A cruise drinks package pays for itself once the drinks you would buy anyway cost more than the package. The test is simple division. Take the package's price for one day and divide it by what you pay for a typical drink on board.
Take a $75-a-day package and $13 drinks. That works out to 5.8 drinks a day, so you need 6 drinks every day before the package saves money. Over a 7-day cruise the package costs $525, the price of about 41 drinks. Cruise Frog's new drinks package calculator does this math for any price, and it can start from what a glass of wine costs on your line.
Pick a line to fill in what a glass of house wine costs on board.
Per person, a day, as the line quotes it.
A typical drink you'd buy on board.
Optional. Count coffees and sodas if the package covers them.
The days the package is charged for.
To make the drinks package pay for itself
6drinks a day
A $75-a-day package costs the same as 5.8 drinks at $13. Over 7 days that's $525, or 41 drinks for the cruise.
Pay as you go
At 5 drinks a day, buying drinks one at a time costs about $70 less than the package.
- Drinks package, 7 days
- $525
- Drink by drink, 5 drinks a day
- $455
Break-even is a target for your wallet, not a dare for your liver.
Work out your break-even
Divide the daily package price by your average drink price, then round up. Nobody orders 0.8 of a cocktail. The table shows the break-even for common prices.
| Package a day | $10 drinks | $12 drinks | $14 drinks |
|---|---|---|---|
| $50 | 5 | 5 | 4 |
| $60 | 6 | 5 | 5 |
| $70 | 7 | 6 | 5 |
| $80 | 8 | 7 | 6 |
| $90 | 9 | 8 | 7 |
| $100 | 10 | 9 | 8 |
Then compare that number with how much you really drink. If you would have 5 drinks a day with the $75 package above, buying drinks one at a time costs about $455 for the week. That is about $70 less than the package. Within half a drink a day of break-even, the package buys convenience more than savings.
Count every day of the cruise
Lines usually charge the package for every day of the sailing, port days included. A day spent ashore still costs the full daily price. So think in drinks for the whole cruise, not just a day by the pool. A long sea day can make up for a port day, and the calculator shows the total for the trip as well as the daily target.
Start from your line's prices
Pick your cruise line in the calculator and it fills in what a glass of house wine costs on board. On the lines Cruise Frog tracks, a glass runs from about $4.48 on Star Clippers to about $16.25 on Hurtigruten, before any service charge. Royal Caribbean lists $9, Norwegian $12 and Carnival $12.50. Cocktails cost more than wine, and beer and sodas cost less, so change the price to what you usually order.
Many luxury and river lines pour house wine in the fare. On those, a package may add little. Our guide to wine prices by line lists which ones.
Check the rules before you buy
Your cabin. On many lines, if one adult in a cabin buys an alcohol package, every adult in it must buy one too. Run the numbers for the lightest drinker in the cabin, not the heaviest.
The caps. Some packages cover drinks only up to a set menu price. Pricier cocktails and wines then cost the difference. Some also limit how many drinks you can have in a day.
Your fare. Some fares and promotions already include drinks. Check what your booking covers before paying for a package.
The price. Lines often discount packages before sailing, so check the price more than once.
Soft drinks. Count coffees, sodas and water only if you would buy them anyway. A bottle of water you would skip without a package is not a saving.
The service charge. It does not change the answer if you enter both prices the same way. Lines that add a charge usually add it to single drinks and to the package alike, so the break-even stays the same.
Use it on your own site
The calculator is free to embed on a cruise blog or website, with no ads or tracking. Open the panel under the calculator to copy the code.
Source: Cruise Frog's drinks package calculator, with each line's wine price from its menu or recent reporting, checked October 18, 2026. The figures are a guide to the arithmetic, not advice from any cruise line.