Gilda from Texas asks: I’m taking a cruise to the Caribbean and while I’m not a big drinker, I do enjoy a glass of wine in the evenings.  We have a balcony room and we’re hoping to pack some wine so we can enjoy while watching the sun.  Is that allowed?

Peter noted: The official answer is no, but the unofficial answer is that everyone packs their own wine.  They all sneak it onto the ship, just try not to bring cases with you because you will get caught. Remember since there’s no limit to how many bags you can bring onto the ship, you can pack two or three bottles in each of your bags and stuff it into your clothes because it’s going to go straight to your cabin.  On some cruise lines, they make so much money from the bar tabs, which is called onboard revenue, it’s become an incentive to stop people from bringing on wine.

One cruise line, NCL, they have something called a Liquor Retention Team onboard, looking for spring-breakers trying to sneak onboard cases of alcohol.  If they catch you with a couple of bottles of wine, at worse they’ll charge you a corkage fee, but if they catch you with a case, they will hold the wine for you in a locker and give it back to you at the end of the trip.  It sounds a bit silly but that’s how the cruise lines make their money.

For complete information on drinking aboard a cruise, check out Cruise Ship Alcohol Policies.

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