Cruising was once reserved to those in the affluent wealthy circle. Today it’s open to a much wider audience. The stigma around cruising has slowly disappeared over the last 15 years or so.

Picture the Titanic and all the well to do people who boarded back then. Picture those fortunate ones that cruised with the luxury liners of years ago paying the fare and enjoying the life at sea.

Can you afford not to cruise – The cost of cruising

I’m happy to say that cruising is not kept for the select few and is becoming more and more affordable to the masses than ever before. Don’t get me wrong, some cruise lines and destinations will still set you back a small fortune if you so chose, but many today are so affordable that you simply can not afford NOT to cruise.

I’d like to elaborate a bit more on this and show you with all the figures that I have collated in regards to our cruising lifestyle.

Below is a chart of all our cruises to date (February 2015). It shows the dates cruised, the ships and cruise lines taken. The total cruise cost and then it’s broken down into a per night cost, also taking into consideration the OBC (on board credit).

To keep it consistent, I have converted the USD fares to AUD and used the Australian value throughout.

Hope it makes sense to you.

What does it cost to cruise?

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If you look, you can see that the cruise we took on one of the most prestigious cruise lines and ships, Cunard and the Queen Elizabeth was NOT the most expensive, and by some margin, which just goes to prove that you don’t have to be rich to cruise with Cunard. There is one very clear theme that strikes me in the chart and that is that the Australian prices back in 09, 10 and 2011 were very expensive. With the exception being the Carnival Spirit cruise, the reason being it was a brand new ship coming downunder and some very good early-bird prices were available.

Side note; As at Feb 2nd 2015, almost the same cruise that we took on on the Queen Elizabeth is actually CHEAPER today leaving from Sydney to Tokyo. A balcony cabin is priced at $1979 AUD per person for 15 nights which is $132 per night.

Cheap Cunard cruise from Sydney to Tokyo

Don’t let the totals scare you off, sure it is a large figure, but hey, that is our lifestyle and we live to cruise. When you break it down to the per night cost, you can see how affordable it really is. Compared to staying in a resort or hotel for the same amount of time. Don’t forget, it includes breakfast, lunch and dinner. Your accommodation and entertainment.

A quick note on the accommodation here. On nearly all of our cruises we have stayed in a balcony or verandah cabin, the thing to bear in mind is, that this is certainly not the cheapest type of cabin and you can find them a lot cheaper for an inside or ocean view cabin. So even though the average price of a cruise for us is $140 per night, it could be a lot less when chosing a cheaper cabin, food for thought readers.

As you can see, the prices for our cruises have come down since those early days. There are a number of reasons why that is. Over the years I have become somewhat of a ‘cruise deal detective’ and have honed my skill in snooping out the very best deals. Stay tuned, as in the not so distant future I’m going to reveal my best secret weapons to finding the best cruise deals online.

If you want to read in more detail about some of the cruises that we have taken over the years like the Alaskan back to back cruise on Holland America’s MS Oosterdam or the repositioning cruise on Celebrity Millennium from Japan to Canada. You might even like to read one of the EO cruise ship reviews like the recent review of the Celebrity Infinity cruise 2014.

What ever you plan to do, do it good and enjoy. I’m off now to plan another cruise for the end of 2015.