Originally Posted by oldpenny16
I'll tell you why the cruise lines are tightening up on BYO booze....the excuse of security. The underlying cause may be fear of lost profit, but in truth most cruise lines are now seaching luggage for hard liquor. All cruise ships now do a search of luggage even to a degree greater than airlines. One bottle of wine is allowed on most ships, but not the hard stuff. If you are flying to the port of departure, the water and sodas will be a problem both to buy before boarding and shlepping along. Your room is also searched when you are away from the ship or at meals. I took the precaution of running a thread around some of the items in my suitcase and it was disturbed during the pre-boarding search. I did the same with items in some of our stateroom drawers. Same result. We've cruised more than 20 times over the years. Not complaining, but security is tighter than ever.
Well, YMMV, but different cruise lines are different. I would expect Carnival to be one of the most strict given their image problems.
On the other hand, we recently (12/26/2004) watched our luggage get taken from our hands and delivered directly to our cabin with no inspection on an upscale cruise line (Sea Dream). We had a minor amount of alcohol in nips in the luggage.
Now, I've never seen a cruise line stop you from taking Coke, Water, or other softdrinks brought on board. If you take the trouble to transfer liquor to plastic bottles (dark liquids to coke bottles and light liquids to sprite / 7up bottles, etc), I suspect you will get away with it.
-STC