Recently Princess Cruise Line announced changes to their immensely popular cruise packages. Along with a Princess Plus price increase, and one to the Premier package as well, there are other changes to their benefits.
Pricing Increase
This is the most obvious change and, perhaps, the most expected.
Premiere Package is now $100/person/day (up from $90).
Plus Package is now $65/person/day (up from $60).
However, there’s one more wrinkle to the pricing increase. Princess has a premium for these packages on their newest class of ship, the Sphere Class ships. That means that the Sun Princess and Star Princess will see slightly different pricing.
On Sphere Class ships the new prices are:
Premiere Package is $105/person/day.
Plus Package is $70/person/day.
Benefits Changes
The announcement from Princess highlights the following:
Premier Package will receive a new shore excursion credit. The amount credited will vary by voyage length: $100 (6–9 days), $200 (10–20 days), and up to $300 for voyages of 21+ days. Princess continues to clarify that the Premier Package will still include the unlimited Premier Beverage Package, unlimited casual and specialty dining, four device wi-fi, fees waived for OceanNow® and room service delivery, unlimited digital professional photos, reserved seating for theatrical shows, and daily crew appreciation.
Princess Plus will feature two more casual dining meals per voyage, for a total of four. Once again, Princess clarifies that the package still includes the Plus Beverage Package, single device wi-fi, fees waived for OceanNow® and room service delivery, and daily crew appreciation.
The changes don’t end there though. Princess added, “To make way for these guest-inspired enhancements, select package features with lower usage – such as premium desserts, juice bar access, Medallion shipping, fitness classes, and Princess prizes – will be removed.”
That means that both Plus and Premier are losing those benefits.
Fine Print
Diving into this further, people have caught some very significant changes to the Plus package, in particular. Looking at the benefits page, there’s a big difference in this new program. From the linked page:
What is included in the Plus Beverage Package?
Effective January 14, 2026, the Plus Beverage Package includes beer, spirits, wine by the glass, alcohol and zero-alcohol cocktails up to $15 USD / $22 AUD. All non-alcoholic beverages including fountain sodas, specialty coffees and teas, frappes at Coffee & Cones, and Red Bull energy drinks are also included. In addition, up to 12 bottles of sparkling or still bottled water (500ml or less) are included per day. The package includes the additional benefit of a 25% discount on the following excluded items: all bottles of wine, one-liter bottles of water and canned soda. The Plus Beverage Package may be used on our private islands, all onboard food and beverage venues, and other onboard areas such as the theater or public spaces that offer beverage service. The Plus Beverage Package has a daily limit of 15 beverages over a 24-hour period (i.e. 6 a.m. to 6 a.m.) and includes all beverages mentioned above, excluding sparkling and still bottled water, which do not count toward the 15 beverages limit.
The part underlined above (emphasis mine) is a seismic shift in what this package offered. In the past, soft drinks and coffees did not count toward the 15 beverages a day limit. This puts a big cramp on a lot of people’s cruising style. I don’t know how many non-alcoholic drinks I had each day, but I wasn’t counting them in the past. Now, I’ll have to be counting them out as well.
Using these binoculars, I can see them sneaking in changes!
To be clear, I think that most people will have a hard time hitting the 15 drinks per day limit, but there are plenty of people that will be frustrated by this.
The Premier Package still has unlimited drinks, both alcoholic and non. However, there is another change that affects both plans.
The line “12 bottles of sparkling or still bottled water (500ml or less) are included per day,” appears in both Plus and Premier. This will likely impact fewer cruise goers, than the other changes to beverage counts, but some of us really like our sparkling waters. Previously there was no limit on these beverages, and it really puts this new policy in stark contrast with the approach of Virgin Voyages where every cabin has carafes of still or sparkling water, and ice, provided without limits on quantity.
As of writing, plenty of Princess Cruises customers are already taking notice of the changes on sites like Reddit and Cruise Critic. It almost goes without saying that Netizens are rather salty about these changes mixed with the price increase.
Breakdown
Lost Benefits
- Medallion Shipping – This is where Princess would send your cruise Medallion to your home before the cruise. I don’t think this is a benefit at all. Honestly, it’s more of an inconvenience. It was just one more thing that I had to remember to pack. Now, you just pick your Medallion up at the cruise terminal which takes, approximately, 13.728 seconds. I’m glad they are stopping this.
