How much income do you need to afford to take a cruise?
It’s likely less than you think, but we wanted to put a specific number to the answer. The result is that a person with a relatively average should have no issue affording a decent cruise.
Cruises: A Reputation For Being Affordable Vacations
For years cruises have had broad appeal as not only an affordable vacation but also as a great value. In other words, not only are they relatively cheap overall, but you also get a lot for your money.
For instance, Carnival shows four-day cruises starting at under $300 per person (with taxes and fees included) right now. You can even take a 7-day cruise aboard MSC for less than $350 per person according to their website pricing.
In many cases, you can take an entire cruise for less than the cost of airfare to most destinations.
And for that price you can also get a great value. To be sure, most cruises have extra charges for things like alcohol, shore excursions, wi-fi, and some restaurants on the ship. But your cruise fare will always include your room, entertainment on the ship, many meals, and of course transportation from port to port. It is possible to spend extra on the ship, but you can also sail and not spend an extra dime.
You Can Spend As Much Or As Little As You Want
Of course while cruises can be amazingly affordable, they are a vacation that is infinitely customizable. While there are definitely cheap trips, you can also spend as much as you want.
High-end cruises appeal to more affluent passengers and carry higher price tags. Even budget cruise lines still have suites and more luxurious accommodations that can cost thousands. Then there are extras onboard like drink package that add a considerable amount to your trip’s cost.
It’s not an exaggeration that on some cruises one person can spend $1,000 on their vacation while another spends $10,000.
That’s why when it comes to saying how much you need to earn to afford a cruise, it can be a little tricky. Fortunately, there is some publicly available data that can help passengers get a better handle on what it costs to cruise.
Public Filings Offer A Glimpse Into Average Cruise Prices
Many cruise lines are actually part of larger companies. For instance, Royal Caribbean (the cruise line) is part of Royal Caribbean Group, which also includes Silversea and Celebrity Cruises. Carnival is part of Carnival Corporation that encompasses names like Princess and Costa.
These companies are publicly traded, and as such, they are required to share regular investor updates on their business. That includes data about revenue, onboard spending, and passengers carried.
Those figures allow us to see what the average passenger spends. While some things like port spending and onboard spending can vary from passenger to passenger, we can estimate these figures to include in the total cost of the cruise.
Using data from the cruise lines themselves, we recently estimated that passengers sailing a 5-day cruise would spend approximately $1,450 to $2,200 per person when you include cruise fare, onboard spending, gratuities, and port spending. Note that this does not include transportation to the port.
If sailing on a 7-day cruise, then the average price rises to $2,000-$3,000 per person based on our analysis.
How Much Income Do You Need to Cruise?
With an idea of how much a cruise costs, the next question is how much should you actually spend on your vacation given your income?
Searching online, a generally accepted rule of thumb is that a person can budget about 5%-10% of their annual income for vacations.
For a person earning $150,000 per year, that means $7,500 to $15,000 annually on vacations. For a person earning $80,000 per year, it’s in the $4,000 to $8,000 range.
We think that 10% would be too high for those earning lower wages. For instance, if someone was earning just $20,000 per year, that would mean spending $2,000 would be acceptable. To us, 5% of your income on vacations seems more reasonable.
Given this figure, that means if a person cruising on a 5-day trip spends an average of $1,450 to $2,200 on their vacation, they will need to earn $29,000 to $44,000 to reasonably afford the trip.
A 7-day cruise costing $2,000 to $3,000 per person would need an individual income of $40,000 to $60,000.
For reference, the median household income in the United States is $80,610.
Remember: Cruise Fares Vary Widely (Making Them More Affordable)
What stands out about these figures is that they are relatively reasonable. For a classic 7-day cruise, earning $40,000 a year — a relatively modest salary by most standards — is enough to sail.
But if you earn less, or you want to save money, then you can do that easily. Remember, these estimates are based on average cruise fares. However, you can spend considerably less. As explained at the start, there are cruises that start for just a few hundred dollars. And you also have total control over how much you spend once on the ship.
In other words, if you want to cruise and live it up, then you can do so with a salary that’s not out of reach for most. But even if you make less, there’s still an opportunity for you to sail.
