Which Princess Cruise Package is Right For You?

So you’d like to book a Princess cruise, and the first thing All In Vacay asks you is if you’d like to book Princess Standard, Princess Plus, or Princess Premier.  What does that mean? And which package will be right for you? Read on to find out what is included with each tier!

Princess Standard

Princess Standard is the bare bones fare package—you are only paying for your room on the cruise with any taxes or port fees, and basic food and beverage onboard the ship. This includes dining in any of the main dining rooms, the buffet, and poolside snack stands such as pizza and a burger grill. Beverages included are water, tea, lemonade, juice, and coffee. Entertainment onboard, such as shows and live music, is also included. If you are looking to cruise on a very tight budget, are not foodies, and don’t plan to drink, this could be the right fare for you on your Princess cruise!

Princess Plus

Princess Plus is the next package tier, and is available for $60 per person per day of your cruise. I recently sailed with the Princess Plus package on my 6 night Princess cruise, and found it to be an excellent value! Gratuities to the cruise staff are included in this package (which would be added to your onboard account anyway even if sailing under Princess Standard, and is a recommended amount of $17-19 per person per day). Wifi is also included in this package—the MedallionNet Max, for one device per person. I found the wifi service to be very useful, allowing me to video chat and post videos of my trip as I traveled. The wifi was sometimes faster or slower according to how many people were using it, so I’d recommend waking up early to get work done if you have to while vacationing!  The Plus beverage package is included, allowing you to drink up to 15 total beverages per 24 hour period including bottled water, fountain drinks, specialty coffees, beer, glasses of wine, cocktails up to $15, fresh juices, and smoothies.

Two “premium desserts” per day are also included per person, which on our cruise, consisted of six different gelato sundaes to choose from and three gigantic slices of multilayered cakes from the cafe. Two “casual meals” are included at restaurants onboard for which there would normally be an upcharge of around $15 per person—the restaurants on our cruise included a barbecue restaurant and a seafood restaurant to choose from, but check with your MMT agent to see which casual restaurants can be found on the ship you will be sailing on! Room service delivery is included (which is a $5 fee each time for Standard fare guests), and the OceanNow delivery service connected to your Princess Medallion is included. This service allows food or beverages to be delivered to you wherever you are on the ship, as the Medallion tracks your location for your server to find you! This service is available to Princess Standard guests with a $15 onetime activation fee. Last but not least (after all of that food and drink!), two specialty fitness classes are included in this package as well. I took a yoga class and a Pure Barre class on my cruise that would have cost $30 each a la carte! I’d highly recommend upgrading to the Princess Plus package if you plan to use wifi on your cruise and have one or two drinks per day, or even just drink a lot of soda or specialty coffees. I am not a big drinker generally, and on most cruise lines it is not worth it to me to purchase the beverage packages; but on Princess there are so many other benefits to the Plus package that it was well worth the $60 per day!

Princess Premier

The top tier package offered is Princess Premier, which costs $90 per person per day. This package also includes gratuities, room service, and OceanNow delivery, just like the Princess Plus package. The wifi MedallionNet Max package that comes with Premier allows you to use up to 4 devices at once, which can certainly come in handy if you have to use a laptop for work and your phone (like me)! The Premier beverage package comes with the same drinks as the Plus, as well as cocktails of up to $20 and premium liquors, and is unlimited (unlike the 15 per day on the Plus package). Specialty desserts are also unlimited with this package, which means that the unlimited fitness classes will come in handy. Premier also comes with unlimited casual dining and specialty dining, so again, be sure to ask your MMT agent which casual and specialty restaurants will be on your ship and make reservations as soon as possible to take advantage of this benefit! Reserved seating for shows is included as well, and so are “Princess Prizes,” a program where you may find a special surprise waiting for you as you exit your room in the morning! Perhaps the biggest added benefit of Premier versus Plus (other than the specialty restaurant dining), is the addition of a photo package. The Premier photo package allows you unlimited downloads of any photos taken by the ship’s professional photographers, plus 3 prints to take home with you. If you are planning on purchasing a photo package anyway and trying all of the specialty dining restaurants onboard, this Premier package will be worth the upcharge over the Plus package!

Still unsure which is the right package for you? Reach out to Angela to ask for details about how much each of these package elements would cost a la carte—and if you don’t have a travel agent yet, reach out to us at All In Vacay to get connected with an agent specializing in Princess Cruises today!