Is Carnival's CHEERS! Package Worth It? The Real Break-Even Math

CHEERS! is the most debated $70 on a Carnival ship — partly because it does not actually cost $70. Here is the real price, the exact break-even, and the fine print that decides it for most couples.

The Quick Verdict

CHEERS! is worth it if both adults in your cabin drink about 5 cocktails a day, every day of the cruise — including port days.

CHEERS! is not worth it if one of you drinks lightly, or your honest average is 2–3 drinks a day — paying per drink wins by hundreds of dollars.

The full math is below. If you would rather skip to your own numbers, the Drink Package Calculator runs this comparison for your actual habits.

What CHEERS! Actually Costs

The advertised price is $69.95 per person, per day if you buy before the cruise, and $74.95 if you buy on the ship. Neither number is what you pay: Carnival adds a 20% service charge on top:

Rates checked October 16, 2026 · Carnival Cruise Line

Buying before you sail saves $6 a day — $42 per person, $84 per couple, over a week.

Now the multiplier that catches couples out: if one adult in the cabin buys CHEERS!, every other adult (21+) in that cabin must buy it too. Not a cheaper package instead — CHEERS! itself. So for two adults on a 7-night cruise, the decision is not $588. It is $1,175.16 ($83.94 × 7 nights × 2 people). Keep that number in mind through everything below — it is the one the math has to beat.

(See where it fits in the full trip budget in our breakdown of how much a cruise costs.)

The Break-Even Math

To judge the package fairly, compare like with like. Drinks bought one at a time also carry the 20% service charge, so a $14 cocktail really costs $16.80 by the glass. Here is what it takes, per person, per day, to match the $83.94 pre-cruise price:

Five cocktails a day lands at $84.00 — six cents past break-even. The package was clearly priced by someone who did this exact arithmetic.

Wait until you are on board to buy, and the bar rises: at $89.94 a day, break-even becomes 6 cocktails, 7 glasses of wine or 10 beers a day.

Two honest adjustments to this table:

• Mixing helps. You do not need one drink type to carry the whole day. Four cocktails and two beers come to $86.40 by the glass — past break-even. Three cocktails and three beers come to $79.20 — short.
• The non-alcoholic drinks count too. CHEERS! also covers specialty coffees, bottled water, energy drinks and sodas (details below). Every one you would have bought anyway lowers the alcohol count you need. A heavy coffee drinker might break even at 3–4 alcoholic drinks a day.

And one adjustment in the other direction: break-even has to happen every day of the cruise, not on average across your best days. The package charges for all of them — sea days and port days alike.

What CHEERS! Includes (and What It Does Not)

One genuine strength of CHEERS! is that it reaches well past the bar:

Included:

• All spirits, cocktails, beer and wine by the glass with a menu price of $20 or less
• A 25% discount on drinks over $20, on wine and champagne by the bottle, and on beverage classes
• Soda, zero-proof frozen cocktails, energy drinks, specialty coffee and hot tea
• 500ml bottled water and other non-alcoholic bottled drinks — all unlimited (the cap below is alcohol only)
• Milkshakes

Not included:

• Bottles of liquor
• Drinks in souvenir glasses
• Sharing cocktails, floaters, pitchers, tubes and buckets of beer
• Anything from room service, the minibar or gangway sellers
• Food items

The Catches That Decide It

The break-even table is the sales pitch. These rules are the fine print — where the package actually wins or loses for most people.

1. The both-adults rule. Covered above, but it deserves its own line because it doubles the bet: the lighter drinker in your cabin has to clear the same break-even as you. There is no cheaper substitute — the second adult cannot buy the soda or zero-proof package instead; Carnival's terms require CHEERS! itself. If your travel partner drinks two glasses of wine a day, their $588 half of the package is buying about $200 of wine.

2. The 15-drink cap. CHEERS! allows up to 15 alcoholic drinks per 24 hours, counted from 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m. Hit fifteen and you cannot buy more alcohol at any price — the cap is a cap, not just the end of the included ones. Fifteen is a lot, and most people never touch it, but it means the package cannot pay for itself past a point no matter how hard anyone tries. Carnival also states plainly that the 15 is a maximum, not an entitlement — crew can slow or stop service to any guest they judge impaired.

