Celebrity Cruises makes changes wine drinkers will toast

17 Dec 2024, 19:14 by Alisha dos Santos · The Fresno Bee

Royal Caribbean Group-owned Celebrity Cruises is a wine lover’s cruise line that proudly holds the title of most awarded wine collection at sea. The cruise line was honored with 18 Wine Spectator Awards in 2024, including five coveted “Best Of” Awards of Excellence for Celebrity Cruises Edge Series.

Celebrity has racked up 136 Wine Spectator awards over the last 12 years, demonstrating the cruise line’s commitment to remaining at the forefront of beverage trends and meeting the preferences of its passengers.

When sailing on a Celebrity cruise ship, passengers can choose from more than 500 wine selections representing the world’s most sought-after regions. The wide selection ranges from the most acclaimed labels to Celebrity’s own private label wines. In every restaurant on a Celebrity cruise ship, a trained sommelier is available to help guide passengers through the extensive choices from around the world.

But having a robust, award-winning wine collection doesn’t mean there aren’t opportunities to improve the wine program, especially when it comes to providing value to the passengers paying to drink the wine on its ships.

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Many Celebrity Cruises ships have wine bars. Image source: ShutterstockShutterstock

Celebrity Cruises works to offer more value to wine drinkers

Many Celebrity cruise passengers who want to drink wine during their cruise purchase one of the cruise line’s drink packages to do so. For that reason, maintaining the Celebrity wine program’s appeal requires making sure its drink packages reflect the quality of the program.

Last year, Celebrity upset many passengers when it moved a number of popular wine selections from its Premium Drink Package to an enhanced list, offering them at an upcharge. Acknowledging its need to bring quality wines into alignment with its current drink packages, the cruise line recently created an internal wine division tasked with bringing value back to the packages.

In a recent LinkedIn post where she shared one of the cruise line’s Captain’s Club webinars, Celebrity Cruises President Laura Hodges Bethge expressed her excitement about the progress the team has made in enhancing its wine program and beverage packages.

“As a fellow wine lover, I’ve listened to your feedback and spent time on our ships to understand your preferences,” said Bethge. “Working with our Beverage Director, Daniele Salamone, and Wine Operations Lead, Chris Arora, we’ve introduced new wines across our fleet and expanded our wine package. This is another step in our commitment to delivering consistent, elevated, hospitality.”

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Celebrity Cruises’ wine team shares additions to its wine program

During Celebrity’s Nov. 25 Captain’s Club webinar, the team emphasized their commitment to bringing both quality and value to Celebrity’s wine program as they tasted some of the wines they’ve added to the Premium Drink Package. Featured wines included Santa Margherita Pinot Grigio, Montinore Estate Willamette Valley Pinot Noir, and Silver Ghost Cabernet Sauvignon.

Beverage Director Daniele Salamone noted that to add value to the premium package, the team focused on offering some more unique wines to help passengers discover new favorites.

“It’s very important that we really analyze what actually is moving well and really analyze and bring value back to the premium package with unique product,” he explained. “So you might not know the brand right away but once you taste it, all other brands unfortunately you forget. So cheers to that.”

Celebrity Cruises’ Wine Operations Lead Chris Arora also highlighted Jacques Dumont Sancerre, which the cruise line is offering outside of its premium package at an upcharge of $5.

“One of the feedbacks I got a lot from our guests is nickel and diming. We really, really want to move away from that,” said Arora. “So we are making sure that all of the wines at an upcharge are less than $5 and really making sure it’s worth it.”

The team shared that some of Celebrity’s wines from smaller producers like the trendy Sancerre are offered at an upcharge because the cruise line isn’t able to secure enough of the wine to supply it at volume fleetwide. For wines like these, Celebrity is focused on making sure the wine is high quality enough to justify the upcharge.

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This story was originally published December 17, 2024, 11:14 AM.