- “Premium” Desserts – I really didn’t like these things at all, which you can read about here. It was a pain for the staff and slowed things down. They also made a mess. Good riddance!
A Princess Plus price increase isn’t good, but reducing the number of these things is!
- Juice Bar – As of writing, it’s unclear if the juices are just going away or if they are now just an upcharge for everyone, regardless of package. I liked the juice bar, but I recognize it was likely a niche benefit for most people.
- Fitness Classes – I don’t need fitness classes, but a lot of people like them. They are very popular on many cruise lines. When Princess says that most people weren’t using this benefit, I believe them. However, I’m sure the folks that did use it will be really heartbroken over this one. Princess Prizes – This benefit was only available to Premier Package. I elaborated on it in my review and I won’t explain in great detail here. Suffice to say, every time you opened your cabin door, you had a chance to win a prize. This wasn’t much of a benefit to begin with, but losing it feels almost petty for some reason.
New Benefits
- The Premier Package gains an excursion credit which, when you do the math on the sailing length benefit tiers and increased cost, comes out as a wash. Yes, it is slightly in your favor in some cases, but not enough to be very excited about. It would be only marginally better than keeping the old price and just buying excursions as you normally would.
- The Plus Package gains two more casual dining meals per voyage. This doesn’t excite me very much. My preferences in food lead me toward the main dining room when I sailed on the Emerald Princess. Other ships will have different experiences, but the casual restaurants just weren’t better than other dining on the ship for me.
Biggest Change
The new limitations on the Plus package daily drink count and the new limits to bottled water for both plans are also a loss. In this regard, the plans have been reduced in what they offer to customers no matter how it’s spun.
Conclusion
I cannot definitively say that these package changes mean that you’ll pay more and get less. However, given the new restrictions on drinks, for the Plus Package especially, it certainly gives me the vibe of lessened value.
A Princess Plus price increase doesn’t surprise me, it’s to be expected over time. As I see it, though, there’s a larger goal Princess may have with these changes. I think Princess is trying to steer more people to the Premier Package by increasing its comparative value to the Plus Package. The ultimate goal is, of course, to have increased profits as a result.
The changes to the programs do not change my recommendation that Princess’ customers get the Plus package.
When I see other cruise lines charging over $100 per person per day for a drinks package and around $18 per person per day for crew gratuities, I still consider the Princess packages a great value. That being said, it’s still not as nice a product as it was before.
If you are thinking about sailing on Princess or already have a cruise booked with them, you may want to have an in depth conversation with your travel agent about the changes. For our part, we are already advising clients of the changes and how it impacts them.
You can check out the announcement for yourself here and see a breakdown of the plans here.
Update 7/28/25:
A few days after posting these official changes to the Princess Plus and Premier pacakges, Princess updated their terms again. The change is to the Plus Package and it changes the benefits. From their site:
Effective January 14, 2026, the Plus Beverage Package includes beer, spirits, wine by the glass, alcohol and zero-alcohol cocktails up to $15 USD / $22 AUD. All non-alcoholic beverages including fountain sodas, specialty coffees and teas, frappes at Coffee & Cones, sparkling or still bottled water (500ml or less) and Red Bull energy drinks are also included. The package includes the additional benefit of a 25% discount on the following excluded items: all bottles of wine, one-liter bottles of water and canned soda. The Plus Beverage Package may be used on our private islands, all onboard food and beverage venues, and other onboard areas such as the theater or public spaces that offer beverage service. The Plus Beverage Package has a daily limit of 15 beverages over a 24-hour period (i.e. 6 a.m. to 6 a.m.) and includes all beverages mentioned above, excluding specialty coffees and teas, which do not count toward any daily beverage limit, and sparkling or still bottled water (500ml or less), which do not count toward the 15 beverage limit, but are separately limited to no more than 12 per day.
The underlined portion, emphasis mine, is the change from the original language, which can still be found above. The update returns specialty coffees and teas to unlimited status.
Although this slightly improves the Plus package, it’s still not as valuable a plan as before these changes.
