Now Royal Caribbean upsets passengers with extraordinary drinks package change

• Royal Caribbean has made a crucial change to their drinks package policy.
• They announced they will stop granting exceptions for those who don’t want to purchase a drinks package, even though another member of their cabin has one.
• This means that all adults in a cabin will have to purchase drinks packages, even if only one person wants one.

Royal Caribbean has made a crucial change to their drinks package policy that is already appearing to be unpopular with cruisers. 

While it is a rule that if one member of a cabin buys a drinks package, other adult age members of the cabin have to buy one as well, until now, this rule has had a crucial exception. This exception is that a cruiser could simply communicate to Royal Caribbean if they were unable or didn’t want to drink alcohol, and have the package cancelled. 

However, this will no longer be allowed. Even people with medical conditions affected by alcohol will be forced to buy a package.

A Royal Caribbean spokesperson told Royal Caribbean Blog: “”Beginning August 1, Royal Caribbean will no longer be able to grant exceptions to our policy that both guests in a stateroom must purchase the Deluxe Beverage Package.”

Royal Caribbean claims the change is because some people have continued to share drink packages, meaning that just one person can buy the package which allows for unlimited drinks, and share the drinks with other members of their travel party.

“This change allows us to ensure guests are consuming their beverage package responsibly. Over time, requests for exceptions have increased, and sharing of packages has continued, which led us to implement this policy change.”

The move comes a week after Princess Cruises changed its packages, and quickly had to tweak it after guests complained.

While it is very understandable that Royal Caribbean doesn’t want the exception to be abused and for guests to start sharing drink packages, the removal of the exception does make drinks packages into a more complicated equation for cruisers. 

Now, for example, if two cruisers are travelling together and one is a keen drinker who wants to get the package, and another is only a moderate or occasional drinker, they’ll be forced to either forgo the packages completely or purchase two, even though one traveller won’t get value from it.

Even if one member on a travel party is completely unable to consume alcohol, such as someone who is pregnant or otherwise medically unable to drink alcohol, they’ll now be forced to buy the package if someone else in their travel party does.

Royal Caribbean drinks packages change in price for each cruise, but generally for an Aussie cruise you’ll be paying at least $125.

This would mean if a couple take a 10-day cruise, even if only one of them is drinker, they’d have to pay a total of $2500 for a drinks package.

At $15 per drink this would come out to 166 drinks over a ten-day cruise, likely far too many for just one person.

This raises the question of how many couples or other travel parties might stop opting for a drinks package after these changes.

What are cruisers saying?

Cruisers took to Reddit to express their thoughts on the change, with many upset.

Some are feeling upset not with Royal Caribbean but rather with the passengers that were misusing the package.

“This is a great example of a couple of people abusing a policy and therefore ruining it for everyone. I feel bad for all the pax who legitimately cannot drink for whatever reason because this policy change unanimously hurts them.”

Another wrote: “I’m not surprised. Bunch of dummies bragging on every cruise about only getting one package and tipping their waiter or bar staff to get them staggered drinks.

“I still wish they’d honour medical exceptions with valid documentation. The problem I see for them is they have no way of validating the documentation they receive.”

Other cruisers say this will turn off buying drinks packages.

“This is disappointing. My husband likes to get the deluxe beverage package, but I don’t drink at all. I kinda even hated that I had to get the refreshment package because, honestly, I’m perfectly fine with buying a good coffee in the morning and drinking water the rest of the day.”

Another RC cruiser says this could even motivate them to check out other cruise lines.

“My partner doesn’t drink at all. Not a drop. No way in hell I’m paying for a drink package for them as well. It’s already comically overpriced.

“I was seriously considering checking out other lines. Looks like this will get the ball rolling on that.

Another cruiser pointed out that this could drive more cruisers to seek ‘creative’ solutions to drink alcohol onboard.

“The secret to low cost cruising is not to buy the drinks packages full stop. Soda package for kids. Water juice iced tea coffee for free for adults.

“Grab a couple of bottles of wine and 12 pack soda in ports, pay for the odd cocktail or glass of wine here or there and you can save over a grand per cruise.

“Also RC could be shooting themselves in the foot with this one. With the escalating drinks package prices over recent years, this rule change may see a decline in drinks revenue as more people decide to be creative as above, than decide to pair up on alcohol packages.”

Tell us what you think in the comments below.