What is an realistic budget on Ship

[disneyholic family]

unless you don't care how much you spend, you'd better set yourself a limit.....
be very careful with the child you allow to use the arcade....if he/she has charging permission on the room key, he/she could put you into the poor house in the arcade....
(he/she will be able to buy all the cards wanted on the room key)...

i made it clear to my son that he could spend $25 in the arcade and no more......also, neither of the kids spent any money on drinks, but they could have with those key cards....they just knew that i didn't allow them to buy any drinks (i'm referring to non-alcoholic beverages available for sale in the teen club and elsewhere on the ship)...

the only other thing we spent money on was a massage for my daughter ($80 + tip), snorkeling and bikes on castaway cay (about $100 for the 4 of us), and 2 specialty drinks for the kids when we boarded the ship..
oh...and a 10 picture package...

and then of course there were the tips, which was quite a bit of money since we tipped WAY over the suggested amount....but it was well deserved....they were fantastic and i was happy to show them our appreciation....

 

[cjsmith]

Originally posted by AnnMorin
FOUR DRINKS PER DAY!!! Good Lord I thought it was four drinks per hour.. no wonder our bill is so high

Ann, this gave my husband and I a good laugh this morning. Don't worry, we'll do you proud on our 1/3/04 cruise!

 

[KYCruiseCrazy]

real important thing to do. once you get onboard have the kids KTTW cards turned off. just let it be used as a room key and a on/off the ship card. when we went in july we heard a kid say that his dad was paying for the trip so he was going to charge it up. i thought i would drop this dime to help keep your budget down lower. and 4 drinks an hour woohoo i would be drunk the whole cruise.

 

[Magicboundagain4]

Two years ago their were 6 in my party and we let the kids do everything including ordering smoothies at every meal. The spent at the arcade and we did 3 excursions. I had the ship do our laundry every day. We had drinks and many spa visits. We spent with no limit on anything everyone did what ever they wanted they did and we spent $3000 for 6 people. That breaks down to $500 each includes everything.

 

[cjsmith]

We leave the charging on our kids KTTW cards. They do have a limit on what they can spend however. We do allow them to go to the arcade and they have to ask us each and every time prior to charging the arcade cards. We've never had a problem with them and they feel like grownups by being allowed to do this on their own.
I don't spend any money myself at the spas since we have so many wonderful ones here in Naples, including a fantastic one at our local Ritz Carlton. I find we spend our money on the bars, excursions and an occasional picture. I think our bill for our June cruise was around $1500 and we did some of the excursions on our own. Our friends that were frugal spent a lot less than that.

 

[disneyholic family]

i didn't include our excursion, which we did on our own in nassau...
we took a room at the comfort suites (i would NEVER do that again), and used the armbands from there to swim at the atlantis pools.....with the taxi in both directions and the room, it was probably about $300 for the 4 of us....
if the kids want to do this again this coming summer, i'll take a room at the atlantis instead.....i'd rather not get anywhere near the comfort suites (is that the name of it....i'm not sure....but whatever the place is called that's near the atlantis)...

but maybe we'll stay on the ship.....it's up to the kids...
i doubt they want to do any of the dolphin encounters or scuba or anything like that, since we do that at home....but if they want to do that, that would be fine too...

 

[KathyTX]

I usually plan $100 per person per day, then extra for any big excursions.

 

[Johnny]

Our total bill on ship was $345
drinks at bar soda and beer package some gifts- nice ones such as the clock that is in the room, pictures.
Off ship about $200 in shopping, exursions.

 

[Grumpy's Mom]

I agree that this is really an individual family thing, and depends on what you like to do and what you feel your children ought to do. We cruised last week - over Christmas. Here are a couple of other things to consider.

When you got to Palo, you get a dinner (excluding alcohol) that would run you at least $50 per person in any good restaurant in a major city. Add the alcohol, and for a table of four you can easily get to $300. In my mind, $5.00 (now $10 I hear) is not anywhere close to a tip for the extraordinary service at Palo. We took several friends to Palo for dinner x2. We paid the $5.00 per person for each, and left a tip that was commensurate with what 15-20% would have been had we actually paid for the dinner itself.

Shutters - I purchased the 6 x 8 package (10 pictures for $85 approx). I didn't use it all up (our family didn't get to Castaway Cay together - DH on a morning fishing trip, dd's went down with their respective friends, and I went down with one of my friends). No opportunity to take photos until we reboarded, and the photographers were gone). I did purchase what I considered to be the much better pictures - the 8 x 10's taken on the formal and semi-formal nights. These are $19.95 each, and I know I bought at least 10 of those. Since I am a photo and scrapbooking buff, I am usually the one taking the pictures. It was well worth the money to me to have some family photos that I am in as well!

