How Can a Cruise Drinks Package Calculator Help You Save Money?

Walk around any big cruise ship and you’ll pass a bar every few minutes: one by the pool, one beside the casino, a wine bar near the dining room and a coffee counter on the promenade. That’s fun until the folio arrives. A cruise drinks package calculator puts both options side by side before you sail, so you can compare what you’d spend paying per drink, service charge included, with the package price for every day of the trip. The gap is often bigger than people expect. A $70-a-day package becomes almost $84 once Carnival adds its 20% charge, and it keeps billing you on port days while you’re ashore. Some cruisers save $100 or more on a week at sea. Others would be paying for drinks they never order. Try the calculator below, then check your numbers.

How fast does a cruise bar bill add up?

Faster than most first-timers think, because prices look like a city cocktail bar and every order carries an automatic gratuity. Royal Caribbean adds 18% (official FAQ) and Celebrity adds 20% (Celebrity beverage packages), and the same charge applies to the package itself. Here’s what to expect on mainstream lines:

Put a few of those together and a normal sea day gets expensive. A latte at breakfast, two cocktails at the pool, a beer while you watch the sail-away and a glass of wine at dinner comes to about $50 before the charge. Add a couple of sodas and a nightcap and you’re near $70, or $84 once a 20% charge lands on top.

How does the cruise drinks package calculator work?

It builds two totals for your whole sailing and shows you the smaller one. The first is your pay-as-you-go bar bill, based on how many drinks you’d order on sea days and port days. The second is the daily package price multiplied by every night you’re billed. Both include the service charge.

Disclaimer: The prices filled in below are typical onboard figures, not a quote, so swap in your ship’s menu or cruise planner price. Sea days and port days are split because you’ll drink far less on days you spend ashore, and a single “average day” makes packages look better than they are.

How many drinks a day do you need to break even?

Take the package price, add the service charge and divide by the cost of your usual drink. That's your break-even point, and for most packages it lands between five and seven cocktails a day, every day of the cruise.

The word "every" is what catches people. Five cocktails on a lazy sea day is easy; five on the day you're snorkelling in Cozumel is not, and the package bills you either way.

A worked example that surprises most people

Picture a seven-night Carnival cruise with three sea days. On sea days you'd have two specialty coffees, four cocktails, a glass of wine, a soda and a water: $96 a day with the 20% charge, so CHEERS! at $83.94 wins. On the four port days you'd have two coffees, two cocktails and a soda: $47.40.

Over the week you'd spend about $478 paying per drink, while the package costs $587.58. You beat the package on every sea day and still pay around $110 more for it. The port days do the damage.

Why do cruise drink package prices vary so much?

Because the same package sells at different prices depending on when and how you buy it, so the number you enter in a cruise drink calculator should come from your own booking.

Pre-cruise sales

Every major line rewards you for buying before you board. Cruzely notes the discount ranges from a few dollars a day to as much as half off the headline price on some lines. Royal Caribbean's Cruise Planner price can drop during a sale and rise again a week later.

Bundled fares

Celebrity, Princess and Norwegian all sell fares that fold drinks in with Wi-Fi, gratuities or other extras. These are often the cheapest route to drinks, but only if you'd have paid for the other perks anyway.

Is the Carnival drink package worth it?

The Carnival CHEERS! package is worth it if you'll have six or more alcoholic drinks on most days, port days included. It's advertised at $69.95 per person per day before sailing, and the 20% service charge brings that to $83.94.

Two rules shape the math for a Carnival drink package calculator:

• CHEERS! caps you at 15 alcoholic drinks in a 24-hour period. Coffee, soda and juice don't count toward that limit.
• If one adult in a cabin buys it, every adult (21 and over) in the same cabin generally has to buy it too.

That second rule matters most for couples. If you'd spend $90 a day and your partner would spend $35, you aren't comparing $84 against $90. You're comparing $168 against $125, and the package loses by more than $40 a day. If soft drinks are all you want, Carnival's Bottomless Bubbles soda package is far cheaper.

Is the Royal Caribbean drink package worth it?

The Royal Caribbean Deluxe Beverage Package is worth it for steady drinkers, but its price swings more than any other line's. Cruise Mummy has tracked it between roughly $63 and $115 per day depending on the ship, the sailing and the timing, so the only figure worth using in a Royal Caribbean drink package calculator is the one in your own Cruise Planner.

Royal's official rules:

• No daily drink limit. Royal Caribbean confirms the Deluxe package has no daily cap.
• Everyone of legal drinking age in the cabin must buy it if one person does.
• 18% gratuity is added automatically.

If you're sailing one of the line's Icon-class ships, our Star of the Seas review covers the bars and venues where you'd be using the package.

What about Celebrity, Norwegian, Princess and MSC?

Celebrity Cruises

Celebrity's Classic package covers drinks up to $12 a serving and Premium covers drinks up to $19, according to the Celebrity FAQ. A 20% gratuity is added to the package price. If your favourite cocktail costs $14, Classic won't fully cover it, so run the calculator with the Premium price.

Norwegian Cruise Line

Norwegian folds drinks into its More at Sea fare on many sailings, but you still pay a daily service charge on them. Enter that charge as the "price" in the calculator.

Princess Cruises

Princess sells its Plus Beverage Package at $64.99 a day before gratuity, or includes it in the Princess Plus fare along with Wi-Fi.

MSC Cruises

On MSC, the simplest way to get drinks included is the Yacht Club, which bundles the Premium Extra package covering drinks up to $16 each. We break down whether that upgrade pays off in our MSC Yacht Club guide.

When does a cruise drink package not save you money?

A package stops making sense the moment you'd have to drink more than usual to "get your money's worth." The calculator most often says skip it in these cases:

• Port-heavy itineraries. Five port stops on a seven-night cruise leaves very few full days on board.
• A light-drinking cabin mate. Since most lines make every adult in the cabin buy, one person's habits can sink the deal.
• Coffee and soda drinkers. Two lattes and a few sodas come to about $17 a day. A soda package is far cheaper.
• Buying on board. Embarkation-day prices are often higher than the pre-cruise price.

Conclusion

A cruise drinks package calculator saves you money because it swaps a hunch ("we'll probably drink a lot") for an actual number. Count your drinks honestly, split sea days from port days, add the service charge to both sides and include everyone in your cabin who'd have to buy. For heavy drinkers on itineraries with plenty of sea days, Carnival's CHEERS! or Royal Caribbean's Deluxe package can save $100 or more. For most couples on port-heavy weeks, paying per drink wins. Run the numbers when you book and again before the pre-cruise deadline, since prices move. If you're still picking a ship, our list of the top 10 biggest cruise ships is a good place to compare, along with more guides on The Ocean Culture.

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