Managing Money on a Cruise: What to Budget and How to Pay

Ask anyone who’s just returned from their first cruise what surprised them most and the answer is rarely a rough sea or a cancelled port call. It’s the bill. The cruise fare felt like a complete holiday : flights, accommodation, food, shows : all wrapped into one tidy number. Then the final account statement slides under the cabin door on the last night and the total sitting at the bottom looks more like a weekend in Paris than a holiday you’ve already paid for.

That gap between what the brochure implies and what you actually spend is entirely predictable and entirely avoidable : once you understand how cruise finances work. This guide walks you through the onboard account system, what’s genuinely included in your fare, what’s not, how gratuities work across different cruise lines, what to budget for going ashore, and how to check and dispute your bill before you disembark.

How the Onboard Account System Works

Modern cruise ships are almost entirely cashless on board. When you check in at the terminal, you register a payment method : usually a credit or debit card and the ship issues you a cruise card or wristband. This becomes your cabin key, your ship ID, and your payment device all in one. Every drink you order, every spa treatment you book, and every speciality restaurant you visit gets charged to your account and settled in one transaction at the end of the cruise.

If you’d rather not attach a credit card, most lines allow you to make a cash deposit at guest services : typically £200–£300, which acts as a pre-paid balance. When it runs low, you top it up. Any unspent cash is refunded at the end. The advantage of using a credit card rather than a debit card is straightforward: credit cards offer Section 75 consumer protection, which matters if anything goes wrong with the cruise itself.

What’s Included in Your Fare and What Isn’t

The standard cruise fare covers your cabin, buffet and main dining room meals, entertainment (theatre shows, deck parties, the pool), access to most sports and recreation facilities, and non-alcoholic drinks in the main dining room at mealtimes on most lines. P&O Cruises, for example, includes tap water, juice at breakfast, and tea and coffee in the buffet within the fare. That’s roughly where the ‘free’ list ends.

Everything below is almost always charged as an extra, regardless of how the brochure words it:

• All alcoholic drinks and premium soft drinks (bottled water, fresh juices, speciality coffees)
• Speciality and premium restaurants (surcharges of £25–£60 per person per visit)
• The spa : treatments, thermal suite day passes, and usually the hydrotherapy pool
• Wi-Fi packages
• Shore excursions booked through the cruise line
• Casino chips and bingo cards
• Photographs taken by the ship’s photographers
• Laundry and dry cleaning
• Medical centre visits
• Gratuities (on most lines : see below)

Some luxury lines : Silversea, Regent Seven Seas, Seabourn : build drinks, gratuities, and Wi-Fi into the fare, which dramatically reduces onboard spend. Mass-market lines such as Carnival, Royal Caribbean, and Norwegian Cruise Line operate the opposite model, keeping headline fares low and generating significant revenue from extras.

Drinks Packages: Worth It or Not?

Every major cruise line now sells drinks packages, and the marketing around them is persuasive. The basic maths works like this: if a package costs £55 per person per day, you need to consume roughly six to eight alcoholic drinks every day to break even, depending on the line’s pricing. For some passengers on a hot Caribbean cruise, that’s realistic. For most British cruisers on a seven-night Mediterranean itinerary doing day trips ashore, it often isn’t.

The key detail that catches people out is that most lines require every adult in the same cabin to purchase the same package. You can’t buy it for one person and not the other. If one of you drinks moderately and the other barely drinks at all, the package will almost certainly cost you more than paying as you go.

1. Calculate your genuine daily consumption. Add up what you typically spend on drinks on a normal holiday day : include coffee, cocktails, wine at dinner, and any afternoon drinks. Multiply by the cruise line’s average drink price (around £8–£12 for a cocktail, £6–£9 for a glass of wine). Compare that to the package price before you buy.
2. Book the package before you board. Cruise lines routinely sell drinks packages at 10–20% less in the pre-cruise planner than on the ship itself. Check your booking portal in the weeks before departure.
3. Check what the package actually covers. Some packages exclude premium spirits, wines above a certain price, and minibar items in the cabin. Read the included brands list : what looks like a comprehensive package can have more exclusions than you’d expect.

Gratuities and Service Charges: What You’ll Actually Pay

Gratuities are one of the most confusing parts of cruise finances for British passengers, largely because the approach varies so significantly between UK-based and US-based lines. American cruise lines : Royal Caribbean, Carnival, Norwegian, Celebrity, Holland America : add automatic daily service charges of around £15–£20 per person per day. On a 14-night cruise for two people, that’s £420–£560 on top of everything else. These charges are applied directly to your onboard account.

UK-based lines take a different approach. P&O Cruises removed its automatic gratuity charge in 2022, stating that service is included in the fare. Saga Cruises operates similarly. Fred. Olsen adds a discretionary service charge but it’s lower than US equivalents and can be adjusted at guest services. Cunard sits somewhere in the middle : it recommends but does not enforce a daily gratuity.

