Is Princess Premier Worth It? I Tracked Every Drink and Dinner for 7 Nights

You know the math I mean. You’re three cocktails in on a sea day, someone suggests a fourth, and a little accountant in the back of your head starts whispering: are we winning yet? On a cruise with a drinks-and-dining package, that whisper never fully shuts up.

So on our 7-night Alaska cruise, Royal Princess, Seattle round-trip, two of us, I decided to actually answer it. I built a little tracker I called The Premier Waterline: log every drink and specialty meal as you go, add the fixed value you’re getting whether you order anything or not, and watch the total rise toward the break-even line like water filling a hull.

Here’s the honest ending: we finished at $1,326 of value against a $1,400 package, 95%, technically $74 short. And it was still, clearly, worth it. Let me show you why the number that looks like a loss is actually a win.

What Princess Premier actually costs

We paid for Premier at $100 per person, per day, $100 × 7 nights × 2 people = $1,400. For that, the headline inclusions were:

• Drinks up to a per-item cap (Premier’s is the higher one)
• MedallionNet Wi-Fi (multiple devices)
• Crew appreciation (i.e. gratuities, the daily tip that’s otherwise added to your folio)
• Specialty dining and a stack of extras (premium photos, reserved theater seating, premium desserts, fitness classes)

Hold onto two of those, Wi-Fi and gratuities, because they’re the whole trick to answering “is it worth it.”

The reframe: break-even is the wrong scoreboard

Here’s what almost every “is Premier worth it” breakdown gets wrong. They line up the sticker price against how much you drank, and if you didn’t out-drink the package, they call it a loss.

But look at what’s inside the package. For our sailing, the gratuities and Wi-Fi came to about $609 of value, roughly $87 a day for the two of us, and here’s the thing: we’d have paid both of those on any sailing, package or not. Crew appreciation gets added to your bill whether you buy a package or not. Wi-Fi on a week at sea is a given. That $609 isn’t a gamble you’re trying to win back, it’s money moved from one line item to another.

So strip it out. Once you set aside the $609 you were always going to spend, the real contest is much smaller: does the drinking and dining justify the remaining ~$791? That’s the only number worth tracking. And that’s what the Waterline actually measures.

The week, day by day

Every day I logged what we ordered at menu value, cocktails, specialty covers, the odd charged extra, and added the $87/day of fixed value. Here’s how the water rose:

Day	Where	Ordered	+ Fixed	Running
1 · Fri	Seattle (embark), Alfredo’s	$140	$87	$227
2 · Sat	At sea, Crown Grill	$164	$87	$478
3 · Sun	Juneau, port day	$103	$87	$668
4 · Mon	Skagway, early ashore, Concerto dinner	$41	$87	$796
5 · Tue	Glacier Bay, Sabatini’s	$150	$87	$1,033
6 · Wed	Ketchikan, Ocean Terrace sushi, gelato	$22	$87	$1,142
7 · Thu	Victoria, dinner ashore	$97	$87	$1,326

Totals: $717 ordered · $609 locked-in · 2 specialty dinners · ~43 drinks · $1,326 of $1,400.

You can see the shape of it. The sea days and specialty nights (Days 2 and 5) are where the water jumps. The port-heavy days dip hard, Skagway was $41, Ketchikan just $22, and that’s not us underusing the package. That’s a good day in Skagway: off the ship for the expensive hours, back aboard for a lovely free dining-room dinner. Premier doesn’t need you on board drinking to earn out. It needs the sea days and the specialty nights, and a port-heavy Alaska run gives you both.

What the Waterline taught me

Four things surfaced that I’d never have noticed without logging every line.

1. Specialty dinners are the engine. One Crown Grill or Sabatini’s cover runs about $45 a head, worth roughly six cocktails. Our two specialty nights did more for the total than any single day of drinking. If you have Premier, book specialty dining early and often; it’s the fastest water in the hull.

2. The “free” venues are traps for the tally, not the stomach. The buffet, the International Café, the main dining room, room-service food, all excellent, all counting $0 toward break-even. Eat there happily. Just don’t expect them to move the number. Some of our best meals were free ones; they simply live on a different ledger.

