New Drinks package being trialed on P&O Azura! What do you think?

Last week P&O announced they are trialing a drinks package on P&O Azura which starts from 21st July and runs for a month.  After the trial the success will be revised and then P&O will decide whether to carry this on for 2019 sailings. There is a lot of demand for drinks packages and some people will only cruise if they can get one so that they don’t have the big bill at the end of the cruise!  But do they actually represent good value for money?  I would say it would depend on the cruise line and what they are offering.  Drinks packages (if they are charged for) can range from about £15 per person per day up to about £60 per person per day.  If a cruise line automatically includes them then this does tend to put the cruise price up quite substantially.  This P&O package seems to fall in the middle at £39.95 per person per day.  Here are the facts of what they will be offering:

•  This can only be booked on-board and not through passengers cruise personaliser
• Can only be purchased for cruises of 5 nights or more
• Non-refundable once purchased
• Limited to 15 drinks between 6am and 6pm each day
• Only one drink at a time can be ordered (with a space of 15 minutes between each purchase)
• Bottles and cans will be served open
• Passengers must be over 18.  Or over 21 in US waters

The package includes drinks up to the value of £6.95 including single measure spirits, beers, cocktails and wine by the glass.  It also includes soft drinks including mocktails, coffees, hot chocolates, small bottled water and draft soft drinks

You can get 20% off drinks above £6.95, bottles of wine, canned and bottled soft drinks, juices and smoothies.

One great thing with this deal is that if you are travelling with children in your cabin then their drinks packages are included free of charge.  All adults in a cabin sharing though must purchase the package if one person is.

I have sailed with P&O twice and must say I have found their drinks to be very reasonable on-board at close to pub prices and would struggle to spend £39.95 per day on drinks.   Others however who can drink more may benefit from this drinks package and get better value for money out of it.  I think that it is good that this hasn’t been automatically added as P&O offer very reasonable prices and this would just push their cruise prices up.  I do hope however that this doesn’t affect the overall service in bars as this is one thing which makes P&O stand out from other cruise lines as they have excellent table service rather than  passengers having to go to the bar to get a drink.

What do you think?  Would you buy a drinks package with P&O?