Thomson Cruise AI Drinks Package

ronhar

Friends of ours booked much earlier in the year to cruise on the Thomson Spirit in Sept 2011 and got the AI Drinks Package thrown in for free. At the time we were not in a position to commit to join them but now we can. Unfortunately the AI Drinks Package is no longer being offered for free on this cruise, in fact it would cost us £676 for the 14 days.
My question is, do Thomson ever put such an offer back on once it has been withdrawn?

HXDave

ronhar,

based on previous situations i have see, there is no set answer. they may decide market conditions are right to put the offer back on, or the may decide that the market conditions are right to keep the offer off.

basically, it's just a case of keep checking, however also be careful as you may then also find that the better priced cabins will also start to sell out too.

when are you thinking of travelling?

lynnexxxo

If your friends have the drinks package, could you not get them to order your drinks for you?

ronhar

Thanks for the reply HXDave.
Nice to know there's a chance, albeit an outside one, of it coming back. I intend to do as you suggest and keep checking regularly. As I mentioned in the original posting the potential cruise date is Sept 2011, the 16th to be exact.

ronhar

Thanks for the reply lynnexxo.
Apart from the awkward situation that would place our friends in, I'm sure that one will have been tried before and the bar staff will be very aware.
We don't fancy spending our time on board in the brig.

suzymonkey

Exactly the same thing happened to us last year.My brother and his family booked on the Thomson Celebration and got the drinks package included free.We booked a few months after him for the same week but the offer was no longer available and did not become available again.We didn't pay for the drinks package and was very glad we didn't as it was far cheaper to pay a bill at the end of the week.I made sure i got a statement from reception every few days,just to keep track of things.We were actually about £150 better off doing it this way.Hope that helps.

ronhar

Thanks for the reply suzymonkey.
We're going to hang for now and see how it pans out. Should the offer not return and we decide to go anyway then we would definitely be considering paying our own way as you did. Not being clairvoyant, it's such a difficult call.

getmore4less

ronhar wrote: »

Thanks for the reply suzymonkey.
We're going to hang for now and see how it pans out. Should the offer not return and we decide to go anyway then we would definitely be considering paying our own way as you did. Not being clairvoyant, it's such a difficult call.

Unless you both drink a lot it can be difficult to cover the cost especialy if you do the ports.
Remember drinking late can make the ports a struggle in the mornings.

Sharing AI is a no no but does happen a lot on all ships that do AI(even celebrity)

PAYG with the few slipped in from the AI buddies as top ups when they are struggling should work


What Thomson need is a replacement for the Topaz, everyone is AI

luci

You would need to drink a fair bit just to break even on the AI package. We had it free on the Thomson Spirit and even with drinking cocktails all the time we would have just broken even if we had paid for it.

On another cruise we drank what we wanted when we wanted and it came to less than the AI package would have cost.

TangoBunny

Well I beg to differ....we are not huge drinkers but if you count every drink you have it soon mounts up
We had the free drinks package this July on Thomson Dream....
I only had soft drinks or non alcoholic cocktails during the day(£1.70+£2.50 per drink) and other half had a pint or two .late afternoon we'd meet friends in the lounge bar and have a couple of cocktails and a few pints (£4.35 and £3.50 each) in the evening we had a glass of wine with meal(£3.90) finished off with a Liqueur coffee each(£4.10)
then down to Broadway show and a few more drinks....finishing off the evening back in the lounge bar
Every time our card was swiped it shows up on your final bill as £00.00
I counted ours up and averaged each drink at £4........our bill if we had to pay would have been £544....that's for 136 drinks which is just about 10 drinks a day for each of us....I don't think that's excessive when you consider at least 4 or 5 of those were non alcoholic and one a special coffee

So for me even the full price of £199 pp is cheaper than not having the drinks package....you just need to be realistic and don't forget if you say to yourself well I won't drink in the day I'll just have water...yup £1.30 off the AI and even 80p with the package

PompeyPete

We're off on a cruise/stay on Celebration on 30 November.
I got the 'free' AI package for the cruise and at the hotel (in Paphos) with cruise1st.co.uk
Our 'bill' will be hammered:)