in today's video I'm going to give you a tour of my room here on the Ruby Princess
on my 16 day Panama Canal cruise but I'm also going to tell you how
much this Cruise costs and what that costs included so let's go
what is going on YouTube family greetings from Ruby princesses shipboard laundry pretty cool
place they have a book exchange here you bring a book and you can take a book and there's a ton
of books in here it's pretty cool but that's not what we're talking about today today we're going
to talk about what my 16-day Panama cruise on Ruby Princess costs but first I want to give you
a little room tour of my inside cabin on board so you can kind of see what that cost includes
so I was on Deck 10 of Ruby Princess in Cabin c244 all the way forward I'm a budget traveler
and when you travel on a budget on cruise ships you always look for the inside cabins those are
generally the cheapest cabins and in this case it definitely was no matter how I travel I'm a firm
believer and you live out of your condo you live out of your apartment and in the case of a cruise
ship you live out of your cabin so I really don't mind being in an inside cabin as a matter of fact
I sleep like a baby because it's like a cave in here so it's pretty awesome I like it it's perfect
for me got this nice bed here you've got a desk you've got the TV here which we'll come back to in
a second but let's head back here and look at the closet area so the closet was plenty big for me
I'm sure if there was two people in here it'd be plenty for two people there were tons of hangers
which was great there was a kind of a drawer I guess and a safe to keep your valuables in
plenty of space for me I only carry one bag so not a big deal
the bathroom again perfect for me shower was nice water was always hot toilet was serviceable it's
a bathroom I only used it to shower and do my business so not a big deal there's a stand-up
mirror to make sure you look good and let's go back in here real quick just to check out this
TV so this isn't a smart TV you can't touch it and make it work but with the remote control you can
do a ton of different things you can order food you can obviously watch movies live TV that kind
of stuff you can even gamble on this thing you can buy shore excursions you can arrange your
dining time so a ton of things can be done on here so that's some pretty cool technology actually
there was a ton of cool technology on this ship but that's not why you're here for this video
you want to know how much of this cruise cost what did that cost include and how do I find such cheap
cruises so let's jump into that so for me there are four fixed costs when I cruise the cruise fare
obviously the port fees the taxes and the grit activities so that's like tips for the crew and
you can pre-pay those if you want I prepaid them so let's talk about what the fixed cost for this
Cruise were because that's what I consider the real cost of a cruise everything else is optional
they're add-ons you know like the casino specialty dining all that kind of stuff but let's talk about
what this Cruise would actually cost someone that is on a budget so Cruise fare for this Cruise
was 499 dollars I know that sounds ridiculously cheap but I found a great deal we'll talk about
that a little bit later in the video but it was only 499 I know you might not believe me so I'm
going to put up my receipt here so you can see it the port fees and taxes were 450. now I know that
sounds a little bit expensive but it's a Panama Canal cruise and you have to pay per person to
go through the canal so that's why it's a little bit more expensive than you'd normally see for
port fees and taxes and finally the gratuities I prepaid them like I said they're 232 dollars
for this 16 day cruise so the total cost was 1181 dollars for all the fixed costs so that's
74 dollars a day for this 16 day Panama Canal cruise on Ruby Princess okay let's talk about
what I got for that price let's talk about all the things that are included so there was a a special
promotion going on at the time so when I booked my cruise I got two hundred dollars for excursions if
you don't know what excursions are those are trips you can take sponsored by the cruise ship when you
get into a port like I did snorkeling in watuko I did a walking tour in Costa Rica stuff like
that so with that 200 Shore Excursion credit I was able to do three shore excursions cost me no money
it was included with my fare you're not always going to get that but most cruises you book you're
probably going to find some kind of promotion I also got a 250 dollar credit because I am
retired military I believe they give it to active duty retired and maybe even veterans I'm not 100
sure but I know for sure they give it to active duty and retired if you know if they give it to
Veterans as well comment down below so that's 74 a day includes all the meals in the buffet
the food in the international cafe the food at the Salty Dog Grill on the pool deck as as much pizza
as you want from the pizza oven place and as much ice cream as you want from there it also includes
your meals in the formal dining room so you can do breakfast lunch and dinner in the formal dining
room if you want I didn't take advantage of that very much I did go to lunch there a lot but not
breakfast and dinner very often I should have but I did you get unlimited iced tea hot tea decaf and
regular coffee lemonade and orange juice but you don't have to pay for drinks if you don't want to
you can pay for alcoholic drinks you can pay for soda or you could get a package that gives you a
special rate for the entire cruise for alcohol and soda as well your cruise fare also includes
all the shows all the events anything that's happening on the cruise ship is included with
your fare so there's plenty of entertainment on board lots of live music lots of shows lots of
like comedy type things lots of trivia lots of movies Under the Stars things like that and of
course you get access to the gym you can go work out as much as you want you have access to the
pools all those types of things on board you have access to there's nothing really restricted on
board except for this place called The Sanctuary which is on the front of the ship I actually did
it for one day and I didn't think it was that big of a deal anyway so I personally wouldn't pay for
