On much should one budget to spend aboard a seven day cruise?

Question

The cruise is already paid for -- I'm just wondering how much to budget for drinks and extras. It's a seven day cruise to the Mexican Riviera.

Answer 1

that is a wide open question. keep some money available for tipping (room service, baggage porters, tour guides, taxi's etc) You can probably find your own shore excursions cheaper than for what the cruise line charges for them.  Others have mentioned drink prices. One thing that will save you money is to not get caught up in all the jewerly shop 'specials' and the high priced photo's

Answer 2

Before you budget, you need to know how much everything is, so if you look on their site and go to bars and restaurants,you will see that the highest price is $5.25 for beer and that their is a fifteen percent gratuity automatically added to your account, and so on. About $100-150

Answer 3

I would say, to be safe, about $100 / day.  Especially if you drink much.  Although the food, coffee, tea and water are included, alchohol is not cheap.  Expect to pay approx. $6.50 for a cocktail and $3.50 for a beer.  Certain times they have specials on certain drinks.  Also they do charge for soft drinks.  But you can buy a soft drink card for around $20 for the week and you can have unlimited soft drinks.

Answer 4

You will need to either register a credit card with the ship, when you board, or put a cash deposit down.    Your ship key card will act as your 'credit card' on board ship.    Drinks will be charged to it and, usually, a 15% service charge is already added so no additional tip is necessary.    

Some cruise lines now automatically charge approx $10 per day per person to your on board account to cover crew tips.   If your cruise line doesn't do this, you'll need to bring enough cash to cover that at the end of the cruise.   Bring 20's, 10's and 5's since you'll get envelopes for 3-4 people and you'll want to divide up the money appropriately

Shore excursions also go on your onboard account.   Depending upon a bunch of factors they can range from about $30 to, typically, $150.

Don't forget you'll need cash for the casino if you like to gamble.    You'll want cash for local taxi drivers if you use any.   And small bills for shopping at local markets

Answer 5

I brought something in excess of $500, didnt count it out, for 2 of us including excursions. Including what I put on our card, I spent about $550, but we are pretty low budget. That was enough for excursions in two ports we did last minute and buying stuff in 4 ports and on the ship. I also brought a envelope of mostly ones and some fives for tips and bartering/exact change for little things. The first cruise I had wished I had more ones for tips. Like there was a bus drive in one port to get to the long pier length, tip and other unexpected tips.

Most folks say to budget about $100 each day, so we were way under most folks budgets

Answer 6

my huband and I just went on one in Jan.  Depending on the cruise line they charge so much per day per person, we were on noregian and we were charged $10 a day it was a seven day cruise as well. You also want to know that most of the resturants are all inclusive and dont cost unless you eat at the specialy ones. You will just want to make sure that you bring enough for shopping and and other stuff that you will be charged for on the ship cause you will not use cash on the ship you will use your card to charge everything to your cabin so everynite I would go to the desk and get a print out of what all you have spent and just keep up with it cause it will add up quick.. Good luck and have fun...

Answer 7

for drinks and extras, my wife and I put $700 on our account and used all but about $95.

That did NOT include all the purchases and such in the ports, such as souvenirs, cab fares, and the like.