Carnival Victory, San Juan Alcohol Smuggling Report 2011

Last week I had the pleasure of taking a cruise out of San Juan, Puerto Rico (my favorite port of embarkation) on the Carnival Victory.  I got a great deal on the cruise although the airfare left a little to be desired.  Eager to make up some of the money I lost on airfare I figured this would be another prime opportunity to see if I could once again bring my own liquor on board the ship.  Here is how it went.

A Caveat About Bringing Alcohol Onboard a Cruise Ship

Before any of you worry about me short changing the cruise line on alcohol revenue let me say that none of the alcohol brought on board was consumed on open decks.  Rest assured Carnival still got me for approximately 800 dollars, more than half of which was from alcohol ordered in the dining room, poolside or in show lounges.  This alcohol was only consumed at times where I normally would have gone without.

When I get back from being in port I like to have a drink or two while get ready for dinner.  I would never under any circumstances order a drink to carry back to my room; it’s too much of a hassle for me.  Likewise, room service is too slow and unreliable for me to bother with drink orders since most times I would be done showering before my first drink arrived.  In other words Carnival lost nothing on the deal but gained a happy cruiser.

My Plan

When I embarked on the cruise ship I planned on bringing two rum runner flasks on board filled with vodka.  The plan was to carry them down to San Juan empty and fill them with alcohol purchased while in San Juan.  I also counted on bringing onboard our two allotted bottles of wine we would purchase at the duty-free in the cruise terminal.

How it all went down

Since I had extra room in my carry-on we actually purchased the liquor at the duty free in the airport before taking off.  Later on that evening we filled the rum runners Carnival Victory, San Juan Alcohol Smuggling Report 2011 before heading out on the town.  The next morning upon our arrival at the cruise port we gave our large bags to the porters.  We walked right over to the outdoor scanners with the porter as I hadn’t tipped yet tipped him.  He tossed it right onto the belt and BS’d with the scanner operator who must have been a friend as he only broke eye contact for only a millisecond to check the screen.  Rum runners Carnival Victory, San Juan Alcohol Smuggling Report 2011 on board… check.

Just as we had planned I purchased our wine in the cruise terminal duty free which was placed in the regular plastic bags they give you.  I decided not to buy any extra alcohol in the terminal because it seemed as if we had plenty.  Besides those extra purchases seem to be the ones that get confiscated more often than not, so it really wasn’t worth the hassle.

However, I will say that security seemed extremely lax at the terminal on this particular sailing, odd for a Spring Break cruise.  I have no doubts that had I wanted to I could have carried on a back pack full of alcohol without as much as a glance.  I even had my nail clippers ready in case I needed to snip off the dreaded zip tie.

Normally, guards are at the ready with the orange zip ties which they place around bags carrying alcohol to be confiscated.  I saw the guards and I saw the zip ties but what I didn’t see was another agent waiting closer to the entrance of the actual ship.  The table where you check in booze which has been tagged was manned by a member of the crew but there was no security there waiting.

The line to actually enter the ship was congested and eventually a member of security did arrive to walk the line but all he did was ask what was in the duty free bag.  I simply told him it was wine and he kept on moving.   Two bottles of wine onboard… check.

We arrived at the cruise terminal at about 11:30 on that particular day which was late for me as I prefer being one of the first on board the ship.  By 1 o’clock I was sitting poolside with a bucket of beer.  We went to our cabin at 2:30 or 3 o’clock and our bags arrived shortly thereafter rum runners intact.  Party time ready to commence… check.

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Cruise Booze Report: Carnival Victory

So, as you all know I recently took a cruise on-board the Carnival Victory sailing out of San Juan, Puerto Rico. While I do plan on making a few posts on how that cruise went, the subject of this post is “booze smuggling”.

Over the last few months it has been reported that Carnival has been cracking down on the ability to sneak alcohol on-board its cruise ships. Luckily, one of the best things about cruising out of Puerto Rico is the security never seems to care about how much booze you brought on-board the ship. In fact, the duty free shop in the cruise terminal always advertised that you could bring whatever you bought there onto the ship.

The Carnival policy on alcohol was officially the same for all cruises but the rules just seemed to be different when cruising out of San Juan. Much to my dismay, this is no longer the case. Nowadays the duty free makes it a point to inform passengers of the two wine bottle per stateroom limit. Of course I wasn’t about to let some little disclaimer keep me from having my free in-cabin booze.

