Carnival Cruise Lines Bans All Bottled Beverages To Battle Booze Smuggling

Cruise lines such as Carnival Cruise Lines, Norwegian, and others have long disallowed their cruise passengers to bring their own booze on any voyage.

Thus an ongoing cops-and-robbers type of game almost as old as the modern cruise ship era itself, people trying to smuggle their own booze aboard cruise ships both to enjoy in their state rooms without venturing to a bar, and to avoid paying the notoriously high prices for beer, wine and cocktails that most cruise ships charge.

Even a moderate drinker can wake up hazy-headed at the end of a cruise to find they need to settle a cruise ship bar tab totaling hundreds of dollars. And for a devoted cruise ship drinker, a week cruising the high seas might leave them needing to take out a second mortgage on their house to pay their cruise bar tab.

So bringing one’s own alcohol on a cruise has become a common endeavor, despite cruise lines thoroughly checking passenger luggage as they board. For those booze-cruise smugglers caught, they often have to face the humiliation of reporting to cruise ship security to retrieve their luggage while also having their alcohol or wine confiscated.

The smuggling still goes on, despite the security measures of cruise lines, but Carnival Cruise Lines has now changed the rules on its alcohol smuggling cruise ship passengers, taking away one of their most effective booze hound strategies: Filling regular water bottles with vodka, gin, or other clear alcohol.

And not only will dressing up their vodka or gin as an innocent bottle of regular water no longer work on Carnival Cruise Lines, but Carnival has altogether banned such bottles whether they’re filled with real water or not, reports USA Today.

As of July 9, Carnival will no longer allow bottled beverages to be brought onboard as their cruise ships prepare to set sail. Carnival will allow cruise passengers of legal age to bring a “single bottle of fine wine or champagne,” as well as non-alcoholic beverages packaged in cans and cartons.

At the same time, Carnival Cruise Line passengers need not worry about becoming dehydrated or being ripped off by the high Carnival Cruise Line bottled water prices as Carnival has lowered the price for a 12-pack of bottled water to $2.99 if bought before the cruise, and $4.99 during the cruise.

According to Cruise Critic, Carnival Cruise Lines released the bad news for alcohol smugglers via a letter, saying that all Carnival staff at port security points and metal detectors will be trained to nab any bottles of water or soda that passengers try to bring on board.

Carnival claims the new policy is necessary because of the problems that successfully smuggled booze causes on their cruises, and also because searching for alcohol as passengers board greatly slows down embarkation.

“This is something that we’ve been grappling with for quite some time,” explained Carnival Cruise Line spokeswoman Jennifer de la Cruz. “The main goal is to try to ensure safety for our guests and to decrease the likelihood of a security incident that’s tied to smuggled alcohol.”

While Carnival didn’t include any specific tragic incidents in the announcement, the cruise line has experienced several widely reported deaths on their Carnival ships in recent years.

But even with the efforts of cruise lines like Carnival, cruise ship booze smugglers are apparently a resourceful bunch with more tricks up their sleeves, and in their luggage, than water bottles.

What Carnival Cruise Lines may ban next is anyone’s guess.

[Image via Getty Images]