After my cruise onboard Norwegian Viva, I posted a blog breaking down the full cost, from flights to onboard charges – and people really seemed to resinate with it. I figured I would break it down for my Costa Smeralda cruise too!
For Context
I travelled with my partner on this cruise, so all the prices will be per person based on double occupancy, and all costs will be split 50/50. We booked this cruise on the 26th October 2024 via the Costa Cruises website, with a travelling date of 22nd February 2025. Our requirements for this holiday was as cheap as possible and with no indirect flights!
I was toying with the idea of including every single purchase here, but I don’t think that would be totally fair. So this blog excludes any magnets, coffee in ports, etc. It’s purely what was not an optional cost.
As Costa Cruises are Italian and charge everything in Euros, I have converted them to GBP, and for the sake of this blog everything has been rounded to the nearest pound.
How much did the cruise itself cost?
So, for 7 nights onboard Costa Smeralda sailing from Dubai, the cruise itself cost… £968 for two of us. That’s just the cruise, no onboard extras (at the point).
Extras for the cruise
After we cheap’d it out on Oasis of the Seas last summer, we knew we needed a drinks package. And, Costa Cruises don’t offer water outside of the buffet, so it was kinda a given…
The MyDrinks package onboard Costa Smeralda cost £420 for two people, which is massively different from any drinks package on Royal Caribbean or Celebrity Cruises.
We also bought Wi-Fi for one device as we would be travelling to countries where our phone contracts wouldn’t cover. We noticed that the Wi-Fi was on sale during Black Friday weekend, so we snapped it up then! It cost £80 and it was billed to our room onboard.
Direct flights with Emirates Airline
We flew direct from Edinburgh to Dubai with Emirates airline in Economy class, and that cost a total of £1,345 for two. Which is interesting because the flights cost more than the cruise itself! We could have gotten the flights a little cheaper if we flew indirect.
Charges whilst onboard Costa Smeralda
Whilst onboard Costa Smeralda we were charged a daily charge of £9 per person for gratuities/services charges, which I think is quite reasonable. That’s a total of £126. Additionally we bought a pizza for £9 to share, and a veggie burger each for £4 (£8 total), which I guess you could exclude from breakdown as that was entirely optional, but I included it on both my Oasis of the Seas and Norwegian Viva blog posts, so we’re including it here too.
Transportation
We spent around £100 on taxis and transportation. This covers getting to the airport UK-side, taxis to the cruise port from the airport, and any transfers we needed to get from the port into the cities during the cruise.
Total Costs
| Inside Cabin (Free Upgrade to Balcony) | £968 |
| Drinks | £420 |
| Wi-Fi | £80 |
| Gratuities/Service Charges | £126 |
| Extra Charge Dining | £17 |
| Flights | £1345 |
| Transportation | £100 |
| Total £3,056 / £1,528 |
Could we have gotten this cheaper?
Yes, we could definitely been more frugal with this holiday. Especially with taxis and flights. If we had booked coach transfers between the airport and cruise port, we would have saved money. And if we had booked indirect flights, we could have saved around £200.
How does Costa Smeralda compare to Oasis of the Seas and Norwegian Viva?
So these blogs of me breaking down the cost are becoming a little trend of mine… So let’s compare them!
| Costa Smeralda | £3,054 / £1,528 per person |
| Oasis of the Seas | £3,039 / £1,519 per person |
| Norwegian Viva | £5,888 / £2,944 per person |
It’s worth mentioning that both Oasis and Norwegian included a lot more onboard spending (Starbucks, Casino, laundry), whilst that wasn’t much of a thing onboard Costa Smeralda so I couldn’t include it.. And we didn’t buy a drinks package on Oasis of the Seas. So if I was to take all that into consideration, Costa Smeralda would still have been the cheapest!
