Are Celebrity Cruises All Inclusive?

There’s a bit of confusion about whether Celebrity Cruises is an all-inclusive cruise line. And that’s because, for a while, it was.

Well, not completely ‘all-inclusive’ despite how they marketed it – there were some things you did still need to pay for. But you could certainly call the cruises ‘more inclusive’.

Things have changed, though, and now, not every Celebrity cruise will be all-inclusive.

Let’s take a look at what’s included as standard, what you have to pay for, and your options for making your Celebrity cruise all-inclusive.

Are Celebrity Cruises All-Inclusive?

Celebrity Cruises are not all-inclusive, although you have the option to upgrade your cruise fare to include drinks and Wi-Fi. Not all drinks will be included if you do choose this package, and you’ll still need to pay for shore excursions too, along with tips.

This package was, for a time, included on every cruise fare under the marketing tagline “Always Included”. 

That pricing model was first introduced in 2020 and ran for two years. But then in 2022, the cruise line moved to reintroduce ‘cruise-only’ fares.

At the same time, Celebrity Cruises has removed the option to book Indulge and Elevate packages, instead allowing guests to upgrade individual elements of their cruise.

You can still choose to pay for the all-inclusive upgrade, but it’s the basic one only – with a Classic Drinks Package and Basic WiFi included. And depending on your stateroom choice, you might get them included regardless.

It did include tips, too, but that changed in October 2023. Your beverage gratuities are included, but your daily gratuities are no longer covered.

Confused? I don’t blame you. Let’s take a closer look at your options…

1. Simply Sail: Celebrity’s Cruise-Only Fare

Available on all sailings going forward, Celebrity’s Simply Sail fare is the cruise-only option. This lets passengers book a cruise without paying for extras that they might not want – it’s just a standard cruise.

If you’re not someone who tends to drink a lot on your cruise, and you aren’t too bothered about connecting to the internet while you’re at sea, a Simply Sail cruise could be your best option. The fare will be lower, meaning you aren’t paying for services that you wouldn’t otherwise use.

Here’s what you get included if you choose a Simply Sail fare:

• All live entertainment on the cruise ship
• Dining in the Main Dining Room and buffet restaurants
• Room service between 6 am and 11 pm
• Tea, coffee, lemonade, juice, fruit punch and still water in the buffet restaurant (available 24 hours a day)
• Still water provided on your table in the Main Dining Room

And here’s what you have to pay extra for if you book a Simply Sail fare:

• Any drinks beyond the free options in the buffet restaurant
• Meals in speciality dining restaurants
• WiFi access
• Gratuities
• Room service between 11 pm and 6 am ($4.95 service charge)
• Shore excursions
• Any purchases you make in the onboard stores
• Any medical treatments required onboard
• Travel insurance

Of those, the only things that you have to pay for are gratuities and travel insurance. Everything else is optional. 

It’s absolutely doable to enjoy an amazing Celebrity cruise holiday without paying for anything else on top of your Simply Sail fare if you aren’t someone who drinks alcohol, speciality coffees or sodas. And if you can live without wifi while at sea.

2. All Included Cruise Fare

With any stateroom on a Celebrity cruise, you can choose to upgrade to an All Included fare. If you do, then you get three perks added to your cruise:

1. Classic Drinks Package
2. Basic WiFi
3. Drinks gratuities

The Classic Drinks Package includes all drinks up to the value of $10 on board. If you want to buy a drink that’s more expensive, you get $10 knocked off the price – you only pay the difference. You also get 15% off the cost of any wine bought by the bottle.

There are a lot of drinks that you can get on a Celebrity cruise for less than $10, so the package is worthwhile. You can enjoy a wide selection of beer, wine by the glass, a selection of spirits, cocktails made using the spirits included in this package, and most soft drinks.

The value of the drinks package when bought alone starts from $69 per person, per day.

