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What a "free" cruise actually costs
I sail on comp offers several times a year and I love them. But nobody hands you a free holiday, and the gap between "free cruise" and "free" is worth understanding before you book.
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A free casino cruise offer covers the cabin only. Taxes, port fees and daily gratuities are normally still charged per person, along with flights, parking and anything bought onboard. Offers typically cover two guests in an inside cabin, restrict which sailings qualify, and carry an expiry date.
A casino offer lands in your email and it says free cruise. What it means is free cabin. Those are not the same sentence, and the difference is where people get caught.
This is not a reason to turn them down. I take these offers constantly and they are the best value in cruising. It is a reason to open the terms before you get excited, so the number at the end is the number you expected.
What the offer usually does not cover
| Taxes and port fees | Charged per person, and on a longer itinerary with several ports they are not trivial |
|---|---|
| Gratuities | Daily, per person, for the whole sailing. Our gratuities page has the published daily rates by line and cabin type. |
| Getting there | Flights, the hotel the night before, parking at the port. On a comped cruise this is often the largest single number. |
| Everything onboard | Drinks, Wi-Fi, specialty dining, excursions, the spa, photos |
| Travel insurance | Your cabin being free does not make your trip cancellation-proof. See the six-hour rule. |
The lines publish their casino certificate and promotion terms, and those documents are where the real answer lives for your specific offer. They are linked at the foot of this page. Read the one that belongs to your line, not a summary from someone on the internet — including mine.
Before you accept an offer, check these five things
- Who is covered. Many offers cover you and one guest. A third person in the cabin usually is not free.
- Which cabin grade. An inside cabin is the usual free unit. Upgrades are priced, sometimes steeply.
- Which sailings. Offers are often restricted to particular dates, ships or regions, and the good weeks get excluded first.
- What the deposit is, and whether it comes back.
- The expiry date. Write it on a calendar the day the offer arrives.
Mine is not overspending onboard. Mine is letting offers expire.
I get more free cruise offers than I can physically take. For the last couple of years I have been sailing two or three times a year on them, and I am trying to get that up to about six — not out of greed, but because watching a free cruise expire because the dates did not work is genuinely painful, and I have done it more times than I want to admit.
Rather not do the sums by hand? The decoder fills in this worksheet for you and gives you a verdict.
The true-cost worksheet
| Cost | Usually covered by a casino offer? | Your estimate |
|---|---|---|
| Cruise fare | Yes | $0 |
| Taxes, fees and port expenses | No | $ |
| Gratuities | No, unless the offer says so | $ |
| Drinks package | No, unless you earned one | $ |
| Wi-Fi | No, unless your tier includes it | $ |
| Travel insurance | No | $ |
| Flights | No | $ |
| Hotel the night before | No, unless a partner offer covers it | $ |
| Gas and port parking, if driving | No | $ |
| Single supplement, if sailing alone | Depends on the offer | $ |
| A second guest's fare | Depends on the offer | $ |
| Your casino budget | No | $ |
| Total | $ |
Compare the total with the regular fare for the same cruise. If you were not going to sail anyway, compare it with what you would otherwise spend on a holiday.
What it costs me
On a casino offer I typically pay only a couple of hundred dollars a cruise in taxes and fees, plus my casino budget. The offer I earn most often is a balcony for two where I pay only the taxes and fees. Several times a year it is two rooms: a balcony for two plus an inside cabin for two more guests. That is the honest best case, after years of playing to a budget.
So how do you tell if an offer is a good one?
Do the arithmetic on the whole trip, not the cabin. Add taxes and port fees, gratuities for everyone in the cabin, your flights or your drive and parking, one night in a hotel if you need it, and whatever you realistically spend onboard. Then compare that total against what the same sailing would cost you booked normally.
Most of the time the offer still wins comfortably. Occasionally, on a cheap sailing out of a port you have to fly to, it does not — and it is worth knowing which one you are holding.
The bigger question underneath all this
A comped cruise is only free if you were going to gamble anyway. If you do not normally play, sitting down at a machine to earn a free cabin is a very expensive way to book a holiday, and the house is not confused about that.
Bring an amount you have decided in advance you can afford to lose completely, and stop when it is gone. A cruise you paid $1,000 in the casino for is not free — it is entertainment you enjoyed that came with a good side benefit, which is a perfectly fine thing to call it.
If gambling has stopped being fun, or you find yourself chasing losses, the National Problem Gambling Helpline is 1-800-MY-RESET (1-800-697-3738), with call, text and chat 24/7.
Questions I get asked
Are taxes and port fees really not included?
On most casino offers, no. Check your own offer's terms, because they vary by line and by promotion.
Can I put a third person in the cabin?
Usually yes, and usually not free. The offer will say.
Can I upgrade from the free inside cabin?
Often, for a price. Whether it is a good price depends entirely on the sailing.
Do gratuities get comped too?
Sometimes, on higher tiers. Do not assume it — look for it in writing.
What happens if I book and then cannot sail?
That depends on the offer's own terms and on whether you insured the trip. It is the question people ask after the fact, and the one to ask before.
How the offers are generated in the first place — and the experiment I ran on it — is in how the free cruise offers actually work. The published tier programmes are on our casino and comps page.
Gambling should stay fun. If it isn't, free and confidential help is there 24/7: call or text 1-800-MY-RESET (1-800-697-3738) or visit 1800myreset.org. Playing safe →
Where these facts come from
- Royal Caribbean, casino certificates terms
- Royal Caribbean, casino promotions terms
- Royal Caribbean, Club Royale rewards
- Celebrity Cruises, Blue Chip Club
- Princess Cruises, Sea You Soon
- National Council on Problem Gambling, helpline
Ports change their rules and their prices. Check the official pages above before you sail.
Independent tours usually cost less than the ship's, and are often run by the very same local operator. For the most peace of mind, book with Shore Excursions Group. It does nothing but cruise excursions and publishes a Return-to-Ship Guarantee: if a delay on one of its tours ever makes you miss the ship, it gets you to the next port and covers your hotel and meals. Want more choices? Viator lists far more tours. There, pick one tagged Worry-Free Shore Excursion, which carries its "Back to Ship Guarantee."
- Shore Excursions Group: 4,500 excursions in 300+ ports; non-refundable from 14 days before the tour
- Viator: 400,000+ experiences; full refund on most if cancelled 24 hours ahead
- Viator's Back to Ship Guarantee covers Worry-Free tagged tours only
Affiliate link: we may earn a commission if you book, at no extra cost to you. How excursion booking works.
Search your comped sailing excursionsMore your comped sailing tours on ViatorYour cruise, sorted
Ready to plan the fun part?
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If stairs, gangways and tenders are a problem, there is a whole section of this site for you. Sails Anyway covers accessible and limited-mobility cruising properly instead of squeezing it into a paragraph: what each pier actually asks of you, which tender ports are a problem and why, the special-needs forms and the deadlines that catch people out, and how to choose a cabin you can move around in.
About the "I" on this page. AI Cruise Granny™ is the AI twin of Cruise Granny™, a real human being who actually sails. Every experience written here in the first person is hers. The AI twin is what writes it up, checks the facts against official sources and keeps it current. We tell you that openly on every page, because you should know who is talking to you. More about how this works.