3. Port days are full-price package days. You pay $83.94 for the day you spend eight hours ashore in Cozumel, exactly as you do for a sea day. On a port-heavy 7-night itinerary with three or four stops, that is $250–$335 of package bought for days you are mostly not on the ship. Evening drinks back on board count — but most people drink less after an 8 a.m. excursion day.

4. CHEERS! does not work at Carnival's private destinations. The package is ship-only. Drinks at Celebration Key, RelaxAway Half Moon Cay and Princess Cays are all à la carte, charged to your account at menu prices — so the beach day many people picture as peak package value is the one day it does nothing at all.

5. Some sailings start a day late. On cruises departing from New York, Texas (Galveston) and Norfolk, Virginia, CHEERS! does not activate until 6:00 a.m. on Day 2, due to local liquor rules. Drinks on embarkation day are on you.

6. The refund window is narrow. You can cancel CHEERS! for a refund up until 10:00 p.m. ET the night before departure. After that it is non-refundable and non-transferable — and there are no refunds for individual days you end up not using, whatever the reason.

7. Small print, small charges. In U.S. ports, local sales tax can be charged per drink on your folio even with the package. Pocket change per drink, but a surprise if you expected a bill of exactly zero.

Who Comes Out Ahead, and Who Loses Money

CHEERS! usually wins for:

• Two adults who both drink steadily — think 4–6 drinks each on a normal day, not just on sail-away day
• Cocktail and wine drinkers (higher per-drink prices clear break-even fastest)
• Heavy specialty-coffee, energy-drink and bottled-water drinkers, whose non-alcoholic spending quietly does part of the work
• Sea-day-heavy itineraries, where the ship is the entertainment

CHEERS! usually loses for:

• Mixed couples — one real drinker, one light drinker. The both-adults rule makes this the single most common way the package loses money
• Beer-only drinkers: nine beers a day, every day, is a commitment most people make exactly once, on day one, in the sun
• Port-heavy itineraries and private-island days, where the package sits unused ashore
• Anyone whose honest count is 2–3 drinks a day. At three cocktails a day, paying by the glass costs $352.80 for the week — the package costs $587.58. That is $234.78 paid purely for convenience

If some of these surprise fees are new to you, our guide to hidden cruise fees lists the rest of the charges that never make the advertised price — and our cruise gratuities guide covers the other daily charge every Carnival guest pays.

Not Drinking? Carnival Sells Two Packages for That, Too

CHEERS! gets the billboard, but a lot of cabins are really asking a different question: what does the non-drinker buy? Carnival's answer is two alcohol-free packages, and — this is the part nobody advertises — they play by noticeably friendlier rules than CHEERS! itself. Prices below are Carnival's own published rates, checked on carnival.com in October 2026.

CHEERS! Zero Proof — $29.99 per person, per day, plus the same 20% service charge: $35.99 a day, all in. It covers sodas, standard juices, 500ml bottled waters (still, sparkling and coconut), premium coffees and teas, zero-proof cocktails, frozen drinks, smoothies, protein shakes, coffee-shop milkshakes and energy drinks — and, for guests 21 and over, alcohol-free beer and sparkling wine. The rules are where it gets interesting: it is sold for the whole cruise only and it is non-transferable, but there is no minimum age, and Carnival's official page does not impose the everyone-in-the-cabin rule that makes CHEERS! so expensive for mixed cabins — each person can decide alone. Two honest limits: it works on board only, not at Celebration Key, and it is non-refundable after 10:00 p.m. ET on the evening before departure. One transparency note: Carnival's own page confirms the $29.99 price and publishes no separate onboard price, so treat the higher onboard figures floating around third-party sites as unconfirmed.

Bottomless Bubbles — $11.99 per adult, per day; $6.95 per child, per day. Add the 20% service charge and the real prices are $14.39 and $8.34 a day. For that you get unlimited Coca-Cola sodas by the 16oz glass and juices by the 10oz glass. No coffee, no mocktails, no bottled water — it is a soda card, and it knows it. It is sold both before the cruise and on board.

And the caveat that decides it for mixed cabins, one more time: neither package can substitute for CHEERS! under the both-adults rule. If one adult in your cabin buys CHEERS!, every other adult still has to buy CHEERS! itself. Zero Proof shines in cabins where nobody is buying the alcohol package. Carnival built a sensible solo package and then fenced it off from the couples who would use it most — the pricing games are not subtle, but at least they are consistent.

