How We Cruise: Do the Math and Skip What You Don’t Need

Our cruises are not built around packages

We almost never buy dining, beverage, or Wi-Fi packages.

Not because we're morally opposed to unlimited drinks or fancy dinners. We're just annoyingly willing to pull out a calculator while planning a vacation.

Cruise lines are very good at making packages sound like you're losing money if you don't buy them. But before clicking Add to Cart, we ask a much less exciting question:

Are we actually going to use this enough to save money?

Usually, the answer is no.

The Specialty-Dining Package That Somehow Cost More

For Hellen's birthday cruise, we thought a three-meal specialty-dining package sounded perfect. Birthday cruise. Nice restaurants. Easy decision.

Then we made the terrible mistake of doing math.

We looked at the restaurants we actually wanted to eat at and compared their individual prices with the package.

Buying the meals individually was cheaper.

So instead of buying a package to "save money," we made reservations for exactly what we wanted and kept the difference.

There's an important lesson here:

If a package gives me 20% off something I wouldn't otherwise buy, I haven't saved 20%. I've just spent money I wasn't planning to spend.

The Beverage Package: Challenge Accepted?

Then there's the drink package.

We've run the numbers on this one more than once. Depending on what we'd order, our calculation came out to roughly five to seven alcoholic drinks per adult, every single day, just to break even.

Every. Single. Day.

Could we do it?

Probably.

Would anyone want to spend Day Four of the cruise with us?

Probably not.

We don't drink enough to make the package worthwhile, and the last thing we want is to sit by the pool thinking:

"It's 3:00 p.m. I've only had three drinks. I'm falling behind."

That's not a vacation. That's a performance metric.

I'd rather order a mojito when I actually want a mojito—which, admittedly, happens more frequently when we find a Sugarcane Mojito Bar—and not worry about whether I'm maximizing shareholder value on my beverage package.

Wi-Fi: Sometimes Disconnecting Is the Upgrade

Wi-Fi is a little different because we don't skip it just to save money.

One of our favorite parts of cruising is getting away from the internet.

We'll walk around the ship and see people staring at their phones, scrolling Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, news, or whatever fresh disaster the algorithm has decided everyone needs to know about.

I'm not judging.

We do exactly the same thing at home.

That's why I don't particularly want to pay extra money for the privilege of doing it in the middle of the Caribbean.

Instead, we talk. We walk around the ship. We sit on the balcony. We swim. We listen to music. We play games. We explore ports.

Sometimes we do absolutely nothing.

And doing absolutely nothing while staring at the ocean turns out to be surprisingly underrated.

If we actually need internet, we'll buy it. But we've learned that sometimes not having Wi-Fi isn't something we're giving up. It's something we're getting back.

A Cheaper Cruise Doesn't Have to Feel Like a Cheaper Vacation

Here's the part that's easy to forget while staring at all those pre-cruise add-ons:

We've already paid for a vacation.

Our cabin is included.

Food is included.

The buffet is included.

The main dining room is included.

Pools, entertainment, live music, and a ship transporting us between different destinations are included.

Yet somehow the cruise planner can make you feel like you've booked a floating prison cell unless you immediately purchase another $1,500 worth of upgrades.

We try to start with what we've already paid for.

Then we look at each extra individually and ask:

Will this actually make our vacation better?

If the answer is yes, we'll spend the money.

If the answer is, "Well, technically we'd save money if we ate three specialty dinners, drank six cocktails every day, and checked Instagram between them..."

We're probably skipping it.

Calculate for the Person You Actually Are

This might be the biggest mistake people make with cruise packages.

Don't calculate based on your imaginary vacation self.

You know that person.

Vacation Mark wakes up at 6:00 a.m., works out, eats a healthy breakfast, drinks eight bottles of water, tries six different cocktails, eats at a specialty restaurant every night, attends every show, and somehow still has enough energy to watch the sunrise.

Actual Vacation Mark might sleep until 9:30 and spend an hour looking for coffee.

Calculate based on how you actually live and travel.

Because packages aren't bad. For the right person, some of them can be a great deal.

They're just usually not a great deal for us.

And we've discovered something after enough cruises:

The best way to save money on a package is sometimes not buying the package at all.

The Beverage Package: The Math Gets Ugly Fast

For our upcoming cruise, the lowest beverage-package price we've seen is $66.99 per person, per day.

For Hellen and me, that's $133.98 every day before considering any additional taxes or gratuities that may apply.

Even if we use an unrealistically cheap $10 cocktail, we'd each need to drink about 6.7 drinks every day just to equal the package price.

And $10 is probably being generous.

At $12 per drink, the break-even point drops to about 5.6 drinks per person per day.

At $15 per drink, it's about 4.5 drinks per person per day.

So depending on what we're drinking, Hellen and I would need to average roughly nine to fourteen alcoholic drinks between us every single day.

Could we?

Sure.

But we'd also like to remember the cruise.

And that's the important part of the calculation. Maybe one night we have several drinks. Another day we might have one. Some days we might not drink at all.

The package only becomes a bargain if our actual drinking habits justify it.

For us, they don't.

Specialty Dining: This One Is Even More Interesting

Our upcoming cruise gives us an even better example of why we always check the numbers.

The three-night specialty-dining package is $144.99 per person.

That means Hellen and I would pay:

$289.98 for three dinners.

The individual specialty restaurants we're considering cost roughly $44.99 to $53.99 per person.

Here's where it gets interesting.

Three dinners at the cheapest price would cost:

$44.99 × 3 × 2 = $269.94

The three-night package would cost:

$144.99 × 2 = $289.98

So if we chose three of the less-expensive restaurants, the package would actually cost us about $20 more.

Even if we ate at the most expensive option all three nights:

$53.99 × 3 × 2 = $323.94

Now the package saves us about $34 total.

That's not nothing, but it also means we need to choose the more expensive restaurants to get much value from the package.

And there's another option.

Celebrity is offering unlimited specialty dining for $44.99 per person, per night. That's interesting if someone plans to eat specialty dining constantly—but that's not how we cruise.

We actually love Celebrity's main dining room.

Why would we pay extra every night to avoid one of the things we specifically like about Celebrity?

That's where packages can mess with your thinking.

Instead of asking:

"How much am I saving?"

We ask:

"How much would I have spent if this package didn't exist?"

Those are two very different questions.

Our Rule: Buy the Vacation You Actually Want

This is exactly why we don't automatically buy packages.

If Hellen wants a nice specialty dinner one night, we'll book it.

If I want a mojito, I'll buy one.

If we want another one...

Well, nobody said we were running a monastery.

But we don't want to spend hundreds of dollars upfront and then spend the rest of the cruise trying to make sure we "get our money's worth."

We're already paying for excellent food in Celebrity's main dining room. We're already paying for entertainment, the ship, the cabin, pools, and everything else included with the cruise.

A package should make our vacation better—not give us homework.