What's your total budget for a whole cruise vacation?

[cruiseguy2]

Hi, what's your total budget for a cruise for all the below:

-Cruise

-Airfare

-Hotel (before or after)

-Car

-Gifts

-Pre-Cruise Clothes

-Post-Cruise Clothes (as in clothes you buy during your cruise)

-Bus Transfer/Limo/Taxi

-Internet

-Drinks

-Specialty Restaurant Fees

-Phone

-And anything else you would buy on your cruise

 

I'm just wondering how much you budget to spend on your entire cruise vacation. Some of you have cruised like 20 times, and am wondering how much you spend! I budgeted $10,000 for the entire cruise time. Is that okay, too little, or too much for 5 people. I already spent $4987.25 for the actual cruise for 5 people, and $1700 for the airfare. So, I have about $3,300 to spend on everything else including one night hotel, limo, clothes and everything else. Will I be going over my budget?

 

I know its a lot! Sorry, but thanks in advance!

-Chris

[CaptData]

That depends. What have you figured for excursions, drinks, gambleing etc? Is this a once in a lifetime thing or do you plan to do this again? You said 5 people, what ages? Sting Ray excursions run above $34.00 per person x 5. dolphin encounters run about $100 per person. Drinks are around $5.00 each. Soda cards around $45.00 each. Tips are $10.00 a day x 5 x no of days. You do not state number of days.

 

So you have $3300.00 left

 

Hotel one night pre-cruise 2 rooms (Priceline $90.00 + taxes) $100.00

Supper for over night stay $130.00

Breakfast $50.00

Limo to hotel $100.00 (taxi depends on port you are talking about but figure at least $25.00/cab +tip) Cruise line bus for 5 is expensive take cab of Limo cheaper.

Limo to ship $100.00

Limo to airport $100.00

Sting Ray excursion (booked off ship) $34 x 5 = $170.

Dolphin encounter $110.00 x 5 = $550.00

Beachday somewhere ($150.00 for food and taxi there and back).

Coke Cards for all $45.00 x 5 = $225.00

Tips $50.00 x 7 = 350.00

T-shirts for everyone $20.00 x 5 = $100.00

Gifts $200.00

drinks $200.00

Photos $80.00

Extra tips (limo, Room Service, kids staff, porters) $150.00

Specialty Rest 5 x 30 = $150.00 per visit

Internet depends on package you want but I'd say $100.00

Phone is around $10/min (bring you own cell it is cheaper by far).

gambling can be cheap ie you spend $20.00 and play until gone or can cost the shirt off your back.

 

 

 

These are estimates only.

[Bassnote_1]

-Cruise - < $800 per person (includes tips)

-Airfare < $300 per person (shop right you can still fly pretty cheep)

-Hotel (before or after) < 50 a night per room (4 people per room?)

-Car < $20 per day 2-3 days

-Gifts $200 +\-

-Pre-Cruise Clothes < $100 (thank God for Ross)

-Post-Cruise Clothes (as in clothes you buy during your cruise) see gifts

-Bus Transfer/Limo/Taxi $40 ($20 tampa to pier each way)

-Internet <$5

-Drinks $250 +\- (soda cards for us)

-Specialty Restaurant Fees $0-$50

-Phone - $10 one call if you can find a good phone

-And anything else you would buy on your cruise

 

So, I guess I would budget about $1500-$2000 per person total costs.

[Nliedel]

I put down 5K but this next one is going to be higher because of "The Disney experience" pre cruise.

[smudge's mom]

We don't budget a thing. What we want to do - we do.

 

Our "budget consciousness" is in purchasing the cruise. We try to find a deal on where/with whom we want to go - we look for bargains in pre/post cruise plans.

 

After we decide to go on the trip, we don't think about money again. We go on whatever excursions we wish - we purchase however many drinks we please - we buy whatever we went.

 

But - we don't usually buy anything on the ship and we don't drink much - so our extras don't amount to much.

[cruiseguy2]

Sorry for not mentioning all this stuff before, but:

5 people ages 44, 46, 18, 16, and 12

and I probably will take a cruise with my family at most once a year

I guess I should budget a little more, heres what I came up with:

 

Hotel >$350 for two rooms per night

Gifts >$300

Pre-Cruise Clothes >$1000 (my kids don't have a lot of dressy clothes)

Post-Cruise Clothes >$250

Bus Transfer/Limo/Taxi (from home to ORD, SEA to hotel, port to SEA, ORD to home) >$400

Soda Cards >$200

Alcohol Drinks >$100

Tips >$400

Photos >$50

Port Excursions >$1000

Dining in Port >$500

 

That comes to: $4550 plus unexpected purchases: about $5200

 

Okay, bumped up my expenses just now to $12000.

