MSC Drinks Package Prices: Easy, Premium Extra and What They Cover

MSC sells four drinks packages, and prices them per sailing instead of at one fleet-wide rate. On cruises from the UK the entry-level Easy package works out at roughly £35 per person per day booked in advance, with Premium Extra around £65. Buy either on board and you pay about 15% more, so when you buy matters as much as which you buy.

The gratuity is already inside those figures. Below: what each package includes, the rules that settle it before any arithmetic does, and how MSC compares with lines that handle the service charge differently.

The Four Packages

There are four, and only two include alcohol. MSC has changed the lineup more than once in recent years, so check what’s offered on your sailing rather than trusting a guide written two years ago. Easy Plus, which used to sit between the two alcohol tiers, has gone entirely.

What separates Easy from Premium Extra is a price ceiling per drink, not a different menu. Easy covers the standard range up to its limit, and if you order something dearer you pay the difference. Premium Extra lifts the ceiling and adds premium spirits, better wines by the glass, craft and draught beers, and cocktails made with branded spirits.

1. Easy Package. The entry-level alcohol package. House spirits and mixers, beer, wine by the glass, soft drinks, juices, and hot drinks, all up to a set price per drink. Order above that ceiling and you pay the difference, not the full price.
2. Premium Extra Package. The higher tier. Premium spirits and liqueurs, fine wines and sparkling by the glass, premium bottled and draught beers, and cocktails made with branded spirits. It also carries better discounts on bottles, at 30% against the Easy package’s 15%.
3. Alcohol-free Package. Soft drinks, juices, alcohol-free cocktails, non-alcoholic beers and wines including Heineken 0.0, plus speciality coffees and teas. The sensible buy for anyone who drinks a lot of coffee and not much else.
4. Minors Package. MSC’s separate package for under-18s, covering soft drinks, juices and hot chocolate. MSC sells this separately instead of bundling it with an adult package, so it is its own line on the bill.

What Is Not Included

The exclusions cluster in predictable places. Anything above your package’s price ceiling is the main one. On Premium Extra that ceiling is £14 a drink, which covers almost everything on a normal bar list. On Easy it’s a good deal lower. Go above it and you pay the difference, not the full price.

Bottles of wine sit outside both packages, though they are discounted: 15% with Easy and 30% with Premium Extra. For a couple who’d share a bottle over dinner instead of drinking by the glass, the Premium Extra discount without the package is sometimes the cheaper evening.

Room service and mini bar items are charged separately, as are drinks at some private events and anything bought ashore. Vending machines and speciality restaurants generally work as normal, but a drink ordered to your cabin doesn’t. If it isn’t coming from a bar or a restaurant table, check before assuming it’s covered.

What It Costs

MSC prices its packages per sailing instead of setting one rate across the fleet, so what you pay depends on your ship, your itinerary and when you sail. You see the figure during booking, or afterwards in Manage My Booking. Any number in a guide, this one included, is a ballpark and not your price.

As a rough guide, on cruises from the UK the Easy package tends to land around £35 per person per day when bought in advance, and Premium Extra around £65. The alcohol-free package sits at roughly £20 and the children’s Minors package around £15. Those are indicative, not fixed, and a quiet sailing can come in well under them.

Two things move that figure predictably. Short cruises cost a little more per person per day than long ones, so a three or four night break works out slightly dearer. And promotional bundles appear regularly, sometimes taking a fair chunk off, so Premium Extra at around £40 a day is a real deal and not the standard rate.

One rule holds whatever the price. Buying before you sail is 15% cheaper than buying the same package on board, and MSC applies that consistently. Waiting until you’re aboard never saves money, so if you’re going to buy one, buy it through Manage My Booking.

How the Service Charge Works

Lines handle the drinks service charge in different ways, so check how MSC does it before setting an MSC price against anyone else’s.

MSC folds the gratuity into the package price: 15% on ships with euro onboard currency and 18% on those trading in dollars. The figure you’re quoted already contains it, so nothing is added when you buy and nothing is added at the bar afterwards.

The practical effect is that an MSC package quoted at £35 a day is £35 on your account. Some lines apply the percentage at checkout instead, and their quoted figure and their final figure differ. Our guide to cruise drinks packages sets the major lines side by side if you are choosing between them.

What you drink matters more than the arrangement itself. Just compare like with like, and check whether a quoted price already includes the service charge before setting it against another.

Families should factor in the Minors package separately. It runs at about £15 per child per day booked in advance, and on a family of four that belongs in the sum from the start, not at the end.

The Rules Worth Knowing

MSC’s conditions decide this for more people than the price does, and two of them changed relatively recently.

1. Everyone in the cabin has to buy it. If one adult in the cabin takes an alcohol package, the other has to as well. A couple where one drinks and the other does not cannot buy a single package between them, and that rules it out for a great many people before any arithmetic starts.
2. Fifteen alcoholic drinks a day. MSC used not to cap this. When it withdrew the Easy and Easy Plus packages in North America it also applied a 15-drink daily limit across every alcohol-inclusive package. It is a generous ceiling for most people, but it is a ceiling, and it is newer than a lot of the advice online.
3. The price ceiling, not the menu. Easy and Premium Extra are separated by what a single drink may cost, not by which bar you can use. Order above your package’s limit and you pay the difference. If you drink premium spirits or better wines by the glass, that difference adds up faster than the gap between the two package prices.

When It Pays

The sum is simpler on MSC than on lines that add a percentage at the end, because the quoted price is the real one. Take the Easy package at roughly £35 a day booked in advance and divide by what you actually drink.

On cocktails and wine by the glass it pays quickly, at roughly five or six drinks a day. On beer it takes more like eight. The sum that matters more for most cabins is the joint one. Both adults have to buy, so the question is whether about £70 a day for the pair is covered by what you drink together, not whether it works for the one who drinks more.

Count the non-alcohol spend as well, because it adds up faster than people expect. Speciality coffees, juices at breakfast and alcohol-free cocktails all count. The one thing that doesn’t push you towards a package on MSC is water. AQUA is included in the fare and served at refill stations throughout the ship.

Sailing Without One

Plenty of passengers do, and MSC makes it easier than most. AQUA by MSC water is included in the fare, along with the standard tea and coffee, so the biggest incidental cost on other lines is already covered.

Drinks bought individually carry the same gratuity folded into the packages, so the menu price already reflects it and nothing is added at the till. That makes pay-as-you-go easy to track. The menu price is what reaches your account.

If you’re undecided, read the 15% pre-sailing discount in reverse. There’s no penalty for waiting except losing it, so buying before you sail and deciding on board are both sensible. Buying on the first evening at full price is the one to avoid.

Frequently Asked Questions