BYOW

Have Vino, Will Travel

I often take my own wine when traveling, especially when we cruise. 

I’m lucky to live in the Yakima-Columbia Valley area of Washington State where great wines are plentiful and, especially if you belong to a wine club, relatively inexpensive. We also visit Napa and Sonoma with some regularity and have some of our favorites shipped to us by the case a few times a year. I’m not a wine snob, but I know what I like and I have a good idea of what wine costs. 

Sometimes I bring my own wine because there is a particular vintage that I want to enjoy on a special night, or sometimes it is because I plan to open a bottle to have in our stateroom when cruising. Often, we bring our own wine to avoid the ridiculous markup that many cruise lines and restaurants charge- sometimes 400% or more over wholesale (not kidding!). I do my homework and figure out if my bottle is going to be a better deal after factoring corkage fees than what’s on the wine list where I’m going, many times makes sense to BYOW (Bring Your Own Wine). 

When cruising, the BYOW policy of the cruise line is important to know and understand. I print a copy to take with me on embarkation day, just in case there’s ever a question about the policy when boarding.

Recently we sailed on Royal Caribbean and were allowed to bring two bottles of wine per stateroom. It didn’t matter how long we were going for or how many people were in the room. There was a corkage fee to drink our wine in the restaurants of $25 but we wouldn’t have had to pay this if we enjoyed our wine in our stateroom. By contrast, Norwegian Cruise Line doesn’t have a limit on the number of bottles that we were allowed, and the corkage fee was only $15 per bottle, but the fee was charged to us when we boarded the ship regardless of where the wine was consumed - so I paid a corkage fee for wine that I uncorked myself in my room. Disney Cruise Lines allows passengers to BYOW with no limit (except a corkage fee applies in their specialty restaurant) Disney is unique in that hard alcohol can also be brought onboard. Some luxury cruises are truly all inclusive and then BYOW probably isn’t worth the trouble. 

If you are planning to BYOW, you should also plan to carry on for the cruise – exactly the opposite of what one would do when flying. Because you want to bring your wine through security with you and have it checked in. If you put it in your checked bags, not only do you run the risk of having your bottles manhandled and possibly damaged, but there is also a very strong likelihood that you will get to spend some quality time with the security guys in the "naughty room" who will want to know why you’re sneaking booze aboard the cruise ship. 

For about $40 you can get a two bottle wine travel case similar to this one I found at www.winevine-imports.com Just remember if you’re flying to your point of embarkation, the wine has to go in your checked bags on the plane and should be carried on when your board the cruise ship. 

If you’re really hardcore, you could get something like this case, which would also make sense if you are visiting a wine region and want to bring wine home with you. (Did you know that if you fly Alaska Airlines to Washington Wine Country they will let you check a case of wine FREE with their taste and tote program?

Of course, when picking your vintages, you should account for the jostling of travel and go with a bottle that isn’t particularly fragile in terms of contents – a delicate library wine for example would best be enjoyed at home, and anything sparkling might be a tricky traveler too. Another option is to locate a wine store at your embarkation point where you can get the goods before you board the ship.

Anytime you BYOW to a restaurant or specialty dining venue on the cruise ship you want to make sure that your wine isn’t already on their wine list. It’s also nice to offer the sommelier a taste of what you brought, especially if you’re cruising because if they know what you enjoy they may be able to recommend other wines that you might like to try as well. 

I always try to balance the BYOW with the opportunity to try new things, especially when traveling, so don’t BYOW for every meal, but if you do your homework or ask your travel agent, it might make sense to BYOW sometimes to save a little money and perhaps enjoy a wine that you know and love rather than choosing blindly from a overpriced wine list. 

Repositioning and Foreign Flags

What's a "repositioning" cruise?

Spring and Fall is when many cruise lines move their ships from seasonal cruise itineraries. In the Pacific Northwest, this means that the cruise ships sailing Alaska will be migrating to warmer waters for the winter and returning again in the summer.

This presents a unique opportunity for one-way cruises for as short as over night to much longer sailings. Cruise lines often make rooms on these sailings available at a discount and sometimes offer themed sailings, like "wine country" with several California stops as the ship makes its way along the Pacific Coast.

If you're not picky about "when" you sail, since there are only two per year per ship, a repositioning cruise can be a fun and inexpensive trip. You will need to begin or end your sailing in a "foreign" port or make at least one stop at a "foreign" port of call. So leaving from the Pacific Northwest Area means embarking in Canada for a "Pacific Coastal" sailing, although there are many itineraries to choose from including sailings through the Panama Canal and trans-oceanic. The Rhapsody of the Seas that we sailed on to Alaska earlier this summer spends the winters in Australia and has a very long repositioning sailing with stops in Hawaii and Fiji!

Why is this? Well, the U.S. Passenger Vessel Services Act requires that foreign flagged cruise ships make at least one foreign stop. You may have noticed many cruise ships fly flags for the Bahamas, Panama, Italy, Bermuda, Malta, and other countries, even if they mostly sail out of U.S. ports.

The questions that naturally follows is, "why isn't the ship flying an American flag?" 

According to this resource:
"Current manning regulations for U.S.-flag vessels engaged in coastwise trade mandate that all officers and pilots and 75% of other onboard personnel be U.S. citizens or residents. In addition, U.S. flag vessels engaged in coastwise trade must be owned by U.S. citizens and constructed in U.S. ship yards. This construction requirement applies to the entire hull and superstructure of the ship and the majority of all materials outfitting the vessel."

The translation basically means that to fly a U.S. flag, the ship must have been mostly made in America and be manned by a mostly American workforce. This is why Norwegian Cruise Line's Pride of America (the only large U.S. flagged cruise ship) is on the pricey side - federal minimum wage and no foreign stops.  This is also why there is no casino onboard - because Hawaii doesn't allow gambling and the ship never ventures into international waters. And also why your repositioning cruise must start or stop or stop at a foreign port of call. Interesting bit of trivia.

You can combine repositioning cruises for a longer sailing. You could board in Vancouver and sail the first "leg" to Los Angeles, the book a second "leg" through the Panama Canal and disembark in New Orleans or Miami.

There's some great deals on for repositioning cruises. I have some specials listed here, or call or email me for additional sailings.