 

Is that enough now?

[ger_77]

We don't do up a budget before cruising - we find out how much things cost and pay for them. We put money aside to be used for vacations and don't feel guilty when it is used for that purpose - we go and have a good time and don't sit around thinking "Gee, should I have another froo-froo drink, or should I do something that doesn't cost me anything?" The same applies to shore excursions, particularly when travelling in Europe - we book excursions that we think we will enjoy because we don't know how long it will be until we are able to return to that point again. DH and I have never looked at each other and said "Should we really do this, it isn't in the budget", and I certainly don't ever plan on it happening. Just my 2 cents worth!

 

Smooth Sailing! :) :) :)

[psychtobe]

it also depends on the length of the cruise.

 

from your estimates above, for a 7 day cruise, i think your excursion budget is too low; it allows $200 per person for a 7 day cruise, which could mean only 1 medium-priced excursion per person. that's pretty spartan, especially, say, in Alaska, where excursions can range up to $400 per person.

 

your pre-cruise clothes budget seems large, unless you are just looking for an excuse to buy clothes. the kids don't need fancy clothes - even without a jacket, they would be fine on most cruiselines, esp the 12 year old. shirt and slacks would be fine.

 

what the heck is "post-cruise clothes?" again, makes me think you're just looking for a reason to shop.:)

 

we spent $2600 for 2 for a 5 day cruise, including airfare and everything else. we only did 1 fairly inexpensive excursion; bought no new clothes; brought our own wine from home; bought little alcohol on board; did not gamble; had no hotel stays (flew in day of departure, flew out day of disembarkation); had rides to the airport; ate at no specialty restaurants; spent <$100 on the ship in activities.

 

in other words, we tried very hard to watch our costs, and still had a great time. but you should go in with a realistic budget.

[joeyanddavid]

depends on Itinery but as a rule of thumb I try and book all vacations at no more then 300 per day per person.. Ideal goal is 250 a person.. Those totals of course reflect just transportation room and board.

[CaptData]

You did not include Travel insurance.

[Bassnote_1]

You did not include Travel insurance.

 

true, true. And I do buy insurance! One never knows.:cool:

[Bassnote_1]

from your estimates above, for a 7 day cruise, i think your excursion budget is too low; it allows $200 per person for a 7 day cruise, we spent $2600 for 2 for a 5 day cruise,

 

Your per diem wasn't much higher at $260, and my per deim on our 7 day cruise was only $250 +/- and we did pretty much what we wanted. But then again, we are not extravagant people. I think that you could easily do $200 a day per diem on a 7 day cruise. To get that low, all we would have had to do is switch to an inside cabin from an ocean view and we would have been in the $230 range. Cut out the couple of fancy drinks we enjoyed each day and there ya are!

 

But, costs are justified in the eye of the beholder. What is cheap to me is too dang expensive to others and too spartan to still others.

 

And from what I saw on the ship, seapass cards should be taken away from drunk people.:eek:

[arby70]

the best prices I can. I don't actually set a hard and fast budget, but I do shop around. I think the destination and cabin type will be the controlling points of your cruise expenses. My husband and I will be in New Orleans for 5 days before and 2 days after our cruise to the Western Caribbean (less expensive cruise to start with). Even with really nice shore excursions, food, souvenirs and gifts, air and a few new clothes, we will be well under $5000 for the both of us. I got a good buy on our outside cabin and excellent price on our air & hotel room only 2 blocks from the FQ, and I have a coupon book that will really save us a ton of money on stuff we'd already planned on doing (food, tours, etc. in NOLA). Two years ago we cruised on the inside passage on the Infinity and since this was a dream cruise for us, I tried not to think of budgeting every little thing. If we wanted to do it, we did (within reason of course). We didn't get a suite, but did get a nice balcony cabin, stayed in Vancouver, B.C. for 6 days before our cruise and 1 day after and with all our expenses it came to about $8000 or so. So, it depends on where you go. The $8000 was some of the best spent money I've ever forked over. Loved every moment of it!!!!;)

[geoherb]

I worked hard on getting our Alaskan cruise to under $4,000 for the two of us, including three nights in Seattle beforehand. For the Caribbean, we usually manage to do a seven-night cruise with a night before and a night after in Florida for less than $2,500 for the two of us--$140 per night per person. Our holiday cruise this past year was an exception. We got a good deal on the cabin, but paid more for airfare and hotel rooms in Florida because we booked late. Even then, we kept our total spending to around $150 per night per person. These totals are for everything--insurance, cruise, airfare, hotels, cabs, excursions, tips, liquor, etc.