3. Watch the fine print, Premier has edges. A few things still posted to our folio despite the package: liter bottles of water, à-la-carte sushi rolls at Ocean Terrace, gelato, and the balcony breakfast. None of it is a scandal, it’s just where the surprises hide. If you’re tracking to the dollar, know that “all-inclusive” has seams.

4. Break-even was never really the point. We came $74 short of the sticker on paper. But the actual return on Premier wasn’t a number, it was a week where the bill was never once a question. Order the second coffee. Say yes to the fourth drink. Try the dinner. No mental accountant, all week. That freedom is worth more than $74, and most of the package was fixed value we’d have paid anyway. On the only scoreboard that counts, Premier paid in full.

Princess Plus vs. Premier, which should you get?

We chose Premier, and I’d choose it again for an Alaska cruise. But Princess Plus is the cheaper tier, and for a lot of people it’s the smarter buy. The rough shape (inclusions shift year to year, so confirm the current grid on Princess’s site before booking):

	Plus (cheaper)	Premier (what we had)
Price, per person/day	lower	~$100
Drink limit per item	lower cap	higher cap
Wi-Fi	fewer devices	more devices
Crew appreciation (gratuities)	included	included
Specialty dining	a couple of meals	more meals + premium extras
Extras	fitness, desserts, delivery	photos package, reserved theater, more

Get Premier if you love the specialty restaurants, order the higher-end cocktails, want Wi-Fi on several devices, and, honestly, value not thinking about the bill. On a sea-day-and-specialty-night sailing, it earns its keep.

Get Plus if you’re a lighter drinker, happy with the (excellent) free dining, and just want gratuities and Wi-Fi bundled without the premium extras. You’ll bank the difference and barely notice.

Skip both if you rarely drink and won’t touch specialty dining, pay gratuities and Wi-Fi à la carte and keep your money.

Is Princess Premier worth it? FAQ

Is the Princess Premier package worth it?
For us, yes, even finishing at 95% of the sticker. Most of the package (Wi-Fi + gratuities) is value you’d pay anyway, and the specialty dining plus never-check-a-bill freedom cleared the rest. If you’ll use the specialty restaurants and drink mid-range or up, it pays off.

Does Premier include gratuities?
Yes, crew appreciation is bundled in, which is a meaningful chunk of the value (it’s otherwise added to your folio daily).

What’s the difference between Princess Plus and Premier?
Premier has higher drink caps, more Wi-Fi devices, more specialty dining, and premium extras (photos, reserved theater). Plus covers the essentials, drinks, Wi-Fi, gratuities, for less.

How many drinks do you need to break even on Premier?
Fewer than you’d think if you use specialty dining, because a ~$45 dinner cover is worth about six cocktails. We hit 95% of sticker with ~43 drinks and two specialty dinners across the week, and the specialty nights did the heavy lifting.

Do you still get charged for anything with Premier?
Yes, a few things slip through: liter waters, à-la-carte sushi rolls, gelato, and specialty breakfasts like the balcony breakfast. Watch those if you’re counting closely.

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Sailing the same route? Here’s where the rest of our money went, the excursions, what to do in each Alaska port, and the carry-on-only packing list that got us through two climates. And if you build your own Waterline, tell me where yours landed, I’m permanently curious.

The rest of the Alaska cruise series

This one is part of my Alaska cruise series, here is everything else I put together from our July sailing:

• What to Pack for an Alaska Cruise: A 10-Day Capsule, the full layer-by-layer capsule
• 2 Days in Seattle Before an Alaska Cruise, the perfect pre-cruise itinerary
• What to Do in Each Alaska Cruise Port, Juneau to Victoria, day by day
• Best Alaska Cruise Excursions, what we booked and what we skipped
• The Best Binoculars & Cameras for an Alaska Cruise
• Alaska Cruise Formal Night Outfits, what to actually wear on formal nights
• What to Pack in Your Cruise Carry-On, the embarkation-day bag