⚓ Measured, not quoted

What a Cruise Costs Per Night, by Line

Every night we price cruises ourselves, all four cabin grades. This is what they actually cost across 21 lines and 877 sailings, per person with taxes and port fees included. Updated September 22, 2026.

A balcony runs about $148 a night on Carnival and about $657 a night on Viking River. Those are not brochure rates or sale prices: they are the median of what the cabin actually sold for on every sailing we priced, per person with taxes and port fees included, measured on September 22, 2026.

Is booking late cheaper? Of the 199 cruises leaving within 21 days that still had a balcony or suite to sell and a price to compare against, 40% were at least 10% below the book-ahead price, 18% were within 10% of it, and 42% cost more per night than booking the same cruise months ahead. "Up to 50% off" is a slogan; this is the distribution.

Median price per person, per night

Sailings departing more than 21 days from now, so this is the price a planner pays. The small number is how many sailings stand behind each figure; a dash means we have priced fewer than five of that grade on that line so far.

Cruise lineInsideOcean viewBalconySuite
Seabourn $1,085 6
Regent $975 6
Silversea $962 6
Avalon $913 8
Azamara $876 5
Viking River $657 10 $1,071 7
AmaWaterways $650 12 $1,007 10
Oceania $510 8 $727 8
Viking Ocean $450 8 $893 6
Disney $321 19 $356 19 $417 19 $881 17
Virgin $169 5 $199 5 $229 5 $522 5
Holland America $181 9 $205 9 $229 7 $313 6
Celebrity $164 14 $193 14 $228 13 $683 15
Princess $135 12 $198 8 $210 12 $263 12
Norwegian $126 28 $142 25 $201 28 $222 28
Royal Caribbean $140 41 $166 41 $200 41 $347 38
Cunard $136 6 $195 6
MSC Cruises $113 27 $145 27 $171 28 $253 24
Costa $103 8 $137 8 $165 8 $239 5
Carnival $88 33 $104 33 $148 33 $236 31
Windstar $566 5

How this is measured

We price the cruises ourselves. Every sailing leaving a North American port within 21 days is priced every night, all four cabin grades; the rest of the catalogue is priced on a rolling schedule, sooner departures more often. Nothing here comes from a brochure, a press release or a supplier's "from" price.

What the number is. The median per-person, per-night price for that line and grade, taxes and port fees included, across sailings departing beyond the 21-day window. The median rather than the average, so one world cruise cannot move a line.

What it is not. Not a brochure rate, not a strike-through, not a member price, not what you will pay on any one sailing. Cruise length moves the per-night price a long way: a three-night weekend costs far more per night than a fourteen-night repositioning on the same ship, and a line whose ships mostly sail long itineraries reads cheaper here for that reason alone.

It gets sharper daily. The count beside each figure grows every night as the rolling schedule works through the catalogue, and the figures move with the market rather than with a publishing calendar.

Today’s deals against these prices → Watch a fare →