What’s Included (And What You’ll Pay Extra For!) (And how much is everything else)

If you’re new to cruising (or just new to P&O), it’s not always clear what’s included and what you’ll end up paying extra for. I get questions about this all the time on Instagram, so I’ve put together a simple guide to make it super easy.

P&O Cruises offer three different fares – Select Price, Saver, and Early Saver – and each one includes different things. If you want the best value for your money, you need to know the difference.

This quick guide breaks it all down: what’s included, what’s not, and how to avoid surprise charges on board. Perfect for planning – and saving!

P&O Cruises is one of my favourite cruise lines, so I’m always following their latest cruise news. If you’d like me to keep you updated about P&O Cruises, just pop your email in the form below…

2. Food

P&O Cruises include breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner and snacks in a choice of venues. Each ship also has speciality restaurants where you can dine for a set fee.

The P&O Cruises menus change every day and special diets are always well catered for.

Included food on P&O Cruises:

• Main Dining Room – For breakfast, lunch and dinner
• Buffet Restaurant – For breakfast, lunch and dinner, plus an early tea for kids
• The Quays – A multi-venue food court (only on Iona and Arvia)
• Casual Snack Bars – Sandwiches, salads, fruit, cakes etc
• Poolside Grill – Burgers, hot dogs, chips, pizzas etc
• Poolside Pizzeria – Handmade stone-baked pizza slices
• Afternoon Tea – Finger sandwiches, scones, tea and coffee

• Speciality Dining – Restaurants offering global cuisine with a cover charge
• Market Cafe – Crepes, waffles, cakes and biscuits
• Ice Cream – Outside of mealtimes, ice cream has an extra charge

The speciality dining venues vary by ship, with some favourites, such as Sindhu Indian restaurant, appearing on every P&O Cruises ship.

The cover charges are reasonable, ranging from £9.50 per person for dinner at The Beach House to £30.00 per person for dinner at The Epicurean.

Although children are welcome in the speciality restaurants, there is no children’s menu and no children’s prices. I prefer to take the kids to the earlier kids’ tea in the buffet restaurant and then leave them at the kids’ club while we enjoy an adult-only dining experience.

There’s really no need to pay any extra for food on your P&O Cruise, especially if you’re cruising for less than a week. While it can be nice to dine in a speciality restaurant for a special occasion, you really don’t need to budget anything extra for food if you don’t want to.

Suggested read: P&O Arvia Restaurants Guide

3. Drinks

There are some drinks on P&O Cruises that are always available free of charge. For other drinks, you can either add these to your bill individually and pay for them at the end of your cruise, or you can buy a drinks package that will make your cruise all-inclusive.

Included drinks on P&O Cruises:

• Glasses of water
• Tea
• Coffee
• Cordial
• Milk
• Fruit juices (at breakfast)

When you book your cruise, you’ll need to decide whether to buy a drinks package or to pay for your alcohol and soft drinks individually. There are five different drink packages to choose from, and which one is best depends on what you like to drink.

To help you decide whether to buy a drink package or not, I’ve put together this thorough guide: P&O Drinks Packages Guide.

If you’d like to take a look at the drinks menus to get an idea of prices, you can see those here: P&O Cruises Drinks Menus.

I’ve also made a calculator to help you decide if you’ll pay more with or without a drink package. You just enter how many of each drink you plan to have, and it will work out your expected bar bill for you so you know if you’ll break even on the package or not…

4. Room Service

On P&O Cruises, room service is free of charge at breakfast time (7 am to 11 am), but there’s a charge at all other times.

Included room service breakfast on P&O Cruises:

• Fruit juices and smoothies
• Yoghurt
• Cereals
• Fruit and compotes
• Croissants, muffins, Danish pastries, pain au chocolat
• Toast
• Panini with sausage, bacon and tomato

To order the free breakfast room service on your P&O cruise, just mark what items you want on the card along with your preferred delivery time and hang it on the outside of your door.

After 11 am, the room service prices on P&O Cruises are very reasonable.

P&O Cruises room service prices:

• Baguettes with salad and crisps – £2.25
• Wraps with fries and tabbouleh salad – £2.75
• Speciality sandwiches with fries – £5.95
• Kids sandwiches with orange juice, yoghurt and brownie – £2.95
• Soups and salads- £1.95
• Small plates (starters) – £2.50
• Large plates (mains) – £5.95
• Sharing plates – £7.95 to £12.50
• Healthy salads and omelettes – £3.95
• Desserts – £2.50
• Cookies, brownies, muffins and doughnuts – £1.75

Below is the full P&O Cruises room service food and drinks menu…

You can also order drinks via room service. See the menu with prices above.

Read more: P&O Cruises Room Service Menu & How To Order

P&O Cruises Minibar

There is an extra charge for items from your minibar on P&O Cruises. The mini bar is not included in the drinks package either.

You can see P&O Cruises mini bar price list below…

I usually ask our cabin steward to empty the minibar. That leaves the fridge free so that we can store our own drinks.

