One of the biggest draws of cruising is paying a single fare for accommodation, food and entertainment. But as cruise lines offer a growing number of optional add-ons, cruisers who want to try everything end up paying much more at the end.
“Prices and extra costs continue to rise. While cruising can still be affordable, it’s also easy to spend a lot of money if you want to have it all and do everything,” Tanner Callais, founder of the cruise site Cruzely told Skift.
“As cruise fares continue to drop, cruise lines are relying more on onboard revenue than the fare itself with clients starting to notice this more and more,” says Philip Smethurst, Director of Bicton Travel.
This includes sampling the ever-expanding specialty dining options, onboard activities like thrill rides and laser tag arenas, drinks packages, room service, spa, shore excursions, internet, priority access and the list go on.
There is also an additional 15 to 20 per cent service charge on average when using services like the spa and salon, beverage purchases and specialty restaurant dining.
In 2018, cruise passengers spent an additional 34 to 42 per cent of their cruise fare in on board spending, according to the financial reports of Carnival Corporation, Royal Caribbean, and Norwegian Cruise Lines. Both Carnival Corporation and Royal Caribbean also attributed an increase in onboard spending as one of the primary drivers of an increased total revenue in 2018.
Carnival Corporation revealed a 34 per cent on board spending, Royal Caribbean had 40 per cent and Norwegian Cruise Lines came out tops with 42 per cent.
How the charges add up
Apart from dining at specialty restaurants, certain entrees in the main dining room, where dining is normally included in the base fare, also attract an extra charge.
Guests can also easily add to their bill while enjoying on board activities. The charges depend on the line you sail with. For example, Royal Caribbean has announced that they will be charging for rides like Ripcord by iFly and North Star on Quantum of the Seas when sailing in Alaska and Asia from November. But their laser tag experience “The Battle for Planet Z” is complimentary.
Meanwhile on Norwegian Cruise Line, their laser tag costs $14.40 (US$9.95) for a 10-minute session, the Joy Speedway costs $21.75 (US$15) per single kart session and all games in their virtual reality arcade Galaxy Pavilion costs $10.15 (US$7) per play.
In terms of excursions, beyond the optional tours cruise lines are also building more private island destinations that feature many fee-paying attractions. In fact, Royal Caribbean just announced the region’s first private island destination in Vanuatu. For reference, entry to the water park at the line’s existing island Coco Cay costs $44 to $99 per person for a full day and the use of beach umbrellas, kayaks and snorkel equipment will also carry fees.
We do the maths
Cruise Passenger did the maths and found that cruising with a few basic add-ons on Norwegian Cruise Lines easily racked an additional spending of 25 per cent of a cruise fare.
Taking a 12-day Australia and New Zealand cruise from Sydney on the Norwegian Jewel, we included one specialty dining meal, one glass of the cheapest wine per night, the cheapest facial treatment at the spa and one of the cheaper shore excursions. The additional spend totaled up at $469.91 and came up to 27 percent more than the cruise fare of $1,734.
The rising trend of extra charges is also pushing cruisers to seek out more inclusive fares.
“We are seeing a noticeable shift from clients now looking for a more inclusive experience and recognising the value of such fares. We have seen a dramatic increase in bookings for cruise lines such as Viking where fares are simple and inclusive with very little opportunity for onboard spend,” says Mr Smethurst.
Furthermore, what is included in the luxury fare is often substantial — lines like Regent and Silversea include the shore excursions and the airfare as well.
Still, cruise lines maintain that all-inclusive fares are not necessarily the best choice or value for everyone.
Breaking down the charges also gives passengers more flexibility, Adolfo Perez, senior vice president of global trade sales and marketing at Carnival told Skift.
“With a Carnival cruise, we’re able to provide consumers with a variety of choices and not have them pay for options that they don’t want,” he said. “For instance, some guests would rather dine in the main dining room versus dining in specialty restaurants or opt not to purchase alcohol, so there is certainly a savings since they don’t have to purchase additional items if they don’t want to.”
The line’s newest and biggest ship Carnival Splendor which is debuting in December this year features four new dining experiences, two included and two at additional cost.
We worked it out below
12-day Australia and New Zealand from Sydney on the Norwegian Jewel from $1,734, departing January 23, 2020.
One Specialty Dining + 20%
$21.75 – 43.50 (US$15-30)
Average price plus service charge: $29 (US$20) + 20% service = $34.80
Wine (one glass per night) + 20%
Red/White: from US$7.95 (AU$11.13) per glass
Whole sailing plus service charge: $146.90
Mandara Spa +18%
ELEMIS Superfood Pro-Radiance Facial
50 minutes, $171 (US$122)
Price plus service charge: $171 (US$122) + 18% service = $201.78
One shore excursion
From $86.43 for highlights of Wellington (3.5 hours) or Akaroa sightseeing tour on 1960s double decker bus (2 hours)
Grand Total
Specialty dining + Wine + Spa + Shore excursion = $469.91
Additional spending is 27% of $1,734 base fare.
