Princess Premier: Is the $35-a-Day Upgrade Worth It?

Common questions

What the Premier upgrade costs

For eligible 2026 cruises (prices checked July 23, 2026), Premier costs $100 per person, per day on most Princess ships when purchased at least 96 hours before departure. The price is $105 on Sun Princess and Star Princess. Buying late or onboard adds $5 per person, per day.

Plus costs $65 on most ships and $70 on Sun Princess and Star Princess when bought before the cutoff. The upgrade is therefore $35 per person, per day across the fleet.

Those voyage totals are more useful than the daily price. An extra $35 can feel minor during booking. An extra $980 for two people on a 14-night cruise deserves a real plan.

Packages cover the whole voyage. Princess doesn't sell partial or pro-rated packages, so you can't buy Premier for just the sea days. If you've already booked, you can add or upgrade through the Princess app or Manage Booking on princess.com until the 96-hour cutoff.

These figures apply to the current package sold for eligible 2026 sailings. Purchases made before July 22, 2025, can carry older benefits. Check the package version attached to your booking.

What Premier adds over Plus

The relevant comparison is short:

Both tiers already include crew appreciation, OceanNow delivery, room-service delivery, specialty coffee, and the underlying beverage and Wi-Fi packages. Premier's value has to come from the differences in this table.

What a specialty dinner really costs

Princess lists specialty dining at $55 per adult on most ships and $60 on Sun Princess and Star Princess, and adds a nonrefundable 20% service charge to dining cover charges paid out of pocket.

Only menu items with supplementary charges — and the 20% on those items — are still billed. That full $66–$72 is therefore what Premier saves you per dinner.

At $66 per visit, the savings add up quickly:

• One dinner: $66
• Three dinners: $198
• Four dinners: $264

The seven-night Premier upgrade costs $245 per guest. Four specialty dinners exceed that before counting any other benefit.

But that doesn't automatically make Premier good value. Princess already includes main dining rooms and buffet dining in the cruise fare. Four dinners are worth $264 only if you'd genuinely have paid for four dinners without the package. An included meal you choose because it feels free isn't the same as avoided spending.

Ask yourself how many reservations you'd make if each carried a $66 charge. If the answer is two, specialty dining contributes $132 toward the upgrade. If the answer is three, it contributes $198.

Availability also matters. Princess recommends booking early, and restaurant times can be limited. Current terms cap the benefit at one specialty meal per mealtime — lunch or dinner — per day. Premier pays the cover charge; it doesn't guarantee your preferred restaurant or time.

Breakfast: Premier adds nothing

If avoiding the buffet at breakfast is your concern, you don't need Premier. The main dining room serves a complimentary sit-down breakfast, the International Café offers pastries and parfaits at no food charge, and specialty coffee is already included with Plus. On Sun Princess and Star Princess, the complimentary Americana Diner is a third sit-down option, open breakfast through dinner.

Continental breakfast ordered with the stateroom door card is complimentary regardless of package. Both Plus and Premier also cover delivery for orders placed from the stateroom phone, though items with a menu price still cost extra.

Guests in eligible Reserve Collection or Sanctuary Collection accommodations may have separate dining access. That comes from the accommodation booked, not from Premier.

Lunch without the buffet

Lunch creates more potential value, although Plus already covers part of it — and what's open changes with the day's schedule.

Free without any package: the buffet, the International Café, poolside pizza and the Salty Dog Grill, and — on most sea days — a sit-down lunch in the main dining room. That lunch is walk-in, and typically one dining room serves the whole ship, so expect a short line right at opening and around noon on sea days. On port days, main dining room lunch is often not offered at all. On Sun and Star Princess, the complimentary Americana Diner serves lunch daily.

The paid casual venues — the ones Plus's four meals and Premier's unlimited benefit cover — as listed on Princess's venue pages in July 2026:

• Alfredo's / Gigi's Pizzeria — open all day, walk-in (most ships)
• O'Malley's Irish Pub — lunch on sea days; dinner only on port days (seven ships)
• Ocean Terrace Sushi — lunch on sea days; dinner only on port days (six Royal-class ships)
• Plank's BBQ — lunch and dinner, reservation required (Caribbean and Emerald Princess)
• Churrascaria Brazilian Grill — dinner only (Diamond and Sapphire Princess)

Notice the pattern: on port days, Alfredo's or Gigi's is usually the only paid casual venue still serving lunch. Premier's unlimited casual lunches are mostly a sea-day benefit.

Princess lists casual prix fixe dining at $14.99 per adult, which comes to about $18 with the 20% service charge. Each covered meal is a set prix fixe — one choice from each menu section, no substitutions — and unused package meals aren't refunded.

