I know this is a silly question

[Tntt]

We are trying to decide a budget for our 7 night cruise next month. It will be my spouse and I and our 2 teenage kids. We really don't want to spend too much, we want to budget a amount. We already prepaid for our gratuity, drink packages, wifi packages and we dont plan on eating at any of the specialty restaurants so we dont have to worry about that.   For those seasoned cruisers what is a ideal daily budget amount for a family of 4 for 7 nights?

Edited April 16, 2023 by Tntt

[firefly333]

$16 a day for auto tips. X 4. Put in for obc if you have 100 shares of stock. 

 

Some cash for tips. Some for souvenirs in the ports or whatever you plan to spend in the ports. Walk around or do last minute excursions? 

 

Hard for us to know what your kids might want to spend. Stay away from the arcade. 

 

Casino?

[MeHeartCruising]

As far as expenses while on the ship, you will need to pay the $16/person/day gratuities that are automatically added to your onboard expense.  Given what you state above, the could very well be the only additional expenses while on the ship.  However, if you partake of shopping, BINGO, gambling, etc. you will be charged for those things.

 

Have you decided what you are going to do while at your port stops?  Those expenses are difficult to estimate, because it totally depends on what you want to do.  I rarely spend any money while in a Caribbean port.  I usually spend a few bucks on lunch/beverages while in a European port -- more if I'm going in museums and sites that charge a fee.

 

Plus you may need to budget before- and/or after-cruise hotels and transportation to/from the port/hotels/airports.  That can add up.

Edited April 16, 2023 by MeHeartCruising

[Tntt]

6 minutes ago, firefly333 said:

$16 a day for auto tips. X 4. Put in for obc if you have 100 shares of stock. 

 

Some cash for tips. Some for souvenirs in the ports or whatever you plan to spend in the ports. Walk around or do last minute excursions? 

 

Hard for us to know what your kids might want to spend. Stay away from the arcade. 

 

Casino?

We already prepaid our gratuity 

[Another_Critic]

14 minutes ago, Tntt said:

We really don't want to spend too much, we want to budget a amount. We already prepaid for our drink packages, wifi packages 

You already spent too much.  J/K  😄

[smokeybandit]

You theoretically wouldn't have to spend one additional dollar on board since you already paid for all your expenses.

[SG65CB]

I only see a few possible expenses. One is cash gratuities if you want to give something extra to your cabin attendant, waiters. etc. 

 

Pre-cruise transportation and hotel, post-cruise transportation. Parking fees if you are driving to the port.

 

The other expense is a big one and hard to gauge, and that is expenses at each port of call. 

 

Need to know more to be able to budget for this expense. Are you going to book excursions? Are you going to go on your own to the beach? Walk around the immediate port area and get back on the ship?

 

 

 

[Tntt]

7 minutes ago, SG65CB said:

I only see a few possible expenses. One is cash gratuities if you want to give something extra to your cabin attendant, waiters. etc. 

 

Pre-cruise transportation and hotel, post-cruise transportation. Parking fees if you are driving to the port.

 

The other expense is a big one and hard to gauge, and that is expenses at each port of call. 

 

Need to know more to be able to budget for this expense. Are you going to book excursions? Are you going to go on your own to the beach? Walk around the immediate port area and get back on the ship?

 

 

 

No we are not doing any excursions, if we buy souvenirs in port they will simple like shirts beachbags little stuff like that.

[topnole]

I’ve never had a daily budget as it doesn’t seem to make sense on a cruise if you pre pay for almost everything.  In essence, you’ve already done most of your budgeting and you won’t need

to spend anything on sea days unless you choose something extra.   Very different than many land based trips.  
 
If I were you I’d probably determine how much more you want to spend overall  and from that determine what you will do in ports.  Then, whatever is leftover use for onboard things like photos, additional tips, or whatever else.  
 

So I’d budget based on groups of expenses, not per day.  I tend to have a general idea how much I’m willing to spend beyond cruise fare and prepaids (and may or may not stick to it).  I set aside $X amount for extra tips and bring envelopes with cash for that.  I estimate $X amount for spending on tours or in ports.  Most is set ahead of time and often prepaid too.  So again, not really a daily budget.  I might spend $300 in a port and zero the next day onboard (not counting tips).  