[psychtobe]

also, it depends where you are cruising. Alaska and Europe would be more than the Caribbean.

[Wennfred]

Same with us, We dont Budget, Once the Cruise and Airfare is paid, we pretty much say, umm I think 1500.00 is good enough to spend for the trip, That includes Drinks, Casino, Gifts, Pictures and Excursions and Bingo, Most times we come back with 17.50 in our pockets

[4merlurker]

I read a response on another thread (or maybe it was this one :confused: ) that basically said it all:

 

(loosely quoted)

Anything you NEED on the cruise is included. Anything you WANT is extra.

 

Really puts it in perspective for me! I read all the posts about spa treatments and souveniers and excursions and panicked!!! until I realized that all those things are extras - (well, alcohol is a need LOL) We dont have to do ALL these things to enjoy the cruise!

 

So here's our 1st timer budget:

 

Family of 5 -> 2 adults & 3 kids (9,11,13)

 

Cruise: (1 balc. 1 inside) $3500 + $350 Tips + insurance ($?.00)

Airfare: $776

Transfers: NJ & Fla $300 incl. tips (sharing with others in our group)

1 pre-night hotel: $71 + $40 for pizza dinner

5 Stingray Excur.: $260 + tip (?)

1 Royal Dolphin Swim: $125 (for DD13) + tip (?)

Spending $ at 4 ports: $400 (incudes cabs & tips (high estimate)

Alcohol: "Guesstimating" $7 drinks and $5 beers = $300 (low estimate :D )

Casino/Bingo: $200 (hopefully we win and can play more or drink more :D )

Kids: Each will have $100 to spend as they wish (on/off the ship)

(I plan on bringing my own margarita mix, tequila and my shaker for drinks on my balcony)

WOW.........it still costs ALOT!!! :eek: Shhhhhh......Don't tell DH.

[momofmeg]

We don't budget a thing. What we want to do - we do.

 

Our "budget consciousness" is in purchasing the cruise. We try to find a deal on where/with whom we want to go - we look for bargains in pre/post cruise plans.

 

After we decide to go on the trip' date=' we don't think about money again. We go on whatever excursions we wish - we purchase however many drinks we please - we buy whatever we went.

 

But - we don't usually buy anything on the ship and we don't drink much - so our extras don't amount to much.[/quote']

 

That is us. We don't deprive ouselves of anything we want but we don't just blow money either. Just like at home I think before I make a purchase-is this what I really want? I do the same when on vacation.

 

There are 3 of us and with excursions, drinks, tips, etc. we spend about 1500-2000 total for 3 people for a 7 day cruise. This does not include plane tickets we are airline employess so we usually fly stand-by but that does include tips, hotel rooms,etc. and we tip generously too-always above suggested amount.

 

We do not take an excursion at every port-not anymore-only if something interests us-sometimes we just shop or spend a day at the beach. But then we have been on several cruises so we have done the excursions-we loved the dophin encounter and the cave tubing for ex.- but we have no desire to do those excursions again.

 

We do not buy tee-shirts much anymore either. I have found 6 months after the trip we are donating those to a thrift store anyway so we don't waste money on that.

 

A lot depends on you and your family and what you feel you have to have-as I said I do not want to feel "deprived" I want to enjoy my vacation- but then I also know that the tee shirt and alot of the excursions and drinking 50 carbonated drinks a day are not going to make me happy anyway.

 

Do you "blow the budget" when going places like Disneyworld buying a lot of expensive junk which is thrown away or donated within 6 months of coming back home? If you are in the habit of doing that on vacation-yes you will need $10,000 for a family of 5.

 

I know I was dying for years to do the glass bottom boat excursion-every time I tried to book that it would be sold out or else it was canceled because of weather. I finially got to do it on my 5th cruise and boy -what a letdown. I did not see all the beautiful fish and coral I thought I would. My point in telling you this is I am not one who gets into doing tons of excursions-often I just shop (much of this is just looking-unless something really strikes me) and go to the beach.

 

Now hubby loves to snorkle and dive. Usually he snorkles on his own. You can often do this right off a beach- and can rent the equipment for $10 so why wast $50 plus on that?but he does do diving excursions-often though he books these on his own-many ports have dive shops close to the ship.

