Bringing Alcohol Onboard
Passengers tell us that there are a good many issues about alcohol on a cruise that are cause for concern - but none so much as bringing alcohol onboard.
photo courtesy Windstar Cruises
Tips and Advice About Bringing Alcohol Onboard
Policies about bringing your own alcohol onboard vary from cruise line to cruise line (check the cruise line sites for the latest advice) though most make a point of telling you that bringing your own alcohol is not allowed and will be confiscated if found.
Understandably, the cruise lines are not willing to lose revenue, and this ban is all about that.
Many cruise passengers, however, perhaps rightly so, find the rules banning the bringing of alcohol onboard unacceptable.
You should at least, they argue, be allowed to buy wine and beer ashore – flavours of the destinations – and bring them onboard to drink at your leisure.
Some don’t believe the rules are enforced but be warned: visitors to Prow’s Edge in the past have reported that their carry on bags WERE searched and alcohol WAS confiscated. Rumours abound also that checked in luggage delivered to your stateroom once aboard has been searched too. This seems unlikely, and Prow’s Edge has heard no confirmed reports of this.
But – there is nothing like a challenge – many passengers are set to foil the cruise lines about bringing alcohol onboard. Among the cruise tips offered is one that suggests filling water bottles with vodka, white rum or gin – the easiest ruse – and carrying that on board with you. Not many cruise lines have the resources to check every bottle of water passing through.
If you’re going this route, you need some common sense advice. Whiskey or bourbon may look a little suspicious in a bottled labelled “fresh spring water”.
Overcoming this obstacle was to use empty “iced tea bottles”, was among the cruise tips offered by one passengers. Another of the tips is to pack the booze in your check-in luggage if you are willing to take the chance that rough baggage handling may mean a suitcase whos e entire contents stink like gin.