Drinks - we drink wine at home at dinner, but didn't do the wine package. I had a glass of wine each night at dinner, and sometimes a drink of the day up on deck later that night. Same with DH. We told our dd's, 13 and 17, that they could have one "special" drink a day and it was their choice of when to have it. They knew they could get soda at their meals if they so chose. they do drink soda at home, but we told them that purchased soda on the ship would count as a "special drink", or they could pay for it with their own money. I don't think either of them had a soda the whole week. They enjoyed having a smoothie or virgin tropical drink at dinner every night. DH and I did discuss bringing soda and wine on board, and in the end didn't have room in our luggage. No one seemed to miss it -- again, a personal thing.

The other thing to think about is souvenirs onboard - special pins, clothing, etc. which can mount up.

We have rebooked for 2005, and I am stashing extra cash already for my onboard credits, which I plan to deposit with DCL way before this next trip. Your TA can do that for you, and then you will have a nice account from which to draw. Any balance left will be refunded to you at the end of the cruise.

 

[jlp651]

thus far anyway-you can see my count down below and see we havent gone yet...
I've gone over all the web sites with a fine tooth comb...We have 3 days on land...we figured 100.00 $ a day for food and such...everything else is included.

for 4 days I sea...I've picked out our excursions,
Dolphin Encounter`170 times 2
Parasailing `75 times 2
We aren't drinkers...but I might want a smoothe and he'll drink soda...I know we'll need $$$ for bottled water-we dont like tap...
We know what kind of souveniers we would like to have...and what we can do with out.
I want the photos...`90.00
and even though I wanted to be at the spa everyday...I will settle for 1 full body massage...yes I could try something new...but would rather do something I can enjoy...after all I think hanging with dolphins and parasailing is "new" enough!!!
I was actually worried about our budget at first...but I think we're going to be ok...

 

[Grumpy's Mom]

jlp - my dds did the swim with the dolphin (booked privately with dolphin discovery) and it was the best thing (aside from the Magic) that they did the whole cruise. It was a great experience and I am sure you will enjoy it. You will want to think about whether you will want to include in your budget $35 for the video tape they make there, and pictures are $14 or $20 depending on 6 x 8 or 8 x 10. Glad I had my credit cards!!

 

[jlp651]

we'll be in naussa for the dolphin encounter...I've heard its like 100 $ for an album of pictures and 50 for the video...do you have something different?-dont worry-I'm working out the budget for that !

 

[Grumpy's Mom]

We did ours in Cozumel. I just checked Dolphin Discovery's web site, and they do not have a place in Nassau (too bad). There is a web site for Dolphin Encounters in Nassau, but I don't know if that is the same company that Disney uses.

 

[jvas]

We are taking around $1500 for our 4 day cruise....5 adults..
should be good enough huh?

 

[Alex]

That sounds pretty realistic for a 4 day

 

[jvas]

yeah? I'm planning a couple of excursions....or 1 excusion and a spa treatment for the 4 ladies on our cruise...should be fine still huh?
Probably a couple of drinks a day for 3 of us...not too much booze tho..

 

[jlp651]

I'm planning on 2000.00 $ for 4 days...I guess we should be good...oh and 3 days land...

 

[ChattyKathy]

Originally posted by jlp651
we'll be in naussa for the dolphin encounter...I've heard its like 100 $ for an album of pictures and 50 for the video...do you have something different?-dont worry-I'm working out the budget for that !

jlp~ Check out this website on Nassau , www.dolphinswim.com ...& Have fun!


Kathy

 

[LAMPSKIES]

7 day Eastern 11/29/03.....myself, Dw and DD's 13 and 11. $2374.00. Internet package, beer, soda package, beer, 20 picture package, beer, shore excursions, beer, tips, beer..........this was our third DCL trip......all land seas and if I budget around 300.00 per day and it always seem to be close...

 

[lsutigger2]

Thanks to all for the tips, hints, and what we've done list. As a first time cruiser, this info will be helpful in planning our budget.
It is just DH and I and when we go to WDW, we have try to have enough that we can do what we want and not worry. We save it up well in advance.

Thanks again - I've been copying and pasting responses and now have over 6 pages to read just from this thread!! Makes good reading!!