Usually travel Princess and soon as I get on boards I cancel compulsory gratuities. No difficulty just walk up to the counter, for extra good service I tip $50 to the cabin steward when I embark and maybe another $50 at disembarkation.
I always book another cruise while on board by paying a deposit -$100 each. It’s refundable if you don’t use it but gets you lots of onboard credit .
we have to pay compulsory gratuities NZ$300 from the two of us, before we board the ship.
The juices, sparkling water is NZ$208 and NZ$348 for wine etc for 6 days we are on the cruise. We only sail at 9pm on the first leg of the journey and the very next day we are at a destination for the full day. our next stop is 3 days later where we have a half a day on land and two days after that we are on land for virtually the whole of those last two days. I just feel it’s a rip off.
Word of caution thinking to save money by
booking tours on the shore, booking at lease on board guarantees the ship will not sale unless you have arrived back off your tour. Two families and their children 5 children were left behind because the steam train broke down in the mountains and they booked on shore not through the shipping company. they were left with the clothes on their back to find their way back home to Sydney as ship did not stop at Brisbane due to bad weather, my word of advice book any tours on the cruise ship for your own piece of mind, my next cruise in June 2020 will be my 9th cruise cheers Tony
We are well aware of these extra costs and choose carefully when cruising. We also believe that staff should be paid well for their work and refuse to pay the automatic gratuities. So far on our Princess cruises (which we love) we have done very well.
We have the gratuities removed and tip those we feel have done a great job. If the automatic gratuities were not so outrageous we would probably leave them on. Do you realize that when individual crew are given tips by passengers they go into a general pool and are shared by all anyway? We discovered this on one of our cruises.
Unfortunately we are now booked on the Queen Elizabeth and will have to pay through the nose as everything is also charged in USD. It will however be an experience and we are looking forward to it.
Yes we opt out of tipping we bring a bottle of wine with us for our cabin and purchase 2/ 3 bottles on first day as they soon run out of the cheaper wines .at home these sell for $10 each on board they are $35 . we do not do speciality dinners .we only ever book an inside cabin (much cheaper) as we only sleep in it most cruise ships have quiet areas. we also only book in off peak if we can (fewer children on board). we dont bother with the excusions now i might purchase a few things at the on board sales or auctions we find by doing this we can take more cruises
Cruise lines target usd100 per person per day in extra revenue. They are very greedy. I worked in the game. Never accept compulsory gratuities.
Those damn fees, service fees, prices for foods, other.
Thats why my bill is high for drinks IE wines, other vs merchandise, etc.
Never buy merchandise on ships save for say toothpaste.
Wish theyd make more of a Inclusive packages for guests.
Merge fees, etc.
More can be done, ALL cruise lines.
Reduce, merge fees
Make meals price competitive
Boost incentives
OK to bring food from shore onboard for dining in cabin.
OK to bring more wines onboard.
Merge Port fees, taxes.
Make bill easier to read.
Tipping automatic in billing
I’m lucky, (or I planned well!) as on my last cruise I had refundable onboard credits totaling AU$3.54. Military benefits with Princess are fully refundable and with future cruise deposit OBCs, promotional OBCs, I ended up spending less than the amount of OBCs on my account. Best investment I ever made was buying 100 CCL shares. They paid for the shore excursions!
When you get on board ask for a form to vary your compulsory tipping. They give you a form to fill in and sign, you can make it out for more or less , but you can also make it out for zero.
there is a space for explanations, I usually just say that the cruise line should pay their staff appropriately and not rely on me to do it.
Also be aware the compulsory tip is apportioned according to salary, so guess what , the captain gets the biggest slice.
I am quite aware of these extra costs. I do not book shore excursions on board, I select a shore excursion that is closest to the one I have in mind, ashore, not on board. I find I can cut costs by almost half, Sharing a tour with a new friend/s is even cheaper. I often buy two bottles of wine for dinner the first night, one red, one white and make sure they last me the whole cruise. Given their prices going up, I often don’t bother and go dry apart from the occasional soft drink or beer. I never bother with the speciality dinners unless they are worth it. I’ve only ever done three in nine cruises.
Lest we forget about the dreaded ‘gratuities’… previously known as ‘tips’.
Thankfully cruises out of Australia include these, but my ‘choice’ is to NOT pay these on any cruises outside of Australia (how’s that for my ‘variety of choices’ ??)
The additional ‘service charges’ of 20% for paid dining and the overpriced ‘spa’ treatments are just gouging, pure and simple,
A simple beer bottle, and a ‘service charge’ to hand over a bottle is just damned OUTRAGEOUS. And the prices are no longer cheap, duty free ‘like’; now it’s charge as much as you think the customer can bear.
It’s little wonder there are cheap cruise deals – the cost of doing anything ‘else’ just gets bloated out.
You do not mention or include compulsory tipping in you calculations ?.