Plus includes four casual meals per guest, per voyage. Premier makes casual dining unlimited. Its additional value therefore begins with the fifth meal:

A guest who uses a casual venue for lunch every day of a seven-night cruise saves about $54 beyond Plus. That helps, but it doesn't justify a $245 upgrade by itself.

The same day-type check applies to specialty restaurants: most focus on dinner, and lunch hours vary by ship and itinerary — build the calculation around what's shown for your sailing, not around the word "unlimited."

The shore-excursion credit changes the calculation

Premier includes a credit for shore excursions booked through Princess:

• $100 per guest on cruises of 6–9 days
• $200 per guest on cruises of 10–20 days
• $300 per guest on cruises of 21 days or longer

The credit is available for the current voyage only. Unused value is forfeited and can't be exchanged for cash. Excursions are also subject to availability. Our shore excursions guide covers how to judge whether a Princess excursion is the right call in the first place.

On a seven-night cruise, the upgrade costs $245 per guest. If you'd already spend at least $100 on a Princess excursion, only $145 remains to recover. Three specialty dinners save $198. Together, the credit and dining reach $298 against the $245 upgrade.

For two guests:

That's a solid break-even case. It doesn't need photos, theater seating, or inflated Wi-Fi values to work.

The important condition is that you'd have booked through Princess anyway. A $100 credit isn't worth $100 if it steers you away from a cheaper independent excursion you'd have preferred.

Cruise length can help or hurt

The excursion credit rises with cruise length, but the package charge continues every day:

A 10-night cruise is favorable if you use the full $200 credit: three specialty dinners at $66 comfortably cover the remaining $150. On a 21-night cruise, the $300 credit still leaves $435, equivalent to six or seven specialty dinners.

Longer cruises give you more opportunities to dine, but they also include more days when you may eat ashore or prefer the main dining room. Don't assume more time onboard automatically means better package value.

Dining and the excursion credit are the two benefits that can pay for the upgrade on their own. The remaining extras — drinks, Wi-Fi, photos, theater seating — are smaller, and easier to overvalue. Here's how to price each one.

Premium drinks: count only the difference

Premier covers eligible drinks up to $20; Plus covers eligible drinks up to $15. When a drink exceeds the Plus ceiling, Princess charges the difference, not the full drink price — its beverage package terms spell this out. So an $18 cocktail costs a Plus guest about $3, plus any bar service charge on that difference.

That means the upgrade value is the amount above the Plus ceiling. Two $18 cocktails a day recover roughly $6–$7 of upgrade value, not $36. Drinks priced at $15 or less add no Premier-only value.

Premier also removes Plus's 15-drink daily cap. That cap counts alcoholic drinks only — non-alcoholic drinks, specialty coffees, and teas don't count toward it, and bottled water has its own allowance of up to 12 bottles per day.

The unlimited allowance may matter to some guests, but responsible-service rules still apply. It shouldn't be treated as a target or the main financial reason to upgrade.

Four-device Wi-Fi is mainly convenience

Plus includes MedallionNet Max for one device per guest. Premier covers four devices per guest.

That's useful if you want a phone, tablet, and laptop connected without managing the active device, or if you expect to work during the cruise. It has little value if you only carry a phone.

Don't price the benefit as three additional plans unless you'd have bought them. For many travelers, this is convenience rather than avoided spending.

Photos and theater seating

Premier includes digital professional photos of guests in the stateroom and three prints. Families, groups, and couples celebrating an occasion can get real use from it. Travelers who normally ignore the photo gallery should assign it no retail value.

Reserved theater seating works similarly. Premier guests get a reserved section for production shows, not a private seat held in your name: Princess asks you to arrive 15 to 30 minutes early, and unclaimed seats are released to all guests about five minutes before showtime.

Treat both as tie-breakers. They can improve a package that already works on dining, excursions, and drinks. They shouldn't be used to rescue a calculation that otherwise falls short.

Run the numbers for both guests

Princess says packages apply to guests 1 and 2 on the reservation, and depending on how you booked, both may need to take the same package. Third and fourth guests in the same stateroom can't buy Plus or Premier at all. If guest 1 or 2 is under the legal drinking age, they receive the zero-alcohol package in place of the beverage portion, with no price reduction.

That can weaken the upgrade when one person wants specialty dining and premium drinks while the other doesn't. Don't calculate Premier around the heavier user's habits alone. On a seven-night cruise, the stateroom decision is normally $490 for two guests. Add the Premier-only spending both people would genuinely make, including both excursion credits if both will use them. One guest's strong usage may not cover the other guest's unused benefits.

Three realistic seven-night scenarios