On American lines, you can technically ask guest services to remove or reduce the automatic gratuity, but the crew’s wages are structured with the expectation that these charges will be paid. Removing them affects the staff directly, not the cruise line’s revenue. If you have a genuine complaint about service, the more appropriate route is to raise it through guest services during the cruise rather than removing tips retrospectively.

Budgeting for Time Ashore

The ship stops : you go ashore and suddenly you’re in a foreign country with taxis to negotiate, entrance fees to pay, and a restaurant menu in a currency you’re not entirely sure about. Shore spending is the budget variable that most first-time cruisers underestimate, particularly because it happens in cash rather than on the frictionless onboard account.

The currency question depends entirely on your itinerary. Mediterranean and Canary Islands cruises use euros. Scandinavia involves a mix of Norwegian krone, Swedish krona, and Danish krone : though most places accept cards. The Caribbean is broadly US dollar territory, even on non-American islands. The Eastern Caribbean officially uses the East Caribbean dollar, but USD is accepted almost everywhere and most prices are quoted in dollars.

1. Use a fee-free travel card for spending ashore. Starling Bank, Chase UK, and Wise are the most widely recommended options among UK travellers. They offer near-perfect exchange rates with no foreign transaction fees. Avoid using a standard UK debit or credit card that charges 2–3% on overseas transactions : that adds up noticeably across a two-week cruise.
2. Withdraw cash at a bank ATM, not at the port. ATMs directly outside cruise terminals are often operated by independent companies charging £3–£5 flat fees plus poor exchange rates. Walk a few minutes into town to find a bank-affiliated ATM. Better still, carry a small amount of local currency organised the day before from your ship’s currency exchange, but only for tips and small vendors who don’t take cards.
3. Budget realistically per port day. A reasonable budget for a moderate port day : taxi or local bus to a beach, entrance fees, lunch, a couple of drinks, and a small souvenir : is £50–£100 per person. If you’re doing an independent tour or hiring a guide, budget £80–£150 per person. Cruise line excursions cost £60–£180 per person for a half-day tour.

Pre-Booking vs Buying Onboard

Cruise lines want you to spend in their pre-cruise planner, and they incentivise it with genuine discounts. Drinks packages, speciality dining packages, Wi-Fi, and even some shore excursions are consistently priced lower when booked before you board. The savings vary : typically 10–20%, but on a drinks package costing £55 per day, even a 15% discount is meaningful across a fortnight.

Speciality dining packages deserve particular attention. Buying a three- or five-night dining package pre-cruise is almost always cheaper than booking individual restaurants onboard. On Royal Caribbean, a three-night speciality dining package bought pre-cruise might cost £90–£110 per person; the same three restaurants booked individually onboard could cost £130–£160. The package also locks in your preferred restaurants and time slots before popular venues sell out.

Checking and Disputing Your Final Bill

On the penultimate evening of your cruise, a preliminary itemised bill will be delivered to your cabin or made available via the ship’s app. Do not leave reviewing this until the morning of disembarkation. Go through every line item the evening before. Common errors include duplicate charges, drinks charges from another cabin (particularly if the ship uses a card system that can occasionally misread), spa charges that don’t reflect the agreed price, and automatic gratuities applied at the incorrect rate.

If you spot an error, go to guest services that evening : the queue on disembarkation morning is invariably long, staff are under pressure, and the process is slower. Bring evidence where you have it: a receipt from the bar or spa, a screenshot of the pre-booking price you paid. Guest services can remove or adjust charges on the spot in most cases.

If you don’t notice an error until after you’ve disembarked, contact the cruise line’s customer service team with your itemised statement and booking reference. Errors are relatively common and most lines will investigate and refund legitimate overcharges within a few weeks. If the cruise line refuses to correct a genuine error and the amount is over £100, a Section 75 claim through your credit card provider is worth pursuing.

• Review the bill the evening before disembarkation. Gives you time to visit guest services calmly, without the morning queues.
• Keep receipts for any onboard purchase you want to verify. The bar will print a receipt if asked. It takes seconds and provides proof if a charge appears incorrectly.
• Take a photo of the final itemised statement. Before you hand back your cruise card, photograph or download the full bill so you have a record after you leave the ship.
• Flag issues immediately rather than disputing later. Onboard resolution is faster, easier, and more likely to succeed than a post-cruise complaint.

Building Your Total Cruise Budget

Putting it all together: on a seven-night Mediterranean cruise on a mid-range American line such as Royal Caribbean or Celebrity, a realistic total onboard spend for two adults : excluding the drinks package : runs to £600–£900. That covers automatic gratuities (£210–£280 for two people over seven nights), two or three speciality restaurant visits, a couple of spa treatments, Wi-Fi for one device, and incidentals like photos and casino. Add a drinks package and the onboard total for two rises to £1,400–£2,000 for seven nights.

Shore spending adds another £100–£200 per person across a seven-night cruise with five port days : assuming a mix of independent exploration and one or two paid excursions or entrance fees. The total cruise cost, once you add it all up, is typically 40–70% higher than the headline fare for a pair of average spenders on an American mass-market line. On a UK line with inclusive gratuities, the gap is smaller : usually 25–40% above the fare.

Frequently Asked Questions