Norwegian Cruise Line go ALL INCLUSIVE

You may well have seen that Norwegian Cruise Line announced this week that as of 6th April, any booking made on any ship to any destination would now be All Inclusive. That’s all your drinks included as well as service charges!

This is great news for those that like to have a drinks package and have everything paid for up front. Maybe not so much for those that don’t drink though. I know on the occasions that I’ve had a drinks package, I’ve not got through anywhere near as much as the package would have cost me had it not been included ‘free’ on the promotion I booked on.

One of the few alcoholic drinks I had on NCL Epic – Espresso Martini – my favourite (it does contain coffee after all!)

I tend to live on coffee and bottled water and do get through a lot. The last cruise I did, I think I had maybe two or three alcoholic drinks during the 8 night cruise. Therefore, for me, it wouldn’t ever be worth paying for a drinks package. It is handy when it’s offered free to not have to pay for bottled water and speciality coffee (on those cruise lines that include these items in their package – not all do!).

One thing I’ve noticed though is that NCL’s prices, on the day this new way of them selling started, all increased quite a lot! (They say nothing in life is ever free!).

It’ll be interesting to see if other cruise lines follow suit – the majority of them have been offering ‘free’ drinks packages as part of their early booking promotions (Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, Holland America and even Oceania have all offered them at some point).

The cruise world is definitely changing – first we had RCI start the ball rolling with ensuring that the earlier you book, the better deal you get (no one thought they’d stick with it but they did and now most of the other cruise lines have followed in their footsteps!) and now we have NCL leading the way with standard (as in not 6*, most of which already include drinks anyway) cruises being all inclusive.

What do you think? Are you happy that you now have an all-in cost and don;t have to worry about additional expenses onboard or do you feel you’re now paying for other people to drink?