[DixieDL]

This is our first cruise in over 12 years, and I can't remember what I budgeted then, but this time around, here is what I have budgeted (3 of us)

Flight (from NM to Seattle) $840

Hotel (pre & post 3 nights) $150 (Westin Downtown Seattle - special pricing)

Cruise (balcony) $3410

Transport to & from Airport $75

Excursions $452

extras in Seattle $120

Tips $300

$$ to waste on fun $600

 

that is a total of $5947, ssshh don't tell DH, he has no idea what it costs:D Although I don't know if we will spend all the $600, just wanted to make sure we could do extra stuff it we want;)

[Florida_cruisers]

There are too many variables to consider in order to give you a straight answer: itinerary (there is a big difference between a Caribbean cruise and a Mediterranean cruise), how long is the cruise, flight (we usually use our miles), hotels, etc..

 

On the last Caribbean cruise we went on, we spent around around $2500. $750pp for the cruise and $1000 on spending money. We did not need flight arrangements nor hotels as we live in Florida.

 

However, for our upcoming Med cruise our budget is around $6000. That includes the cruise, hotel for a few days on port before the cruise, spending money, and food. We used our miles, so there were very minimal flight fees.

 

Also consider that it is only for two people as we do not have a children yet.

[momofmeg]

There are too many variables to consider in order to give you a straight answer: itinerary (there is a big difference between a Caribbean cruise and a Mediterranean cruise), how long is the cruise, flight (we usually use our miles), hotels, etc..

 

On the last Caribbean cruise we went on, we spent around around $2500. $750pp for the cruise and $1000 on spending money. We did not need flight arrangements nor hotels as we live in Florida.

 

However, for our upcoming Med cruise our budget is around $6000. That includes the cruise, hotel for a few days on port before the cruise, spending money, and food. We used our miles, so there were very minimal flight fees.

 

Also consider that it is only for two people as we do not have a children yet.

 

 

I can see why your European cruise you should budget more. I plan to also as I know it won't be often that I go to Europe. We went to England and Belguim once back in 99-a land trip-so our cruise will be our second trip (ands chances are last-who knows) to Europe.

 

We are hoping to do Europe on a cruise in the fall of 2007 or late spring 2008 (for our 25th-we will be married 25 years in Jan. 2008)on a reposioning cruise. We are saving for that now and that is why after the cruise this fall we have booked we probally won't do another until then- except for a cheapo cruise on Carnival Holiday.

 

We also plan to spend a few days in Paris before our cruise so we are saving the bucks and budgeting.

 

Be sure and post and let us know how your cruise went. I will be interested as we are in the process of planning ours.

[Folgy]

Our American counterparts enjoy much better pricing as well as there dollar goes farther. I am usually of all the 11 cruises I have been on ,each one has totalled between 12,000.00$ and 15,000.00$ including excursions as well as all the items listed by the OP.

 

In US $ my total would conciderably less. Flights/Hotels/Cruise being the largest expense.

[scruffy164]

What's a "budget" ???

 

Oh yeah, that thing you do the rest of the year.

[sportsterjohn]

We usually spend between 2,000 and 2,5000 for everything.(just my wife and I) Since we are in Atlanta, we don't have to worry about air fare. If we leave out of New Orleans like we do sometimes, then we also get to skip the hotel and just pay for parking. We also tend to cruise in eithor march or sep so we get good deals. Usually in the 500pp range for a 7 nighter. We don't spend too much on the bar tab or buy many, if any at all pictures. Most of our money is spend on shore excursions ( scuba diving alot) and of course tips.

[brendaisbored]

I'm getting ready to head out on my second cruse (five days!) and both have been really inexpensive for me.

 

The first one was actually won by my mom through RCI so the only thing we had to pay for was airfare and tips.

 

The cruise I'm taking on Saturday on NCL is my graduation gift to myself. But I found the 7 night cruise and roundtrip airfare (Detroit to Houston) for under $750...after all the taxes and fees.

 

I'm probably taking about $250 to cover tips, transportation and drinks which means the total for everything will be about $1000.

 

Unfortunately it means I don't have a lot of wiggle room...I won't be able to do any excursions or very much shopping...but it's mostly about getting away from it all for a bit. I had hoped I'd find some more money before leaving, but that's not going to happen. Darn bills getting in the way of fun. Ah well. At least I'll have warm weather, sun and water. That's all I really need. :D