UNLIMITED Cruising from $299 PER YEAR!
There I was, getting ready to start work on a Wednesday morning, when an e-mail landed in my inbox, offering ‘unlimited cruises for a year’, for what seemed like a rock-bottom price, through an initiative called a ‘Paradise Pass’. The cruise line, Margaritaville at Sea, were offering an annual pass for 'unlimited' cruises on their first ship - Paradise - from prices starting as low as $299USD, or about £240GBP.
At this point, I almost sprayed my morning coffee across my computer screen - how on Earth could someone take unlimited cruises for $299 per year? Surely there was a catch… Well, in this post today, I’m going to be diving into this deal, in order to help you understand if this really is as good as it looks, or maybe too good to be true… For the purpose of this article, I’m going to always refer to two prices: the US Dollar ($) price that is quoted by the cruise line, and also the British Pound (£) value, which I’ll be taking from my online calculator on the day of writing this post (April 24th 2024). So, let’s explore - could this be the next access route to living on cruise ships?!
Now, before we get started, I have recently sailed with Margaritaville at Sea onboard this exact ship. Stay tuned for my full reviews COMING SOON. In the meantime, head over to my YouTube channel and make sure you’re subscribed so you don’t miss out - I’ve got LOTS to show you from onboard this ship…!!
So, who are ‘Margaritaville at Sea’? As a British cruiser, I hadn’t heard much about these guys before I started spending a lot of time on cruise ships last year. Without getting into too much detail, Margaritaville at Sea is a fairly new entrant to the cruise market, launching in May 2022, when they re-branded the previously known Bahamas Paradise Cruise Line. At the point of re-brand, the sole ship operating for Bahamas Paradise Cruise Line was called the Grand Classica, and this is the ship that was refurbished to now present itself to the market as Paradise, the first Margaritaville at Sea cruise ship.
In more recent news, Margaritaville at Sea have confirmed that they now have a second ship, Islander, joining their fleet. This ship will be kicking off slightly longer itineraries (mostly 4-5 nights) from Summer 2024. Both Islander and Paradise are ex-Costa Cruises vessels - neither of them have been built specifically for Margaritaville at Sea. To confirm, this isn’t a criticism at all - it would be wholly unreasonable to expect a brand new, trying to expand, cruise line to be building their own bespoke ships at this part of their plan, in my opinion!
So, what’s the deal? Let’s explore…
The initial headline - $299/£240 for unlimited cruises all year - was impressive, right? Well, here’s the first thing to note - this promotional price applies to all ‘Heroes’, and not everyone. A ‘hero’, by Margaritaville at Sea’s definition, includes: Military, First Responders, Law Enforcement, Educators and Healthcare workers. If you fall into one of these career categories, you’re good to go with the above price! For everyone else, you should revise to $999/£800.
Still an amazing idea though - unlimited cruises all year for less than one thousand dollars?! Ok, let’s explore further to understand what this deal is offering…
The deal itself does come with some small-print that it’s important to note if you are seriously considering this offer. First up, let’s talk a real positive - this deal is based on double occupancy, so allows you to cruise with a friend for FREE. In other words, if you own one pass, your friend gets to go with you free of charge, as they just share your cabin. It makes sense why the cruise line would offer this perk - you’re obviously going to be more likely to use the onboard facilities if you’ve got a friend with you - after all, it’s much easier to go and relax at the bar with a drink if you have your friend by your side, right?!
Next up, let’s talk about the cruises themselves that are on offer here. My intial thinking when I saw this deal was - wait, could I just go and live onboard this ship for that annual price? If so, sign me up now! However, you’re only able to book non-consecutive 2 night sailings.
For example, you’d have to book a 2-night trip and then leave the ship for a sailing, before you could go back onboard. This would eliminate people simply block-booking the rooms, and the ship becoming full of these cheap fares. In my mind, this clause probably means that those not local to the port could struggle to take real advantage of this, but I guess it would still work if you can source cheap travel to and from the port area from further afield.