P&O Cruises lets you bring up to one litre of wine or Champagne plus unlimited non-alcoholic drinks on board with you. You can also bring on extra non-alcoholic drinks in each port of call and keep them in your minibar.

The cruise line used to let you bring spirits onboard too, but that policy changed in May 2024.

5. Entertainment

Your P&O cruise will include a range of entertainment throughout the day and evening at no extra cost. Each evening, you’ll receive a daily programme called Horizon, which will have the details of all of the activities and entertainment for the following day.

Included entertainment on P&O Cruises:

• West End-style theatre performances
• Cinema
• Comedians
• Live music and tribute acts
• Cabaret, musicians and acrobats
• Nightclub

There’s no charge to watch any of the shows on P&O Cruises’ ships.

6. Activities

On P&O cruises, the whole family can enjoy a wide variety of activities at no extra cost…

Included activities on P&O Cruises:

• Swimming pools and hot tubs
• Gym and fitness classes
• Running track
• Sports court with football, basketball and tennis
• Golf nets
• Deck quoits and shuffleboard
• Darts
• Table tennis
• Dance classes
• Card room and bridge classes
• Pub quizzes
• Family discos
• Sports tournaments
• Seminars with guest speakers
• Library
• Kids’ bingo

Some activities do have an extra charge. These are activities done in small groups, such as cookery classes or behind-the-scenes tours, as well as activities where you get to take something home such as photos or souvenirs.

• Spa with thermal suite, saunas and steam rooms
• Hair and beauty services
• Casino
• Arcades
• Cooking classes
• Art auctions
• Shopping e.g. Clothes, jewellery, perfume and souvenirs
• Behind-the-scenes tours
• Photo shoots
• 1 to 1 dance tuition
• Art classes

7. Kids’ Clubs

P&O Cruises offers The Reef Children’s Club, which, until June 2025, had been free of charge at all times.

However, P&O Cruises is now trialling a new system on Iona where parents can pre-book kids’ club sessions in The Reef for a fee – £4.95 for daytime and £8.95 for evenings. While some free spots will still be available onboard, they’re on a first-come, first-served basis. For families with two children attending all sessions, this could add up to £38 per day. No rollout date has been confirmed for its other family-friendly ships.

The Reef Children’s Club open from just after breakfast until late in the evening, with breaks for mealtimes.

The P&O kids’ club is split into four age groups:

• Splashers: 2 to 4 years old
• Surfers: 5 to 8 years old
• Scubas: 9 to 12 years old
• H2O / The Scene: 13 to 17 years old

On cruises outside the school holidays, when there are fewer children on board, the groups may be combined.

The activities on board P&O Cruises ships for kids in The Reef include arts and crafts, sports tournaments, soft play, games consoles, quizzes, karaoke and movie nights.

As well as the kids’ clubs, P&O Cruises offer a free night nursery service for children aged four and under. This is a group babysitting service for children who are asleep. It’s open between 6 pm and 2 am on a first-come-first-served basis.

8. Service Charges

Gratuities

While some other cruise lines mandate a daily service charge known as a gratuity, P&O Cruises includes this in the cruise fare, so you won’t get a bill for it at the end of your cruise.

Tipping staff isn’t required or expected on board P&O Cruises ships. There’s also no service charge when purchasing drinks on board.

If you’d like to tip certain staff members, such as your cabin steward or waiter at the end of your cruise, you can do so, but you don’t need to and most people don’t, as tips are included in your P&O Cruises fare.

Corkage

If you bring your own wine on board with you, you may drink it in public areas, subject to a £20 per bottle corkage fee. If you drink the alcohol in your own cabin, there’s no charge.

9. WiFi

WiFi is available on P&O Cruises’ ships for an extra charge.

When your cruise ship is in port, you’ll be able to connect to the internet over 3G, 4G or 5G. However, when the ship is at sea, you’ll want to turn this off to avoid a huge bill. And I mean huge! Data roaming at sea is notoriously expensive.

If you’d like to stay connected to the internet at sea, P&O Cruises offers two WiFi packages:

• My WiFi Essential – Web browsing, email, music streaming, social media, text, and images (no videos)
• My WiFi Ultimate – As above, plus video streaming

You can purchase each package for 24 hours or for your whole cruise.

P&O Cruises WiFi prices

Package	Price for 24 hours	Price for full cruise
My WiFi Essential	£18	£12 per day
My WiFi Ultimate	£24	£18 per day

If you need internet access for medical reasons, such as a continuous glucose monitoring device for diabetes, you can get this free of charge on P&O Cruises. Just ask at the reception desk on board for a free 100-minute internet voucher.

Read more: P&O Cruises WiFi Guide

10. Laundry

P&O Cruises offers two options for laundry:

• Self-service laundrettes – Free of charge
• Professional laundry services – For a fee

Self-Service Laundry

You’ll find a laundrette on most cabin decks, just take a look at the deck plan to find your nearest. Here, there will be washing machines, sinks, tumble dryers, irons and ironing boards.

