Start with your cruise fare — you can refine the details after.
What's your total holiday budget?
Optional — track your estimate as you fill in costs below
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Your cruise
Per person. If you see a cabin total, divide by number of guests.
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Length of the cruise
Traveling together
Always excluded from advertised fares. Check your booking confirmation — typically $150–400 per person for a 7-night sailing.
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Cruise line optional
Select your line to see what’s typically included in the fare.
Pre-cruise costs optional
To and from your departure port.
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Nights before embarkation.
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Number of nights pre-cruise.
Car parking for the trip, or taxi/shuttle to port.
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For the whole party. Don’t skip this one.
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Drinks
Is a drinks package included in your fare?
✓ Drinks are covered — we won’t add a separate drinks cost to your total.
Everything you’d buy: cocktails, beer, wine, sodas, specialty coffee, bottled water. Cruise lines add ~18–20% service charge on top — factor that in.
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Typical range: $15–40/day light to moderate · $50–80/day heavier drinker
Check your cruise line’s website and enter the package’s daily price. Most packages cover alcoholic drinks, sodas, specialty coffee, juice and bottled water. We’ll add the service charge most lines apply — you can adjust it below.
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What else does your package include? Enter 0 if not covered.
Per person
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Per person
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Per person
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With a package, will you still be charged for drinks?
Mostly no — the service charge is already in your package price, so covered drinks come to $0. You can still pay for a few things: drinks priced above your package’s per-drink limit (you pay the difference, plus service charge on it), and anything the package doesn’t cover — premium bottles, some bottled waters, the mini-bar and room-service drinks. Receipts may also invite an extra tip; that’s optional, not required.
Cocktail ~$14 · beer ~$8 · soda ~$4 · coffee ~$6 — use the price of what you drink most, or a rough average across your typical mix.
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Count everything — morning coffee, sodas, cocktails, water. Be honest.
Wi-Fi optional
Internet access onboard. Speeds and pricing vary by package and line. Most packages are per device — couples typically need two licenses.
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Typical range: $15–25/day per person
Gratuities
Automatically added to your account each day. Not optional unless prepaid.
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Typical range: $16 – $25 per person, per night
Specialty dining optional
Paid restaurants outside the main dining room. Charged per meal or as a package.
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Shore excursions optional
Day tours, activities and transport at each port.
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Your combined total across all ports for the trip.
Casino optional
Set a limit before you board. On Carnival, Royal Caribbean and Norwegian the casino is central to the ship — easy to spend more than planned.
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$0 if you don’t gamble · $50–200 for a casual player · set your limit and stick to it
Spa & wellness optional
Massages, facials, thermal suite passes, fitness classes. Charged per treatment or as a day pass.
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Typical: $80–200 per treatment · $30–60 for a thermal suite day pass
Fill in what you know — all fields except fare, nights and guests are optional. All figures are estimates based on your inputs.
Not calculated here: onboard photo packages (~$200–400 for 7 nights) · specialty entertainment · shopping.
Not calculated here: onboard photo packages (~$200–400 for 7 nights) · specialty entertainment · shopping.
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CruiseClarify — Cruise cost estimate
Independent · affiliate-free · cruiseclarify.com — figures are planning estimates, not quotes.
Based on your trip details, here’s how those additional costs build up
What this cruise actually costs
Total trip cost
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—Per person
—Per night (per person)
—than the advertised fare
Fares, gratuities and Wi-Fi all creep up over time — save your estimate and we’ll email you when the numbers change.
Advertised fare vs added costs
Advertised fare
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Onboard costs
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Other costs
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Before you board
Cruise fare advertised price—
Subtotal before boarding—
How we calculate this
In plain terms: we start from your advertised fare and add the costs cruise lines charge separately — using your figures where you gave them, and typical US-market estimates where you didn’t.
- Everything is per person, in US dollars. Your fare and the per-person costs are multiplied by the number of guests for the trip total.
- Per-night costs (drinks, Wi-Fi, gratuities) are multiplied by nights × guests. One-off costs (excursions, flights, hotel, parking, insurance) are added once.
- Drinks. For a package, we take the price you enter and add the service charge most lines apply (about 18–20% — adjustable, and set to 0 if your price already includes it), shown as its own line. For pay-as-you-go, we use your daily estimate as entered — bar prices already include that charge, so build it into your number. The service charge doesn’t change your break-even, since it applies to individual drinks too.
- Spending credit (onboard credit) you enter is subtracted from the total.
- The “different ways to cruise” comparisons use round assumptions, shown on each card: a $25/day drinks limit, and independent port days at roughly 40% of the cruise line’s organized-tour price.
- We only count what you tell us. Extras like spa, casino and shopping aren’t assumed — add them if they apply to you.
These are typical figures to plan with, not quotes. Actual inclusions depend on your fare type and any promotions, and prices change over time (we re-check the built-in figures periodically). CruiseClarify is independent and affiliate-free, and nothing you enter is saved.
Same budget — different ways to cruise
See how the same total could look with a different approach.
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