Are P&O Cruises' New All-Inclusive Packages Worth It? - We Did the Maths...

The cat is well and truly out of the bag with P&O Cruises’ new all-inclusive packages, which are set to launch tomorrow (18^th December). We’ve taken a look at the reported pricing vs. what we’ve already paid for comparable packages for our upcoming cruise to work out if they are worth the money.

There are two new packages that will be available to purchase at the time of booking, across all fare types and on every ship in the fleet. The first is the ‘Classic’, which will reportedly cost £49 per person per day. As well as the Classic drinks package, this includes the Essential Wi-Fi package for the duration of the cruise, plus a speciality dining credit of either £20 (cruises of 5-9 nights), £40 (cruises of 10-14 nights) or £55 (cruises of 15+ nights).

The ‘Deluxe’ option is available at the higher price of £59 per person, per day and, as the name suggests, offers an upgraded package. As part of this deal, you’ll get the Deluxe drinks package, Ultimate Wi-Fi and a speciality dining credit of either £30 (cruises of 5-9 nights), £60 (cruises of 10-14 nights) or £80 (cruises of 15+ nights).

So how does this compare to the exiting offering? We have two cruises booked with P&O for 2026 and for both sailings we have already pre-purchased drinks packages and Wi-Fi so we’ve done the maths and worked out what the new packages would have cost us vs. what we’ve already paid for one of them. It might surprise you!

Our next P&O Cruise is a 7 night sailing on Azura in April. We made this booking a few months ago and were able to take advantage of a special offer which gave us 20% off the Classic drinks package when at the time of booking. This meant that the drinks package cost us £44 per person, per day, or £616 in total for both of us for the 7 night cruise.

A few weeks ago, P&O cruises ran a Black Friday promotion on pre-cruise purchases that we decided to take advantage of. We upgraded to the deluxe drinks package and also purchased the Ultimate Wi-Fi package. At the time, the best value Wi-Fi option for 2 of us was the 4 device package, so that’s what we chose.

After the Black Friday discount and our Peninsular Club discount, we paid a total of £311.43 for these upgrades, bringing our total spend on drinks and Wi-Fi to £927.43, or £463.71 per person.

For the equivalent new all-inclusive package, we’d have paid £413 per person, which would be a saving of £50 per person. On top of that, we would also have received a £30 speciality dining credit per person. Whilst this isn’t a massive saving, it’s worth noting that we took advantage of multiple special offers to get the price we paid, so it’s great that even at the base price this deal works out to be better value. It’s not yet clear whether peninsular club discounts will apply to the all-inclusive prices, but if they do it will represent an even bigger saving.

Overall, we think these new packages are an exciting development from P&O Cruises. For cruisers like us, who always book drinks packages and Wi-Fi they represent excellent value for money. Of course, if you don’t usually find that a drinks package works for you, these new all-inclusive options probably won’t either.

We are also hoping that for those of us who have already made purchases in good faith for upcoming cruises, that there is going to be something put into place so that we don’t miss out on these savings.

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