF the math does not work out in the end. (Though I would plan to keep track of it on the first cruise, and use that information to inform future cruises—because I can also imagine working well with a self-managed Generous Drinks Budget, with the knowledge that the amount I was spending was Less Overall.) Also: the boozy-drinks package includes the sodas and special coffees, which I would enjoy but would find it difficult to pay extra for: I’m not paying $4 for diet Coke if I can have water for free; I’m not paying $7 for a fancy coffee drink if I can have a regular coffee for free. Ordering the drinks package is a sensible choice, FOR ME, in terms of VACATION ENJOYMENT/RELAXATION/INDULGENCE. My guess is that it would also have significant value to Paul, to give him a break from the Support Role; and indeed, he not only supports the idea of me getting the Highest Drinks Package, he actively encourages it. So THAT’S settled!

Here is my MAIN ISSUE: passengers have to buy the same package as everyone in their cabin. So Paul and I are REQUIRED to choose the same path. But Paul BARELY drinks. Sure, he will have a beer. He might have a cocktail if he doesn’t have a beer and we are on vacation / out for our anniversary. And he DOES NOT AT ALL think/fret about the cost if he wants a beer/cocktail. So FOR HIM, the boozy-drinks-included package is an UTTER WASTE: he would buy exactly the number of drinks he wanted to buy, without giving it a single thought, and he would never buy enough of them to be worth it. With soda and coffee drinks, he would literally never think of the price, he would buy exactly as many as he wanted—but he would buy many, Many, MANY more of those than of alcohol drinks. For him, the all-you-can-drink soda package, or more likely the all-you-can-drink-soda-and-coffee package, would be MUCH WISER deals. But even though we are very, very different, we have to choose the same package.

I am obviously going to have to math this out, because what the cruise seems to be asking me is if I can drink enough for almost-two. And NO I CANNOT. But there are other factors, such as the aforementioned Anxious Frugality: WILL I order the number of drinks (soda/coffee/alcohol) that I would like to have, if I have to think of the price every single time? Also: Paul drinks lots and lots of soda and coffee, so he is going to want the unlimited-soda(/coffee) package, and that’s about a third of the price of the unlimited-all-drinks package, so the price of that package cancels out of the price of the larger package (i.e., if the all-inclusive package is $60, and he would have bought the $20 soda package regardless, the all-inclusive package is only $40 more, not $60; and if the soda/coffee combined package is $30, then the all-inclusive package is only $30 more, not $60); and also my Anxious Frugality applies to other people in my party ordering multiple $4 sodas and $7 coffees per day—however much I would LIKE to mirror the support I receive. And actually, it is likely if he ordered just the soda/coffee he wanted in a day, with no package deal, he would EXCEED the price of the alcohol drinks I would order. And I think he(/ANYONE) would appreciate me NOT looking sideways at every soda/coffee drink order. You see how quickly this gets complicated. But the cost of the daily all-inclusive alcohol package!!! times two, when one of us barely drinks alcohol!!! Good heavens!!!