Nobody likes a price increase.
Even when the purchase still offers good value, nobody wants to pay more, and it's even worse when you're asked to pay more for less.
Cruise passengers are also very price-conscious because in many cases the additional fees they pay can be near (or even above) what they pay for their cabin in the first place.
Price increases can be direct, where the cruise line literally raises the bottom-line price. In other cases, they can be hidden in package pricing or come in the form of giving passengers less for the same money.
Carnival, MSC Cruises and Norwegian Cruise Line all recently raised prices, although in different forms.
In her latest YouTube video, Ilana from LifeWellCruised.com shared the details and broke down what the changes mean for passengers.
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Carnival, MSC and Norwegian Cruise Line make beverage package changes
There are some significant and even costly changes that some cruise lines have made recently, and even if they don't specifically affect you, these are things that you're going to want to know about because other cruise lines may implement them in the future, and there are some lessons to be learned.
Hi there. I'm Ilana from the website lifewellcruised.com. Welcome or welcome back to my channel. Well I'll tell you I've been tracking some of these changes recently. And I thought we do need to talk about them because now it has been three different cruise lines who have made these sort of changes. And there is one pattern that I see and it is something that I think just we as cruise passengers do need to be aware of.
Now, I'm going to get right into these changes, but before I get started, I did want to mention that if you like this video, if you find it helpful, informative or enjoyable in any way, then please do give this video a big thumbs up. I really appreciate it. Please subscribe to the channel if you haven't done so already.
Let's get started.
Okay, let's talk about the one that has gotten the most attention, but I do have a couple of other examples and, again, some lessons to be learned, some things we should be doing as cruise passengers.
So the first thing is Carnival has had some recent changes to their packages, specifically their drink package and another one, and this has had to do with a price hike for their Cheers beverage package. Now the Cheers beverage package with Carnival includes a limit of up to 15 alcoholic drinks per day per person.
Now that package has increased by over $10 per person per day. Now, the price of Carnival's drink package does depend on whether you're on a shorter or a longer sailing, but if you go online, you'll see that the package is approximately $82 per day per person, including gratuities, if you buy the package before your cruise. If you do buy it on the cruise ship, it is 10% more.
Now, the biggest change itself isn't the fact that the drink package has increased. Of course, nobody wants to see costs go up, but the biggest change a lot of cruisers say is the fact that they got no warning from the cruise line that the price was increasing and in the past, well, cruise passengers would sometimes get some warning in particular from Carnival Cruise Line. Now, I do have some thoughts on this, but first I also wanted to mention that very soon after this, Carnival did introduce a price hike for their WiFi package.
Now their WiFi package has increased between 12 and 22% per person per day. So these are some pretty significant increases that will cost cruisers more money. In fact the premium WiFi on Carnival is now $20 per person per day should you buy that on the cruise ship.
Now, also, with this Carnival cruise, passengers didn't have any warning, and what a lot of people say is this didn't really allow us to budget for things that we were probably going to purchase anyway.
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MSC and Norwegian make changes, too
Now I have two more cruise lines to talk about and then I'm going to share, like, the thing that they all have in common, the lesson that we could learn as cruise passengers, so that we don't get caught with something like this again. And I also do want to hear your own thoughts on something.
So the second thing, well, is MSC Cruises has made a change to their beverage package and MSC Cruises used to have an unlimited beverage package when it came to the alcohol so sort of unlike Carnival but now they're going to the same type of system that Carnival has and they're capping that beverage package at 15 alcoholic drinks per day.
Now, as of right now, we're not seeing any changes when it comes to the pricing, and I have to say, in fairness, MSC is giving a little bit of warning, which personally I do really like. Now, MSC does say that they're making this change so that people can have a combination of both indulgence and responsibility over their drinking.
However, MSC allows people to purchase additional beverages over and above the 15 alcoholic limit for the cost of that drink.
Now, I did want to talk about the 15-drink alcoholic limit on both MSC and Carnival before moving on to the next cruise line. So I do have some thoughts and sort of questions about this, and in this case, I really would like your opinion on this. I know a lot of people say, well, who can drink 15 drinks anyway and by the way Princess Cruises also has a 15-drink limit when it comes to alcohol and other cruise lines for instance like Celebrity and Royal Caribbean don't have that limit.
So is it better to have a limit? Is it not better to have a limit? So I've heard it said that sometimes, when there is that 15-drink limit, that sometimes people actually almost see that as a bit of a challenge trying to drink that amount every single day to make it worth it. Whereas on other cruise lines they're not necessarily doing that. I have no proof either way to know if that is true.
There are some people who say 15 drinks a day that is already too many and there are other people who say, you know, what I just want the freedom to drink how much I want. I am on vacation after all. So do let me know your thoughts on that. But I do have a third thought and my thought was, well, this actually stops people from sort of sharing the package if it's limited to 15.
So I wonder if that might be part of the reason but again I have no inside knowledge on this at all. Okay, moving on to the third cruise line that has made a big change, and while not this month, they did make it quite recently, and that is Norwegian Cruise Line, which has changed Free at Sea to More at Sea. And overall I think people really do like this.
More at Sea is very similar to the Free at Sea perks package, which includes a beverage package, dining, and some other perks. However More at Sea does cost a little bit more. It costs approximately $200 more per couple for a seven-day cruise.
I have a video that is all about that package. If you want the details, you can just look on my channel, and you will find it. However, the thing about this package costing a little bit more is that it does include a premium beverage package, so it does include actually higher shelf drinks, so that is pretty good. It also includes a little bit more specialty dining, and the specialty dining is a little bit more enhanced, so that is good, but the price did increase.
But the thing that this has in common to Carnival a little bit is the fact that this change was made from one day to the other. And in essence it didn't give cruise passengers any warning if this was something that they may have wanted to book before they made the change. Now whether that's the wrong or the right thing to do I'm not sure I really have an opinion on that. After all I don't know what is done in other industries.
I definitely think it's nice to give cruise passengers a warning but I also understand why they're doing this. But I do know for me I was actually in the midst of booking a cruise with Norwegian Cruise Line when they made the change to More at Sea and that did mean that I sort of lost access to be able to still book Free at Sea because it changed from one day to the other and I guess I just didn't move quick enough. Now the benefit had I booked Free at Sea before it changed to More at Sea was I would have paid a little bit less but I would have still been able to benefit from the upgraded More At Sea beverage package.
Now, when it comes to Carnival, this is even more of a bit of a lesson, and it can happen with any of the different cruise lines. They can increase prices at any time so I think that the lesson here for us as cruisers is if there are things that you want to book, whether they are shore excursions or packages that you want to add on, don't assume that that price is going to stay the same from the time that you booked your cruise all the way till when you sail or when you might be ready to sort of look at packages.
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Instead I think this is something that when you book your cruise -- and I will definitely do this when I am booking my cruise -- is book all of the different packages the different things that you might want to add on I think you might as well book that right away and in most cases if I'm not mistaken these are usually things if you've added them on you can also take them off and I believe they are usually refundable.
Obviously check for yourself for your specific cruise line but this is something that I'm going to do moving forward. Now I'd love to hear from you please let me know should cruise lines be giving cruise passengers warning before they make changes let me know as well what you think of the drink package should the limit be 15 higher or lower and of course let me know if you're going to be making any changes to the way you book cruises. Now I hope that you enjoyed this video and found it helpful if you did please do give it a big thumbs up I really do appreciate it and please subscribe to the channel if you haven't done so already.
Bye for now and happy cruising!
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