Celebrity Drinks Package: Classic, Premium and What They Cost

Celebrity sells three drinks packages, and the two that include alcohol are separated by a price ceiling per drink, not a different bar list. Classic covers any drink up to $12, or $14 on sailings departing the UK and Australia. Premium raises that to $19. Go above your ceiling and you pay the difference, not the full price.

Prices move a good deal between sailings, so the figure attached to your own booking is the one that counts. A 20% service charge is added at checkout on top of whatever that figure is. This guide covers what each package includes, how the ceilings work in practice, and the stateroom rule that settles it for most couples before any arithmetic starts.

The Three Packages

There are three, and only two include alcohol. The structure is simpler than it first appears, because the packages are not separated by which bars you can use or which brands you can order. Every bar on the ship is open to all of them. What changes is the price of a single drink that the package will cover.

That makes the choice unusually easy to work out in advance. Look at the bar menu for the ship you are sailing on, find what you actually order, and see which side of the ceiling it falls. A gin and tonic made with a standard brand sits comfortably inside Classic. The same drink made with a premium gin, or a cocktail from the signature list, often sits above it.

1. Classic Drink Package. Covers any drink priced up to $12, and up to $14 on sailings departing the UK and Australia. That takes in beers, spirits, cocktails, liqueurs, frozen drinks and wines by the glass within the limit, along with soft drinks, bottled water and speciality coffees and teas.
2. Premium Drink Package. Raises the ceiling to $19 a drink, which brings in the premium spirits, the signature cocktail list, better wines by the glass and sparkling wine. Everything in Classic is included, and the difference is entirely about what the ceiling reaches.
3. Zero Proof Package. The non-alcoholic package: soft drinks, bottled water, speciality coffees and teas, fresh juices and alcohol-free cocktails. It is also the package applied automatically to guests who fall under one of the exceptions to the stateroom rule.

What It Costs

Celebrity prices its packages per sailing instead of at one fleet-wide rate, so the cost depends on the ship, the itinerary and the date. You see the figure in Cruise Planner once you have booked.

As a rough guide, the alcohol packages land somewhere between $60 and $110 per person per day before the service charge. What moves you along that range is mostly whether you buy in advance or on board, and how the sailing is selling. In advance is generally the lower end, on board the higher. If you know you want one, Cruise Planner is where to do it.

Prices tend to sit higher on the newer ships and on the short, high-demand sailings, and lower on longer itineraries and quieter dates. A fortnight in the Mediterranean in shoulder season will usually carry a lower daily rate than a four-night break over a holiday weekend, even on the same ship.

The price also moves after you book. Celebrity discounts packages during its regular sales, and a package bought early can be cancelled and rebought at a lower price if one appears. Checking Cruise Planner every few weeks is the simplest saving available on these.

How the Service Charge Works

Celebrity states it plainly in its own FAQs: a 20% gratuity is added to all drink package prices at checkout. The figure shown while you are choosing is before that charge is applied, so it is worth adding it yourself when you are working out a budget.

On a package at $90 per person per day that brings the real figure to $108. Over a seven-night cruise for two it is the difference between about $1,260 and about $1,512. Package prices may also carry additional tax on certain ports and itineraries, which is applied the same way.

Once the package is bought, the charge is settled. Nothing further is added when you order at the bar, and there is no expectation of tipping again on each round, though you can if you want to.

What Is Not Included

The exclusions follow from the structure. Because the packages work on a price ceiling, anything above your limit is the main one, and you pay the difference, not the whole price. On Classic that means the signature cocktails and the premium spirits on most ships. On Premium it means a much shorter list, mostly the rarest spirits and the better champagnes by the glass.

Bottles of wine sit outside both packages. So do drinks from the mini bar, room service charges, and anything bought at a venue operating as a separate concession. Where a ship has a branded coffee outlet instead of its own cafe, that is usually charged separately. The ship’s own baristas are the ones the package covers.

Drinks ashore are outside the package for the obvious reason, and that includes Celebrity’s own private destinations where a separate arrangement applies. If a port day runs from morning until late afternoon, a package covering only the hours you are aboard is a smaller package than it looks on paper.

The Rules Worth Knowing

Three of Celebrity’s own conditions decide this for more people than the price does, and one of them is more accommodating than most.

1. Everyone of drinking age in the stateroom buys it. Celebrity’s policy requires all guests of legal drinking age sharing a stateroom to take a package if any of them does, whether bought before the cruise or on board. Everyone in the room takes the same package too, so one person cannot hold Premium while the other holds Classic.
2. There are documented exceptions. Celebrity publishes a list. Children of 12 and under need no package at all. Teenagers, pregnant guests, and anyone who cannot drink alcohol for medical reasons or because they are in recovery, are given the Zero Proof package instead of being required to buy an alcohol one. Raise it at booking instead of assuming.
3. There is no daily drink limit. There is no cap on the number of drinks under any of the packages. There is a limit of one drink at a time, and the usual responsible-service rules apply, but no daily ceiling on the total.

When It Pays

The method matters more than any single figure, because the package price varies so much by sailing. Take the price in your own Cruise Planner, add 20%, and divide by what a drink actually costs you.

On a package at $90 a day, or $108 with the service charge, and with cocktails around $13 to $15, break-even lands near eight drinks a day. On a sailing where the same package is offered at $60, or $72 with the charge, it is closer to five. That spread is wider than the difference between most people’s drinking habits, which is why a rule of thumb borrowed from someone else’s cruise rarely transfers.

Count everything that is not alcohol as well. Speciality coffees, bottled water taken ashore, fresh juices at breakfast and alcohol-free cocktails all fall inside the packages. Two coffees and a couple of waters is already a real share of a day’s spend. The itinerary matters too: a week of sea days works very differently from a port-intensive sailing where you are ashore from morning until late afternoon.

For couples, the sum that counts is the joint one. Both adults in the stateroom take the same package. So the question is whether the two of you together drink enough to cover both, not whether it works for the one who drinks more.

Sailing Without One

Plenty of passengers do. Tap water, standard tea and coffee, juice at breakfast and iced tea all come with the fare, so nobody goes thirsty without a package.

You may also bring some of your own. Celebrity allows two bottles of wine or champagne per stateroom at embarkation, which covers the in-cabin drink that would otherwise be bought on board.

Buying drinks individually, the 20% is applied to each one instead of to a package, so a $13 cocktail reaches your account at closer to $16. Your onboard account is visible in the app throughout the cruise, which is the easy way to keep track instead of adding it up at the end.

Using the Package on Board

The package is linked to your SeaPass card, which the bar staff scan before serving. There is nothing to activate and no voucher to carry, and it works from the moment you board on the first day through to the last evening. Room service and the mini bar are the exceptions, as they are charged separately.

Only one drink is served at a time. That is a service rule, not a daily cap, and the package covers you and not the table. Each person with a package orders their own. If you are travelling with someone who has not bought one, their drinks go on the account at full price plus the service charge.

The receipt is worth glancing at for the first day or two. Where a drink sits above your ceiling, the difference appears on your account instead of the whole price. Seeing that once tells you more about whether the package fits than any amount of reading beforehand. If several drinks a day are producing a top-up, the higher package would probably have been the cheaper choice.

Packages bought in advance can be cancelled through Cruise Planner before the cruise, which is what makes it worth buying early and rebooking if the price drops. Once you are on board the position changes, and a package is generally not refundable. Buying on the first evening is a firmer decision than buying in advance.

Your onboard account is visible in the Celebrity app throughout the cruise, updated as you go. It is the easy way to see whether the package is doing what you hoped, and on a longer sailing there is still time to act on it.

Frequently Asked Questions