A Tale of Two Smugglers (My Story)

When I departed from the Philadelphia airport I was prepared and had already packed a Rum Runner Cruise Booze Report: Carnival Victory full of vodka as well as a box of wine in my checked luggage. I had read that Carnival had taken to searching checked luggage and at one point had requested that passengers not lock their luggage (yeah right). So, of course I locked my luggage figuring that if they wanted to check my bags they could always saw of the locks at the risk of pissing off a valued customer (of course they didn’t). My checked luggage arrived at my room a couple of hours after boarding with both the rum runner and box o’ wine still intact.

At the duty free I had purchased two bottles of Sangria. The guy who bottles the stuff was in the store and since he was a pretty nice guy, I felt compelled to throw a little business his way. Well, it was that and the fact that I drank about a half bottles worth of samples. I also saw a bottle of absinthe in the duty free and since I had heard of the stuff but never seen it at my liquor store I figured I would buy a bottle to bring home. I knew I wouldn’t be able to bring it on the ship and since I already had enough stateroom booze I figured I would do the right thing check it in.

When we approach the security scanner I inform the guard that I have a bottle of liquor that I want to check in. Instead of marking the bag with a red tag (which I read was the procedure) she just said, “okay the table is that way” and sent me on my way. So, I approached the table and then kept on walking, no one said a word. Had she marked my bag I wouldn’t have cut off or hidden the tag but since she took the lazy way out I just kept on walking, you never know when a party may break out in your cabin in which case a bottle of absinthe may come in handy.

A Tale of Two Smugglers (Their Story)

Later on that evening we were sat at a table with another couple and they asked us if we brought any alcohol on-board the ship. We told them our story and then they told us theirs. It seems that security took a much different approach to them having alcohol. I was told that not only was a red tag placed on the bag containing their liquor, but security had also radioed ahead with a description of what they looked like and what they were wearing just in case the tag was removed. In other words Carnival was not playing around.

What I Think Happened

I don’t really have a concrete explanation for why our two smuggling experiences were so different but I do have a few ideas. We arrived at the terminal pretty early, in fact I would guess there were no more than 50 passengers who boarded prior to our arrival. The other couple didn’t arrive at the terminal until a few hours later in the day. It could be they just weren’t prepared when we got there. The other theory I have is since I was bright eyed and bushy tailed (I flew in the previous day) and greeted the security lady with a huge smile and an honest confession she didn’t feel the need to mark my bag. Since I had volunteered the information about the booze before they even scanned my bag she had no reason to think I would bypass the table. My last theory is that since we were at the beginning of a line about 500 cruisers deep they felt too rushed to mark all the bags and couldn’t keep things flowing if they had radioed ahead for every instance of smuggling.

What this means for future Puerto Rico booze smuggling

While I will probably never stop carrying booze on-board, I will probably stick to Rum Runner Cruise Booze Report: Carnival Victory, box o’ wine combo which seems to be fairly foolproof. I did like the honesty angle so I will probably try that again occasionally but it will be for fun more than anything else. Truthfully, with two bottles of wine and a rum runner full of vodka was plenty. I ended up giving the box of wine to my cabin steward. Those of you traveling in large groups who still want to maximize your smuggling should probably stick to the checked luggage because slowly but surely carry-on smuggling will be eradicated.

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Iced Tea, Beverly Hills Style

Here is a drink to try this weekend.  I discovered it on the Crown Princess a few years back.  We were on a sailing where we were trying to save money.  However, not drinking isn’t usually an option so we were trying to find the most potent drink out there.  Normally, I would go for the long island iced tea, since those are loaded with liquor but when I was scanning the menu I noticed something called a Beverly Hills Iced Tea.  I had never heard of it, much less had one before so I decided to give it a try.  While this drink definitely isn’t for the faint of heart, it met my requirements.  The Beverly Hills Iced Tea was loaded with booze and was also they same price as the other drinks so I gave it a shot.  My first impression was “whoa thats what I call a stiff drink”, but after a couple of more it grew on me.  By the end of the cruise it moved pretty high on my list of favorite drinks.  I have not yet made one at home but I recently ran across the recipe on the internet and figure I will give it a shot at home.  The results will either conjure up memories of my all time favorite cruise or I’ll have a recipe for homemade paint thinner.  If you want to give it a shot here is the recipe I found.

Beverly Hills Iced Tea

10 ½ oz Glass
½ oz Cointreau
½ oz Bombay Sapphire Gin
½ oz Bacardi White Rum
½ oz Grey Goose Vodka
½ oz Cuervo Tequila
A couple of splashes of Sparkling Wine

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