For many cruise passengers, their vacation begins once they're sitting at a bar with a drink in their hand.
That's because while the cruise lines have done their best to make the boarding process easy, it's still a hassle. You have to wait in line, go through security, and pass multiple checks where your boarding pass and passport are examined.
Related: Carnival Cruise Line makes a dining change, asks customers to tip
Once you actually board the ship, you have to do the muster drill, which varies slightly by cruise line, and in many cases, you also have some housekeeping to attend to. You might need to make a specialty dining reservation or make sure you're grouped with friends and family in other cabins for dinner.
Add in that you're doing this while managing whatever luggage you didn't check until your cabin is ready, and the first part of any cruise can be stressful. Once bags are stowed, the muster has been completed, and you manage to make your way to the pool deck, or one of the many other public areas, many passengers want a drink of the adult variety.
For people who paid for an unlimited drink package on Royal Caribbean, MSC, or Norwegian, that one drink can be the start of as many as they can responsibly handle. For Carnival Cruise Line (CCL) passengers its the start of a countdown that some passengers object to.
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Carnival's Cheers package is not unlimited
Royal Caribbean, Norwegian, and MSC all sell unlimited beverage packages that offer all the alcoholic drinks someone can responsibly consume. Both cruise lines will shut off passengers who are visibly intoxicated or belligerent, but if you have a high tolerance, or start drinking early and keep drinking late, then there's no limit to how many beverages you can consume.
That's not the case with Carnival's Cheers beverage package which caps alcoholic beverages at 15 per day. One Carnival passenger complained about that on the cruise line's Brand Ambassador John Heald's Facebook page.
"When will Carnival realize that for most Americans on vacation that 15 drinks in one day with Cheers is not enough! We hit it every day on a cruise without getting fall-down foolish drunk so stop treating us like children," the poster, whose name was hidden shared.
He laid out how he hits the limit on every sailing, noting that he had just gotten off Carnival Sunshine.
"1 drink at breakfast, usually a spiked coffee or bloody mary. Sit by the pool after breakfast and will have 4-5 more until lunchtime. Have lunch and go back to the room and change, have 2 there while changing and maybe sit on the balcony for a few mins. Already at 6 or 7 by 1 or 2 p.m. Casino for a bit and have a few more drinks More with dinner. A few at a show or watching a band and then casino again. Basically drinking from 10 a.m. to past midnight. 15 is not enough," he wrote.
The passenger did offer to pay more for a truly unlimited package.
"Raise the price. Raise the number of drinks – should be a minimum of 20. Stop treating us like drunks. We are not. We are on vacation," he added.
Carnival responds on drink package limits
Heald shared a response and asked his followers to weigh in, and over 2,000 people commented.
"Perhaps because I am a tea tootler (spelt correctly) and do not drink I should not be commenting on this. But if I had 20 drinks in 24 hours I would either be unconscious or found standing on top of the water slide, naked, singing 'I’m a little tea pot, here’s my handle here’s my spout,' he wrote.
He did note that the limit only applies to alcoholic drinks.
"So I shall say only that the Cheers program contains unlimited non-alcoholic beverages and 15 alcoholic drinks in a 24-hour period. Surely that is enough for most?" he added.
Opinions were mixed on whether the cruise line should continue to have the 15 alcoholic drink minimum.
"I cruise many lines and have seen funny drunks and mean drunks. I feel putting a limit is a good idea as not everyone can know their limit. No one wants to be on a booze cruise except a small group of people. I love that Carnival is a family cruise line and I think to protect all there should be a limit. 15 drinks is generous for the price paid," Kay Foster Thomas wrote.
Unlike Royal Caribbean, which uses dynamic prices for its Deluxe Beverage Package (DBP), Carnival uses a fixed pricing system. Passengers who book before they sail pay $59.95 per person, per day for Cheers, while booking onboard will cost you $64.95. In both cases, an 18% gratuity is added.
That's generally cheaper than booking the DBP on Royal Caribbean.
Many of the responses to Heald's request believed that a strict limit was not needed.
"Depends on what 15 you drink. Some drinks are too strong for the best of them if you've drank 15...there's a reason to keep it limited. Or you'd find more stories of people falling off the ships," Scarlet Sunset Sears posted.
"Everyone's alcohol tolerance is different. Someone like me, and I'm tipsy after a few drinks, but the person sitting next to me, is already on their 6th drink, by noon, and feeling nothing," wrote Lynn Creef Snyder.
The vast majority of the responses, however, suggested that the 15-drink limit impacts very few people.
"I consider myself a heavy drinker on vacation and have reached the 15 only a few times...and never two days in a row," Kate Doyle Rowe added.
