How much would you pay to drink on a cruise?

If you’re going to splash out on a cruise vacation — days or longer on a floating vessel with nary a bodega in sight — it’s important to check out the food and drink policy onboard, especially when it comes to what’s included in your ticket package. While some cruise ships include all-you-can-eat food and drink in your fare, including alcohol, others don’t include alcohol in their pricing packages at all. Other cruise lines are incorporating per-day pricing for booze into the ticket prices, and Norweigian Cruise Line's latest move has been raising some eyebrows. 

The high-caliber cruise company’s just raised its top-tier drinks package to $138 per day beginning Jan. 1, 2023. While that’s a surefire way to capitalize on a captive and thirsty audience, some are arguing, for some reason, that that’s a bit much to charge. (Some, perhaps, might also really try to get their money’s worth). 

The rate does include premium bottles of Champagne and wine, so as long as you plan to be drinking flat-out bubbles on the cruise line, you might get your money’s worth. Beer drinkers, on the other hand, might not.

However, it’s is a $10-per-day increase for the cruise line’s top-tier drinks package, the Premium Plus Beverage Package, and as The Points Guy points out, that’s already higher by a long shot than other big cruise lines. Most hover between $60 and $90 per person daily. 

Tipping also gets a little questionable: A 20% gratuity is automatically added onto the rate — a fairly high rate, given it’s essentially mandatory (most other lines are 18%) — so while you don’t have to tip on top of the drinks when you’re served, your per-day drinking now tops out at $165.60, as TPG worked out. 

Furthermore, individuals aren’t free to book according to their drinking preferences: If one passenger in a cabin purchases the top-tier package, everyone else in the cabin has to as well (allegedly to prevent swiping drinks under another’s cover). That’s frustrating for couples where one half might not drink, and the other half wants to kick back with a decent-quality rum and coke on deck. 

Unfortunately, Norwegian didn’t have an answer for why the price increases were taking place when TPG asked. 

There are other tiers to the packages, too: The Unlimited Open Bar Beverage Package is also jumping $10 to $109 per person per day at the New Year, which includes drinks up to $15. The lower-tier package, Corks and Caps, holds some good news, though: It includes beer, wines by the glass up to $15, plus soda and juices, and won’t see a price increase. 

All of this begs the question of how much is too much when it comes to drinks on a cruise ship? When people have to nickel and dime every glass on what should be a vacation where your mind is unencumbered by such earthly concerns, there might be some tension between the experience customers hope to have and what cruise lines see lining up at the bars: a crowd with nowhere else to go. 

It’s all great info to know if you’re looking to book a Norwegian cruise — there are multiple sailings on Expedia, including voyages in Europe, to Hawaii from Vancouver, around the Caribbean, and more.