By Shawna Cordonnier, Travel Advisor, Woodland Travel
Written September 2026. Prices are in US dollars and move with season and exchange rate — use them as a planning baseline, not a quote.
How much does a cruise cost? Cruise pricing is the most misleading in travel, and not because anyone is lying. The advertised fare is a real number. It is just not the number you will pay.
Here is the whole thing for two travelers on a 7-night cruise.
What the fare actually includes
Genuinely included on every mainstream line:
- Your cabin
- Main dining room meals, the buffet, and most casual venues
- Room service on many lines, sometimes with a small fee
- Entertainment, shows, pools, gym, kids' clubs
- Water, standard coffee and tea, and usually iced tea and basic juice at breakfast
That is a real holiday, and someone who books an inside cabin and does none of the extras genuinely does have a cheap week.
Almost nobody does that.
What is not included
Gratuities: $16 to $25 per person, per day. Automatically added to your onboard account on mainstream lines. For two people over seven nights that is $224 to $350, and it surprises first-timers every single time. Some lines let you prepay it, which is worth doing so it is not a lump on the final bill.
Drinks: $60 to $110 per person, per day for a package, or à la carte at $9 to $16 a cocktail, $8 to $12 a beer or glass of wine, and $5 to $7 for a specialty coffee. Packages usually must be bought for every adult in the cabin, and they usually must cover the whole voyage.
Do the arithmetic honestly. A package at $85 a day pays off at roughly six or seven drinks a day, counting coffees and bottled water. Plenty of people clear that. Plenty do not.
Shore excursions: $80 to $200 per person, per port. The largest variable on the list. Seven nights with four ports, two people, one excursion each port: $640 to $1,600.
Specialty dining: $25 to $70 per person per restaurant.
WiFi: $15 to $30 per day, per device on many lines. A port-day eSIM is usually the cheaper way to stay connected ashore.
Port taxes and government fees are usually shown at booking rather than buried, but they are additional to the headline fare — typically $120 to $250 per person.
Getting there. From Sacramento this is real money: flights, and a pre-cruise hotel night, which you should always book.
How much does a cruise cost, all in — 7 nights, two people
| | Budget inside | Mid-range balcony | Premium ||---|---|---|---|| Cruise fare | $1,300 | $2,600 | $5,200 || Port taxes and fees | $300 | $400 | $500 || Gratuities | $250 | $280 | $310 || Drinks | $0 | $1,000 | $1,400 || Excursions | $250 | $900 | $1,600 || Specialty dining, WiFi, incidentals | $150 | $500 | $900 || Flights and pre-cruise hotel | $700 | $1,000 | $1,600 || Total for two | $2,950 | $6,680 | $11,510 |
The mid-range column is the one to look at. The fare is 39% of the total. That ratio is why cruise budgeting goes wrong.
Why the expensive line is sometimes cheaper
This is the part worth reading twice.
The genuinely all-inclusive luxury lines — Regent Seven Seas, Seabourn, Silversea, and Explora — quote fares that look like three times a mainstream cruise. But depending on the line and the sailing, the fare can include shore excursions, all drinks including good wine and spirits, gratuities, specialty dining, WiFi, and sometimes airfare and a pre-cruise hotel night.
Run both to a total. A mainstream balcony at $6,680 all-in for two versus a luxury fare at $9,000 that includes the flights, the excursions, the drinks and the tips is not a 3x difference. It is often 30%, for a ship with a fraction of the passengers and far better food.
I am not saying luxury always wins — it does not, particularly for families. I am saying you cannot compare cruise lines on fare, and the industry's advertising is built on the assumption that you will.
European river cruising works the same way: high fare, excursions and drinks with meals included, and a total that lands closer to mainstream ocean than the sticker suggests.
Four ways to actually spend less
Book a guarantee cabin if you are flexible. You pick the category, the line picks the cabin. Usually cheaper, sometimes upgraded, occasionally a location you would not have chosen.
Do one or two excursions, not four. In several ports — Cozumel, Ketchikan, most of the Mediterranean — walking off the ship and exploring on your own is genuinely better than the bus tour, and free. Save the money for the one excursion that has to be guided.
Watch the solo supplement. Cruise fares are priced per person on double occupancy, and a solo traveler commonly pays 150% to 200% of the per-person fare. Some lines have studio cabins that avoid this entirely — worth asking about specifically.
Book early for the cabin, late for the price — but not both. Early booking gets you the location you want and, on most lines, price protection if the fare drops. Last-minute deals exist but the good cabins are gone. Pick which matters more.
One thing we do that saves real money
We hold group space on sailings, which often carries amenities that are not available on a public booking — onboard credit, prepaid gratuities, a drinks package, or a cabin upgrade. Those are worth several hundred dollars on a typical booking and they cost you nothing.
One line not in the table above: travel insurance, which on a cruise deposited a year out is 4 to 10% of the prepaid total and worth pricing at the same time.
Call Woodland Travel at (530) 662-5491 with the sailing you are considering and we will price it to a genuine total, then price the honest alternative next to it. That comparison is usually the most useful ten minutes in the whole booking.