[jbrinkm]

We spent close to $4000 over the cost of our cruise for our family of 4 (cost of cruse included prepaid gratuities, wifi, 10 photo package, and refreshment package. We had some onboard credit to use, and I got great deals over Thanksgiving weekend for our packages).

 

We spent $2300 on our airfare (East Coast to Galveston, for 4 people, flights were $580pp*). We spent $180 to get from IAH to Galveston, $200 for hotel, $40 to get to terminal, and $250 to get back to the airport. We spent probably $80 at the airport for food on the way home (lunch) - for our outbound flight to Houston, we got in too late for dinner (just ate airplane snacks we had bought) and had a free breakfast at the hotel.

 

We spent $500 in Roatan on a full-day, private, customized tour (driver, zipline admission, animal sanctuary admission, snorkeling) and $500 in Cozumel (ATV in the morning, Discover Scuba in the afternoon). Costa Maya was cancelled or we would have spent $280 there at Maya Chan. 

 

Then probably close to $300 in extra gratuities & transit. $150-180 on the ship (two rooms, 4 people, and we absolutely LOVED our wait staff at dinner), then tips for all of the activities we did while in port. And taxis both way in Cozumel.

 

I think that we were on the higher end of "extras" for this cruise. We certainly didn't spend as much $$ over the cost of the cruise last year when we flew from Fort Lauderdale (but our cruise was more expensive...).

 

If you can drive- probably less expensive. If you are going at an off time of year, less expensive for airfare as well. If you aren't doing as much on shore, in port, that would cut out a big chunk of what we spent. Same if you don't do extra gratuities. We just brought a bunch of cash, not knowing what we would want to tip onboard, but ended up wanting to go on the higher end. 

 

We were also paying for our 2 teens in a separate room as well as everything else. All of those fees would have been cut in half for just the two of us. 

 

You can definitely do it much less expensively. And we knew ahead of time (mostly) what we would spend, as we prebooked most of our excursions on shore. The only surprises were the cost of the Uber from IAH to Galveston and how much we wanted to tip extra on the ship.

 

OH, and we bought trip insurance. I think it was in the lower $200s. 

 

I would not recommend Galveston for anyone on the East Coast in the future. All the extras fees for transportation just don't seem worth it...

 

*Note about airfare: We had gotten a really good deal on our cruise from our TA so we were willing to spend a higher amount for airfare. We had also gotten a refund of flights taken in Europe the summer before due to travel problems and that essentially was the same amount and paid for our flights. And flights for that same week to Florida for us would have been $400-500, so not too much of a difference to get to Galveston - it was Easter week with high demand for flights.

[nimbex1970]

I'd say since you are not doing excursions, look into your finances and decide how much each kid can spend total for the week in souveniers.  Lets say it's $200 each for three or four ports.  Ahead of time you can discuss the budget and allow them to figure out what they would like to purchase.  Say one would prefer arcade money more than a trinket, let it go there.  We found this to help our kids budget and know the max they have in advance so there was no surprises on the last day with a "gotta have this" item. 

 

It's quite difficult to calculate and help not knowing your finances, nor my business.  So I would calculate to max total spending and have it in cash for them to spend.  Money gone, the money is gone. Takes some pressure off you as parents too!

[broberts]

I would budget a bit for onboard spends. The teens will likely want to spend a bit of time in the arcade. The adults might want to waste some time in the casino.

 

[deja moo]

Cruise Axiom: Take twice as much money as you think you will need, and half the clothes.

 

 

 

 

[vswan]

As others have said, with what you have pre-paid, I don't see you having much for expenses onboard. On this site, it seems that many do tip extra, I am not a big extra tipper, other than perhaps to a bartender to get them to return for drinks quicker.