Read more: Celebrity Cruises Drinks Packages

Basic WiFi is, as the name suggests, pretty basic. This is the lower WiFi package offered by Celebrity and lets you browse the internet, check your emails, and use messaging apps to stay in touch with people at home.

But you won’t be able to do anything that uses a lot of bandwidth, and that includes uploading photos to your social media. For that, you’d need to upgrade.

The Basic WiFi package used to cost from $20 per person per day, though it’s no longer available as a standalone package. You can only get it with the All Included fare.

Your tips are no longer included on an All Included fare – you’ll need to pay for these separately.

What Isn’t Included With A Celebrity All Included Fare?

Here’s a list of everything that you still need to pay for if you book a Celebrity cruise with an All Included fare:

• Tips
• Meals in speciality dining restaurants
• WiFi if you wish to upgrade to Premium
• Room service between 11 pm and 6 am ($4.95 service charge)
• Shore excursions
• Any purchases you make in the onboard stores
• Any medical treatments required on-board
• Travel insurance

Again, most of these are optional extras so you could book an All Included fare and not pay a penny more if you didn’t want to, expect for the tips, but it does make it clear that ‘All Included’ is not really all-inclusive.

How Much Does All Included Cost?

The cost to upgrade your cruise fare to All Included varies depending on your sailing, but roughly you should expect to pay around $80 per person, per night. It still works out better value than paying for your drinks and WiFi separately.

Whether or not it’s good value depends on how much you’ll use the WiFi or whether you want the drinks. If you think that you won’t use the WiFi and you’ll spend less than $65 or so on drinks, then it’s probably better to book a cruise-only fare and pay for your tips separately, then buy your drinks individually.

Bear in mind that you can’t book the Basic Wi-Fi package separately though, so you’d have to pay for Wi-Fi, starting at $26.99 per day.

Read more: Celebrity Cruises Aqua Class Benefits

Premium All Included

Guests who book a suite in The Retreat get a Premium version of the All Included package. This used to be referred to as the Indulge Package, although it seems like Celebrity has moved away from that name now.

Here’s what you get if you book a suite in The Retreat:

• Premium Drinks Package
• Premium WiFi
• On-board Credit

The Premium Drinks Package lets you enjoy all drinks up to the value of $17, so you get a much wider choice of beers, wines and spirits along with sparkling wines, premium bottled water and more. And again, you only pay the difference on drinks costing more than $17.

The Premium Drinks Package normally costs from $84 per person, per day.

Premium WiFi allows you to do most things you want to online, including uploading photos, video calling your family, or using streaming services like Netflix and Hulu Plus (if you have your own subscription). 

The speeds are still not incredible – cruise ship WiFi never is – so you might not be able to stream videos in high quality, but it should be fine if you’re just watching something on your phone in bed.

Premium WiFi normally costs $35 per person, per day.

And the extra benefit you get is onboard credit, which you can use however you want to on the ship – for shore excursions, speciality dining, or in the stores.

The amount can vary but is usually up to $300 per person for the cruise.

Even with the Premium All Included package, you still don’t have a fully all-inclusive cruise as you’ll need to pay for (if you want these):

• Tips
• Meals in speciality dining restaurants
• Room service between 11 pm and 6 am ($4.95 service charge)
• Shore excursions
• Any purchases you make in the onboard stores
• Any medical treatments required onboard
• Travel insurance

However, you at least get an onboard credit amount to put towards some of these. You can’t use onboard credit for medical treatments or travel insurance.

Final Word

While not all inclusive by default, you can make your Celebrity Cruise all inclusive by choosing one of the upgraded fares. But remember that even when you pay for an All Included fare, your Celebrity cruise holiday is not completely all-inclusive.

You do now get more control though. Celebrity Cruises hasn’t removed the benefits while keeping the pricing the same. You now have more flexibility to choose a fare that suits you – paying less if you won’t drink a lot, or use the WiFi.

But if you do intend to enjoy a lot of alcoholic drinks, sodas or speciality coffees and you do want to chat to people at home, definitely go with an All Included fare instead of paying for everything separately.

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