The self-service laundrettes can get quite busy on sea days on longer cruises, so you may wish to do your laundry in the early morning or evenings to avoid the queues. The laundrettes close at 10 pm until 8 am so as not to disturb people in cabins nearby.

It’s a good idea to take your own 2-in-1 washing tablets. Otherwise, you can buy them from the onboard shop.

Laundry Services

If you’d rather not spend your cruise holiday doing laundry, you can send items to be washed, pressed or dry-cleaned. If you hand laundry to your cabin steward before 10 am, it will be returned the same day.

Professional cleaning is charged per item. On longer cruises, you may find special offers for multiple items.

Here is the P&O Cruises laundry price list…

11. Flights and Overseas Transfers

P&O Cruises offers cruise holidays as well as fly-cruise packages that include flights and overseas transfers.

If your cruise departs from a port outside of the UK, you will usually get flights and overseas transfers included in the cost of your package holiday.

If you prefer, it is possible to arrange your own flights or have a travel agent do this for you rather than travelling on the flight that comes as a package with your cruise. One thing to bear in mind with this option, though, is that if you travel on a P&O Cruises flight and it’s delayed, the ship will wait for you. If you book your own flight, it won’t.

P&O Cruises offers flights from the following UK cities:

• Belfast
• Birmingham
• Bristol
• East Midlands
• Glasgow
• London
• Manchester
• Newcastle

There is often a supplement for regional departures outside of London. You may also choose to pay extra to upgrade your flight to premium economy, business class or first class.

12. Transfers To Southampton

Depending on whether you choose P&O Cruises Select Fare, Saver Fare or Early Saver Fare, you may be able to enjoy included transport to the Southampton cruise terminal. This is an option on cruises of seven nights or more that depart from Southampton.

When I lived in the north of England, I’d normally book the Select Fare because the free coach travel alone is worth the extra cost. In the past, I have paid as little as £1 for kids’ places, which include a seat on the coach!

You’ll find more information about the coach to Southampton here: Guide to Coach Travel to Southampton Cruise Terminal.

If the coach to Southampton isn’t for you, you can instead choose free car parking in Southampton or some extra on-board spending money.

For cruises departing from Southampton, P&O Cruises can book internal flights from regional UK airports for an extra cost.

13. Shuttles Buses in Port

Another advantage of choosing P&O Cruises’ Select Fare is that it entitles you to ride the shuttle buses for free. These offer a constant service running between the ship and the city centre.

The shuttle buses aren’t available in every port. This is because in some ports your ship will dock very close to the city centre, so there is no need for one.

Some ports are working cargo ports where it’s not safe or possible for passengers to explore on foot. In these ports, a free shuttle bus will be provided for everyone.

In some ports, you’ll find independent buses and taxis which can work out to be a similar price to paying for the P&O shuttle bus.

14. Shore Excursions

On P&O Cruises, shore excursions are available for an extra charge. After booking, you can see which shore experiences are available for your cruise on the My P&O Cruises planner.

The excursions are usually a little pricier than doing your own thing and they can feel a little rushed sometimes. But if you prefer to step off the ship and onto a coach rather than planning your day ashore yourself, then it can be a stress-free way to explore.

P&O Cruises Onboard Credit

When you book a Select Price P&O cruise, you may receive some free onboard credit to spend on the ship. You’ll also get onboard credit if you’re a Carnival shareholder, as I am.

Many people wonder what to spend this free money on, and you may wish to plan this before you go.

You can spend P&O Cruises onboard credit on:

• Drinks (individually or as a package)
• Speciality dining*
• Shore excursions*
• Spa services, hair and beauty treatments*
• Items from any of the onboard shops
• Photographs
• Laundry and dry cleaning
• Internet and telephone charges
• Artwork from the gallery
• Celebration packages*

*To use your onboard credit, you must book these on the ship, not before embarkation.

You can not use P&O Cruises onboard credit to buy:

• Shore excursions, speciality dining or spa services that are booked before embarkation
• Visas
• Medical charges
• Cashback
• Future cruises
• Flight upgrades
• Foreign currency
• Casino and arcades
• Charity donations
• Shore excursion cancellation charges

There is no refund or cash alternative for any onboard credit that’s not spent before disembarkation. So if you have any left at the end of your cruise, be sure to head to the souvenir shop to spend it.

To Conclude

P&O Cruises offers great value for money as there’s so much included. Are P&O Cruises all-inclusive? No, but very few cruise lines are, and those that are tend to charge a lot more for the privilege!

While many other cruise lines charge extra for gratuities, service charges on drinks and breakfast room service, these are included in the ticket price with P&O Cruises.

The free late-night babysitting for under-fives is something that you also won’t find on any other cruise line.

It’s possible to cruise with P&O without spending anything at all on top of your cruise ticket price. That said, most people do leave with something on their bill, even if it’s just drinks.

And if you’re a long-time P&O fan, you’ll know that there have been some serious cutbacks over the past 5 years or so. Check out this post: 20 Things That P&O Cruises Used To Offer That They No Longer Do to see what’s not included any more.

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