Looking to get a budget target for on board charges

[niccikatie]

On our 7n Alaskan, we left the ship with charges of $2048 - that was after our $200 OBC. Things included in this amount: tips, 1 disney excursion ($$$ Floatplane trip), drinks, smoothie every night for DD, exotic rasul, 1 game of bingo for us all, a few drinks for DH and I (though this will be more expensive with the new restrictions), and brunch and dinner at Palo. With all that included, I didn't feel it was too bad.

 

[Divslp]

We aren't drinkers and don't shop much. The bulk of our end of cruise statement included excursions and tips. I don't recall exactly but I think it was around 1k at the end.

 

[timrousbeastie]

We are taking a 7 night Eastern Caribbean. If you've done a 7 Nighter, can you post what your end result was for your account at the end of the trip?

For our first (3 day) cruise, the bill ended up around $30 per person per day including tips. We don't drink much (aside from the alcohol free drinks in the MDRs), didn't buy anything in the shops, and only did an inexpensive port adventure plus a bike rental at Castaway Cay. We just didn't plan at all and were so busy exploring the ship that we didn't run into any situation where we had to spend money. We had an absolutely wonderful time and I would not hesitate going on a 7-day cruise if that was my budget. We did a lot more planning before our second and third cruises (both 7 days) and spent a lot more on port adventures, spa, dinners, shops, MDR wine package, and photographs. None of that, however, would have affected our vacations much if it hadn't been there. My favorite part was just seeing 3 generations enjoy spending plenty of time together, sharing the wonder of being on such a beautiful ship. All of that would have been included in the base price.

 

[TamaraH]

HI guys

I'm panicing that I am not going to have enough for our cruise.

We are taking a 7 night Eastern Caribbean. If you've done a 7 Nighter, can you post what your end result was for your account at the end of the trip?

If you could share if you went "all out" with drinks, smoothies, purchases etc or if you were more budget conscious? This isn't counting any Excursions, just on board spending.

I'm just trying to get an idea of how much to save/bring for just the spending on the cruise itself.

I hear you - that was my main concern last time as well having never been on a cruise before. So we are a family of four, we did it in all cash so didn't even tie a credit card to our room. I loaded $1000 to our onboard account before boarding and we were very calculated with spending. I added $200 to the onboard the last night to cover the excess...so our onboard total was about $1200.

Here's what it covered:

We did not do any DCL excursions (did one as a group and paid for that outside). So basically our onboard was for tips, a couple of souveneirs for the kids (a watch and a jewelry box), a couple of photos from Shutters, two of the crown packages at BBB ($59 each I believe), renting paddle boat on CC, dummy booking (basically had to buy a gift card for $100 from the gift store and used it to place our dummy booking), and drinks. Our bar tab is the bulk of it. We didn't do smoothies or specialty coffees...we just like booze...totally joking...but not really LOL. And no we did not bring our own on board...too much hassle to do that when you fly across the country and stay at the airport with no car...oh well. Our bar bill was at least a couple of "drink of the day"s each day (and yes I reused the hurricane I received at the sailaway party that the Drink of the Day came in...only at the Sailaway I believe. Like the beer mug, you get a tiny bit more when you do the refills), hubby got the refillable DCL beer mug and would have a couple of refills of that each day and we did order a bottle of wine each night with dinner.

So hopefully that helps you gauge what to expect.

 

[professorandmom]

Careful, OP, this question is like asking how much do you spend on a car...currently in Indianapolis you can rent an electric car for $4 for 10 minutes or you can buy a Tesla car for $100,000 - all options come with a variety of pros and cons...
The number of variables reflected in the onboard expenses is equal only to the number of DISers...personal preference plays a huge role. Try to assess your preferences to determine your total cost before you assume you'll spend amounts similar to other posters in this thread...IMHO
($30? really - that's impressive self control)
I spent $500 on a deeply discounted 5 night Wonder cruise and spent $600 onboard...just what DCL was hoping for