How much will it cost ya?

How Much will it Cost ya?

So the perks of living on board the ship is that most things will be absolutely free. For the sake of making you feel excited and relieved, here is a list of FREE THINGS that you will never have to pay for!

• Free soft drinks/water
• Free food in the Crew Mess
• Free movies on board
• Free TV
• Free DVD rental/On Demand
• Free laundry machines
• Free uniform -"costume" washing
• Free housekeeping and linen service
• Free travel to new destinations depending on your ship
• Free access to the bar and themed parties every night or so
• Free room (free bed, free towels, free pillow, free carpet. Don't take any of these with you when you leave!)
• Free Port Adventures/excursions
• Free gym

oh and what's that? Oh right-

• FREE ADMISSION TO DISNEYWORLD / DISNEYLAND (+ 2-3 guests! and Complimentary tickets you can print out and give out every year!)

To make your salary and how much you work on board even remotely worth it you WILL take advantage of all of these free things as much as possible. Or it'll be like throwing away hard-earned money. So factor in a visit to Disneyworld/land even if you don't feel like working here anymore; just turn in your resignation after you visit!

Now below is a list of things that WILL cost you and their general prices so take note and start making a budget on how much you will plan on spending. (Pfft, PLANNING on spending, who does that really!)

Internet Access / Wifi: $20 / 200 minutes. 

Don't complain, guests pay double this much on board. But this is where most people lose lots of money. The internet is incredibly slow at sea. Think about waiting 5-8 minutes for a Facebook Newsfeed to load. We are in the habit of writing out our emails in Notepad and then copying + pasting them to save internet time. We normally each spend about $40-100/month on internet. The worst part is when you forget to log out and it slowly drains awayyyy.

Guest Dining: $6

If you're lucky enough to submit a special request form to eat in a guest dining room and have edible different food to eat for a change, this will only cost you a mere 6 bucks! $20 for the Palo fine dining experience/face stuffing smorgasbord.

Dining on land: $10 - $30

Unsurprisingly, there will be plenty of people who don't like the food in the Crew Mess (for good reason), and will use every opportunity in port to eat at a restaurant. Note that the ports are very touristy and the prices won't always be very cheap. I blow so much money doing this and I always regret it! 

Some excursions: $50 - $100

Not all Port Adventures excursions will be available and even if you do get approved to go whenever you apply for some, there are others that you might only get a discount on and and not entirely free. Ripoff. I recommend that you wait for free ones, you have several months in the same places! And nothing feels better than doing a $180 dolphin encounter absolutely free!

Laundry soap: $3- $5/multi-use box or jug

While the laundry rooms and machines are free for us to use, we need to provide our own laundry detergent, fabric softener and even dryer sheets if you're feelin' very fancy.

Candy/Sweets/Cookies/Chips: $2- $8

There is a Crew shop on board where you can purchase these packaged foods and toiletries and so on... but those darn Disney-licensed snacks are SO expensive (even for us!) and yet SO delicious. I still can't believe I threw down 5 bucks for a pack of mickey pretzels.

Cans of soda/bottled water: $0.50/can

Not sure why you'd spend lots of money on this when it's free on board...but sometimes you just don't have the time to run downstairs to the crew mess to get some when you're REALLY parched at work.

ALCOHOL!

Beer: $0.85/can

Wine: $2.50/glass

Mixed Drinks $2.50/glass

Which gives you some idea of the origins of "what do you do with a drunken sailor?". Except alcohol limit/BAC is taken very seriously on board and subject to discipline as well if you overdrink. Before you used to be able to buy a round of $2 shots at any time but they stopped that because of inappropriate/unhealthy drinking habits. This stuff is VERY inexpensive for us and so some people I worked with used to go drink Every. Single. Night. Whatever floats your boat!

Specialty coffee in onboard Café: $3- $5

We don't have Starbucks on board so this is the next best thing.

Haircuts in the Spa: $19/men, $35+ women

Not too different from what some people get at home, but not too cheap either. And only on certain days/times when you put in a request.

Laundry done by the Laundry people downstairs: $5 - 10

Depending on how much/how big of a load you have, you can be extra lazy and have all of your personal laundry done for a fee instead of waiting for machines to free up. Also eliminates much of the possibility of someone else stealing your stuff.

The way we pay for everything is charged to our onboard crew account, kind of like a credit card attached to our IDs that we need to sign for every transaction. You get up to 80-90$ of a credit limit before your card gets cut off for insufficient funds (which happens to so many people very often!). And then you have to wait for the Crew Office to open the next day and spend your time off waiting in line to add more money onto it from your pay.

Let me know if I missed anything!