it again but there is like a little private area so I guess if you're on a cruise that
had a bunch of kids and you didn't like kids and you wanted a more private area you could pay for
this area called The Sanctuary but I didn't think it was worth the money personally okay so what's
not included so any type of specialty dining so if you're going to one of the restaurants
on here like this ship has a restaurant called Crown grill a restaurant called sabatini's you
have to pay to go eat at those places there are plenty of free options but if you want to go and
have a very very formal dining experience like three hours have a huge giant T-bone steak you
can do that you can go to Crown girl or have an amazing Italian meal I think the crown Grill is
29 for the meal on board which includes four course meal including steak or Lobster and all
that kind of stuff can get steak and lobster in the main dining room but it's not as high quality
there's also sabatinis which I went to which is an Italian restaurant and the food is great in there
I think that one's 20 something dollars I can't remember exactly what the price is but it was uh
it was pretty reasonable if you've been watching my videos you know that specialty coffees are not
included as well I've been ordering my butter pecan latte every single morning costs three to
four dollars but it was well worth it to me I did find out that for 32 dollars I could have
paid for a coffee package I didn't know that I wasn't aware of that but in the future when I
go on Princess Cruises I'll probably purchase the coffee packets because I drink a coffee
every single morning because I usually don't eat breakfast that's kind of my breakfast my weakness
is you know Fufu coffees butter pecan latte comes highly recommended from me on board princess chips
as I mentioned before alcohol is not included you can get an alcohol package which gets you 15
drinks a day I believe which is a ton of drinks I don't know how someone would drink 15 drinks
a day I did do the math one day and worked it out that you'd have to drink at least seven alcoholic
beverages a day to break even on the package but you can pay individually so I only had a couple
alcoholic beverages on board you know mojito a beer and they were between seven and ten dollars
a piece you also have to pay for soda on board they do have a soda package but soda's like two or
three dollars for a big glass of soda so if you're into drinking soda maybe the soda package would be
worth your while I just drink tea the whole time I mentioned shore excursions earlier you also have
to pay for shore excursions I was fortunate to have a 200 Shore Excursion credit so you know I
didn't need to pay for mine they were included in my cruise fair but if you wanted to take a short
Excursion and you didn't have any shore Excursion credit or onboard credit then you'd have to pay
out of your pocket the shore excursions range in price anywhere from like 19.99 all the way up to
hundreds of dollars when you take a helicopter out to a glacier in Alaska you also have to pay
for spa services so if you want a facial you want a manicure you want a pedicure you want
Botox you want acupuncture they do all that kind of stuff on board massages you have to
pay for that obviously so that's another thing that's not included in the cursor it'd be great
if it was a massage was included but it's not and the last thing that's not included that's pretty
important to me is internet so you have to pay for that it's somewhere around ten dollars a day for
one device I had no problem using the one device package for my phone and my computer okay let's
talk about how I found this cruise deal and most of the cruise deals I've been booking I've I've
received a lot of comments saying dude there's no way you're going to be able to do this for around
a hundred dollars a day well I hate to break it to you but I've booked nine cruises maybe even 10 now
for around 100 a day some under 100 some maybe 105 a day 106 dollars a day but I've been able
to stay pretty close to that hundred dollars a day I mean this Cruise was 74 dollars a day for Panama
Canal cruise the way I've done that is I've used a website called Chris Plum I'm not associated
with them in any way they don't pay me any money they don't make any money I use their website all
the time I haven't paid anybody but you can sort by solo supplement you can sort by day
you can sort by cruise line and it's just really easy to find deals now that being said that's not
your one and only place to find deals because I've noticed that cruise ship pricing fluctuates wildly
day to day and princess I found really fluctuates wildly so when I find a cruise that's in a pretty
good price range I go to the princess website or the other Cruise Lines website Royal Caribbean
NCL I do the same thing I favorite that cruise and every day I go in a couple times a day and
I check the price that's how I got this cruise for 499 dollars originally this Cruise was eleven
hundred dollars and I seen it go down to nine hundred dollars and then one day when I jumped
on and checked it was 499 I booked it right away at 499 dollars and then a couple hours later it
was 700 and something dollars for the same cabin I have so you if you're flexible and you're able
to wait and like track prices then you can find some really great deals that's how I found all the
deals you'll see in my little spreadsheet here on Royal Caribbean I've got one on NCL I'm working on
right now you'll see MSC MSC you can always find cruises for under a hundred dollars a day I'm just
gonna put that out there MSC and princess have been the easiest for me to find relatively low
cost per day cruises Royal Caribbean obviously I found some you can see them on here ncl's been a
little bit harder and that's how I've been finding these cruises I've been using cruise Plum and then
I've been tracking them religiously on the cruise ships website I just want to say welcome to all
my new subscribers and all the subscribers that stuck with me during the nine months that I did
not make any videos I really appreciate it and if you're this is the first time you're watching me
make sure you uh subscribe if you're into Cruise content or travel content and if
you want to see what I'm going to do over the next year I'm going to travel on nothing but
cruise ships check out this video right here thanks for watching see you next video [Music]