Another thing to consider, depending on ages and size of your traveling party, would be to consider booking two connecting rooms rather than just one single room. Sounds crazy right? I know.
For us, 2 adults (DW doesn't drink much so the beverage package would have been a waste for her) and 2 children, it was only about $100 more to book two connecting rooms with 1 adult and 1 child in each room, then it would have been to book all 4 of us in a single room and the beverage package for both adults.
This allowed me to purchase the beverage package only for myself. After applying what we would have spent on DW's beverage package toward the additional cost of the second room it was only about $100 more. To me, just the second bathroom alone is well worth that extra $100.
Another happy accident: we can now bring 4 bottles of wine onboard (2 per stateroom)!
We even managed to find a balcony room that connects to an interior room on Adventure deck 9 aft!
We are booked on the Oasis in May 2018, 3 couples (one with a 10 yo), 3 staterooms. DH and I took advantage of the Black Friday sale on the deluxe drink package but the other 2 couples only had 1 drinker per stateroom. They each called RC and were excused from buying the deluxe for the 2nd adult but had to buy the refreshment pkg for the adult that doesn't drink alcohol (about $200 savings). Now we are trying to decide if the 10 yo needs a soda package. I know her drinks are covered at meals but what is available for her to drink without extra cost?
She will be offered it at meals, but you will have to pay for the soda (charging to your room).Thanks so much Crabbymom! This is our first RC cruise and I wasn't aware she would not be offered soda at meals. This may help her family decide on package for her.
We just got of a RCCL cruise this morning and it was one of the last ones where you could vary the package by passenger. It's too bad they changed this option because it worked out great for us. We bought one deluxe package (for me), two royal refreshment packages (for the teens) and one soda only (for my husband who doesn't drink and is diabetic so the non-alcoholic fruity drinks are useless to him). Everyone was able to get what they wanted.....in the future, we'd probably get the Royal Refreshment package for everyone and call it done. It is fun to be able to order drinks whenever...but honestly, I can take or leave the alcohol for that price difference. But I have to say, since NCL offers a drinks package upgrade on most cruises as a standard free upgrade (and we like the quality of NCL better)...I don't see us rushing back to RCCL unless the itinerary is incredibly unique or its a group thing with other families and we are just going along for the fun of it (but I would imagine that kind of thing would be on DCL again as that's what we've done in the past).