Cruises, Cruise Deals & Cruise Holidays

There are discounts for multiple quantities of certain more expensive wines on their list, and also you can drink your own wine, purchased on shore, in their restaurants, for a corkage of $20 & no service charge.

Having just got off Nautica, where people were carrying top quality Australian and NZ wines onboard by the armful, as far as I know, no-one was paying corkage, they were drinking it in their cabins. Having travelled around NZ North Island before the cruise, we were paying between 2 and 5 NZ dollars (£1 - £2.50) in BYO restaurants, thus US$20 was outrageous. Incidentally, I would be surprised if Oceania DIDN'T add 18% to the corkage charge (why wouldn't they; it's all going on your bar bill, and this normally attracts the 18%). But note, that if you're unhappy about the 18%, you could always refuse to pay it.

As I said, the corkage is for wine consumed in the restaurants (you can do what you like in the privacy of your cabin!).

Obviously my comment was insufficiently clear for Burke. For the avoidance of doubt, what I should perhaps have written was: "...[having bought fine wine ashore] no-one was paying corkage [of US$20+18%] to drink it in the restaurants], they were drinking it in their cabins [instead]."