Cheaper Alternatives, With Real Numbers

Skipping CHEERS! does not mean paying full bar prices all week. The realistic options:

• Just pay by the glass. At 2 cocktails a day, a 7-night cruise costs $235.20 per person — less than half the package. This is the right answer for most light-to-moderate drinkers, and it has no rules at all.
• Bottomless Bubbles (soda package). $11.99 per adult per day — $14.39 with the service charge ($6.95 per child, $8.34 all in), for unlimited soda by the glass and juices. It feels like the natural substitute for the cabin's non-drinker — but it does not satisfy the both-adults rule if the other adult buys CHEERS!.
• Zero Proof package. Carnival's alcohol-free package runs $29.99 a day — $35.99 with the service charge — and covers mocktails, alcohol-free beer and wine, milkshakes, smoothies, specialty coffee, bottled water and energy drinks (full rundown in the section above). A good deal for a non-drinker — but the same caveat applies: it cannot replace CHEERS! for the second adult in the cabin.
• Bring wine from home. Carnival lets each guest 21+ carry on one sealed 750ml bottle of wine or champagne in hand luggage on embarkation day (no beer, no liquor, no fortified wines like Port or Sherry). Drink it in your cabin and it costs you the price of the bottle. Have it opened in the main dining room, a specialty restaurant or a bar and there is a $15 corkage fee per bottle. Two adults, two bottles: a couple of genuinely nice glasses of wine across the week for the cost of one bar tab.
• Carry on soda, too. Each guest can also carry on up to a dozen 12oz cans or cartons of non-alcoholic drinks, free.
• The port-day strategy. If you do buy CHEERS!, buy it before the cruise (saves $84 per couple per week). And if your itinerary is four ports and three sea days, run the break-even against the days you will actually be on board — it is much higher than the table above.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many drinks a day do you need to break even on Carnival CHEERS!?

At typical Carnival prices with the 20% service charge counted on both sides: about 5 cocktails, 6 glasses of wine or 9 beers per person, per day — every day of the cruise, port days included. Included coffees, water and sodas lower the alcohol count you need.

Does everyone in the cabin have to buy CHEERS!?

Every adult 21 or older in the stateroom, yes — if one buys it, all must, and it has to be CHEERS! itself, not the soda or Zero Proof package. Carnival's published terms do not list exceptions, so if someone in your cabin genuinely cannot drink, ask Carnival before you book rather than assuming an exception exists.

Does CHEERS! work at Celebration Key or Half Moon Cay?

No. CHEERS! is valid on board the ship only. Drinks at Celebration Key, RelaxAway Half Moon Cay and Princess Cays are charged separately at menu prices.

What is the 15-drink limit on Carnival?

A maximum of 15 alcoholic drinks per 24-hour period, counted 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m. Non-alcoholic drinks are unlimited. After the fifteenth, you cannot purchase more alcohol that day, and crew may cut service earlier at their discretion.

Can you cancel CHEERS! and get a refund?

Yes — until 10:00 p.m. ET the night before departure. After that deadline the package is non-refundable and non-transferable, and unused days during the cruise are not refunded. Pre-purchase closes at 11:59 p.m. ET the night before embarkation.

Is it cheaper to buy CHEERS! before the cruise?

Yes, by $5 a day before the service charge — $83.94 a day versus $89.94 on board, which is $42 per person or $84 per couple on a 7-night cruise. If you have decided to buy it, there is no reason to wait.

The Bottom Line

CHEERS! is a fair product with an unfair presentation. At $83.94 a day per person — and $1,175 for a couple on a 7-night cruise — it is priced so that a steady, cocktail-leaning drinker comes out slightly ahead and everyone else quietly subsidizes them. Neither answer is wrong; the wrong move is guessing.

So do not guess. Run your actual habits — drinks per day, drink types, coffee and soda on top — through our Drink Package Calculator and see which side of the line you land on. Then grab the free Real Cruise Cost Checklist to price the rest of the trip the same honest way, or tell us about your cruise and we will build the full number for you.

Clear costs. More fun. Less work. That is how a drink package should be sold, too.