 

On shore. Without knowing what activities your family would be interested in, it's hard to gauge. I would suggest going to the ports of call section of this website. For us, it was always about getting to the beaches. Some stops have a beach within easy walking distance, some not close at all. I would generally write down which beaches sounded like they would work for us and then write down what others had paid for taxi, entrance fees, etc. We generally budget a max $$per day amount we are willing to spend and what we didn't spend that on day 1, it rolls into day 2 and so on. Do you plan to eat on shore, that will cost more.

 

I would suggest if there are any boat-type excursions (or something you really have your heart set on at a stop) you book these ahead of time with a private company or do a shore excursion.

[DHADEN]

There is an old addage about PACKING for a cruise:

Lay out on the bed, all the clothes you are going to pack, and then lay out all the money you are going to take;

NOW, take half the clothes and take twice as much money.😜

[poocher]

For our Harmony cruise next month (4 adults - parents & offspring - parents footing most of the bill):

3 RT flights on SWA on points $34.20

Hotel room 1 night $260

Shuttle to/from port $100

Sloth excursion $200

Nachi Cocum $236 Taxi $40

Additional tips $150ish

Souvenirs $200ish (offspring will buy their own)

So about $1200 over and above cruise fare and prepaid on board packages.  I’ve found this number to be pretty close to accurate for most of our cruises.

[Another_Critic]

9 minutes ago, DHADEN said:

There is an old addage about PACKING for a cruise:

Lay out on the bed, all the clothes you are going to pack, and then lay out all the money you are going to take;

NOW, take half the clothes and take twice as much money.😜

See post #13.

[vswan]

If you are taking a taxi in a port, be sure to agree on the price before you get in the cab. Some ports have general beach transportation for a couple of dollars.

 

For us, we never had meals on shore - just weren't comfortable eating food (or drinking ice in drinks). For some that is the fun of going to shore. Depends on what you want to do.

 

At a private island you can spend nothing or a lot, again, depends on what your family wants to do.

 

As a rule of thumb for us, we set our budget at $100 per port for both of us for activities (probably would now budget more since prices have gone up) plus additional money if we wanted to purchase things. This did not include any food and minimal canned or bottled drinks. If we wanted to do a more spendy day at one port, we did, but in general we hadn't spent that much elsewhere. For a family of four I would budget at least $250 per port - taxis, beach entrance, a couple of drinks, beach chairs, etc.

 

I also set my casino budget for the week, I like the casino, but when it was gone I was done.

[MD_Dan]

Research your islands.  On some islands, you have to take a water taxi to get to the beach (maybe $10-$15 round trip per person).  Once there, locals charge $10-$20 for an umbrella chair.  The ship supplies the towels (just bring them back - unless you want to be billed for them).  Most ports will have a straw-market to buy trinkets (most items are made in China).  Even if you buy nothing, its fun to get off the ship an on to solid land for a short while.

[Mum2Mercury]

We pay ahead of time: 

- Cruise tickets 

- Pre-paid gratuities 

- Trip insurance 

- We are careful to pack all the essentials we're likely to need (sunscreen, Tylenol) so we don't have to overspend for these things on the ship or islands 

 

Getting to the ship expenses: 

- Gas 

- Meals on the road 

- Night-before hotel (usually we get free breakfast at the hotel) 

- Parking deck fee 

- Tip for the porters when we drop off our luggage 

 

During the cruise: 

- A few drinks 

- A handful of singles for tips, though, to tell the truth, now that tips are up, we tip "extra" less often 

 

Island stops: 

- Whatever excursions we've planned (we prep envelopes with cash inside /meeting details,  confirmation numbers, etc. on the outside ... and we include enough for tips and sometimes meals

- We don't really buy souvenirs 

 

You absolutely CAN spend much more than this, but we are happy at this level.  

 

Edited April 17, 2023 by Mum2Mercury

[Ret MP]

I plan for the worst-case scenario, I take half that amount in cash and leave enough credit available on a single credit card to cover the other half. 

 

What's the worst-case scenario?  Well, look above at all the very good posts, think of what is possible for you and your family that isn't already paid for and you know, again based upon what has been discussed so far, you may partake in those activities/purchases.   

[fpcruiser]

If you plan on drinking alot, keep the drink package. If your only going to have a couple a day, cancel your drink package. That is a huge expense.