In terms of the room that you’d be booking, it’s the ‘best available’ Ocean View or Inside Stateroom, so you don’t know which room type you’ll be getting until you reach the check-in desks at the Terminal. For most cruisers, including myself, this would work absolutely fine - I’m generally happy with whatever I’m allocated as I don’t spend a huge amount of time in there anyway, but it’s worth keeping in mind if you prefer a bit more information when it comes to room types! On this note, I’ll be bringing a number of room tours from this exact ship to my YouTube channel soon - click here to subscribe, or search ‘Fraser at Sea’ on YouTube and stay tuned!
There are two other elements we need to think about while we’re exploring the deal itself: blackout dates and additional charges.
First up, there are a few blackout dates that apply to this ‘season pass’, so you need to be comfortable with not being able to cruise over these dates. In my opinion, they’re not hugely limiting at all - they are Nov 23, 2023; Dec 31, 2023; May 25, 2023; Aug 30, 2024; and Dec 31, 2024.
Ok, let’s not talk about what could be the deal-breaker for some: additional charges. The small print on the Margaritaville at Sea website explains that these ‘unlimited cruise fares’ “do not include taxes, fees, port expenses, gratuities, fuel surcharges, or onboard expenses”. Now some of these, for example onboard expenses, are entirely under your control. However, let’s now look at the additional charges that I had applied to my recent cruise on this ship, in order to help you understand the true cost here…
I sailed on a 2-night cruise onboard Paradise, so it’s a pretty good example for us to use here. Here’s the summary of my charges:
Tax: $94.40/£75
Gratuities: $16/£13 per person, per night
Fuel Surcharge: $12/£9.50 per person, per day
If you’re going to be driving to the port and parking there, you can expect to pay $19 per car, per night.
Additionally, Margaritaville at Sea explains on their website that bookings made through the ‘unlimited’ initiative will be subject to booking fees at the following levels:
2023 Booking fees: $19.99/£16 per stateroom, per sailing
2024 Booking fees: $29.99/£24 per stateroom for weekday departures (Sunday-Wednesday), and $49.99/£40 per stateroom for weekend departures (Thursday - Saturday)
So, after a quick fly through some of the figures, you can begin to see that the numbers do start to add up. We all knew they were going to - the initial prices sounded ridiculously low for a year of cruises, but I wonder if exploring this has potentially got you now thinking twice…
Before we close off with talking about if the deal really is ‘worth it’, let’s talk about the ship that you’d be spending your time on…
As I mentioned earlier, Paradise is the first cruise ship owned and operated by the Margaritaville at Sea cruise line brand. The ship isn’t new to them, and was infact launched back in 1991 (fun fact - that’s the year I was born - no jokes about whether the ship or I are growing old better, please!).
It’s a really easy ship to find your way around, due to the fact that you’re never really too far away from anything. I will be releasing full videos and vlogs over on my YouTube channel to show you what a 2-night cruise experience with this company is really like, but I would summarise really quickly for now by saying that the ship’s a little rough around some of the edges (in some parts more than others), and I’ll be intrigued to see what happens over the next few years…
One point that I would add - remember that, with these ‘unlimited cruise’ offers, your entertainment and food are both included. I would summarise (again, really quickly as it’s a written article - head to YouTube for a full review), both of these areas were very good on my recent cruise - both were MUCH higher quality than I had expected for a cruise operating at this price point!
So, do I think that these ‘unlimited cruise’ offers are worth the money?
To be really honest, I’m not sure. I do feel that, by the time you add up all of the additional charges, you’re not really saving much money here vs just having the flexibility to book whenever. That said, if the pricing for Margaritaville at Sea does jump with greater demand following the launch of Islander, you could be onto a real winner if you ‘lock in’ at the current prices. I haven’t seen many of this type of promotion over here in Europe, so I’ll be really interested to see how this one develops!
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