Which Cruise Upgrades Deliver the Biggest Difference to Your Holiday?

This is a sponsored post for Holland America Line.

There are plenty of ways to enhance your cruise holiday, but the best upgrades are the ones you’ll genuinely enjoy.

Some upgrades can completely change the experience. Others sound wonderfully luxurious when you’re booking, but may only save you 20 minutes in a queue or give you a perk you barely use. It depends on the itinerary, the ship and, most importantly, you – and how you actually like to spend your holidays.

There are some that I’d always consider though, but before I get into that…

The Golden Rule

I just want to get in quickly to remind you of something important – every cruise line is different, so don’t assume that a good upgrade on one cruise is the same across all cruise lines.

Drinks package prices vary, some spas might not be as good as others, some Inside Cabins might be much nicer and therefore you don’t need the upgrade.

And you should also bear in mind what each cruise line offers as standard, and any special bundles or fares they offer.

Take Holland America’s Have It All fare, which includes several of the most popular cruise upgrades. Later in this guide I talk about this a bit more and why it’s good value, but I wanted to just remind you that the upgrades I’m talking about here may be better on some cruise lines than others.

1. Upgrade Your Cabin

For most people, this is the upgrade capable of making the biggest difference to the whole cruise.

Moving from an Inside cabin to an Ocean View gives you natural light, while stepping up to a Balcony gives you your own little patch of outdoors. You can sit outside with a coffee in the morning, watch the ship arrive in port without getting dressed first, or escape somewhere quiet when every sun lounger seems to have developed an owner.

On scenic itineraries, particularly places such as Alaska or the Norwegian fjords, a balcony can feel even more worthwhile because the view is part of the holiday rather than something you only see when the ship reaches port.

But cabin upgrades aren’t automatically good value. If you’re the kind of cruiser who leaves the cabin after breakfast and doesn’t return until bedtime, you might get far more enjoyment from spending the same money elsewhere.

And the price difference matters. An extra £200 for a balcony is one decision; an extra £1,500 is quite another – you might just prefer two cruises in a lower grade!

2. Spend More On Shore Excursions

If we’re talking about what you’ll actually remember from your holiday, I’d put shore excursions extremely high on the list.

Your cabin might be lovely, but years later you’re probably more likely to talk about whale watching in Alaska, dog sledding on a glacier or eating your way around a Mediterranean city than the larger sofa you had on Deck 8.

That doesn’t mean you need an organised excursion in every port. Some destinations are wonderfully easy to explore independently, and I’d hate to pay for a coach tour somewhere I could happily wander around myself.

But excursions can be worth the money when getting around independently is complicated, when the attraction you want to see is some distance from the port, or when the experience itself requires a boat, specialist guide or equipment.

If you’ve got a limited upgrade budget, I’d rather choose one or two genuinely special days ashore than book excursions simply because the cruise line offers them.

3. Try Speciality Dining

Cruise ship food has come a very long way, and there are plenty of cruises where you could happily eat in the included restaurants every night without feeling remotely deprived.

That doesn’t make speciality dining pointless, though. A good speciality restaurant can turn an ordinary evening into one of the highlights of the cruise, whether that’s a steakhouse, an Asian restaurant, a chef-led tasting menu or somewhere that’s simply quieter and more intimate than the main dining room.

You don’t necessarily need to go every night either. In fact, I think speciality dining often works best as an occasional treat.

If you’ve got seven nights onboard, paying for one or two particularly good meals can make much more sense than upgrading every dinner just because you can.

4. Add A Drinks Package

Drinks packages are interesting because the biggest upgrade isn’t necessarily the drinks themselves. It’s the freedom from thinking about them.

Without a package, it’s very easy to start mentally adding everything up. Coffee in the morning, soft drink with lunch, cocktail by the pool, wine at dinner… suddenly you’re doing GCSE maths when you’re supposed to be on holiday.

With a package, you can order what you fancy within the package rules without wondering what the bill looks like every time somebody asks if you’d like another drink. That can make the cruise feel much more relaxed.

Of course, drinks packages are terrible value for some people. If you mostly drink water and have one glass of wine with dinner, buying a package purely because everybody else seems to have one probably isn’t going to save you anything.

The trick is to look at what you’d genuinely drink rather than calculating how much you’d need to drink to “beat” the package price. Nobody needs that kind of challenge on day three.

5. Pay For WiFi

There was a time when disappearing at sea without internet access sounded rather wonderful. For some people, it still does.

If you’re looking forward to a complete digital detox, WiFi may not be a priority for your holiday.

But there are plenty of us for whom being connected makes travelling easier. You might want to message family back home, check something for your next port, share photographs, keep an eye on work or simply settle an argument about which film that actor was in before dessert arrives.

Cruise ship internet has also become considerably more useful than the painfully slow connections many cruisers remember from years ago.

It’s not a glamorous upgrade, but if you’re someone who’ll use it every day, it can make a bigger practical difference than some much flashier extras.

6. Upgrade The Journey To Your Cruise

We concentrate so much on upgrading the cruise itself that it’s easy to forget the holiday starts before you walk up the gangway.

You could spend a considerable amount upgrading your cabin and then begin the trip with a 3am alarm, the cheapest flight available and an airport connection that requires the stamina of an Olympic athlete.

So sometimes spending extra on a direct flight, better flight times or Premium Economy makes a much bigger difference than another onboard perk.

Travelling to the embarkation port the day before can be money well spent too. As well as reducing the risk of a delayed flight causing cruise-day panic, it gives you a much calmer start to the holiday.

I’m not suggesting everybody needs to turn left when they board the plane. But if the choice is between £500 on a minor cabin upgrade and £500 making the whole journey considerably less painful, I’d at least do the sums to check.

7. Book A Private Transfer

This won’t be worthwhile everywhere – but I wanted to include it because it can definitely make a difference.

If the airport is 15 minutes from the cruise terminal and there’s an easy shuttle waiting outside, a private car isn’t going to transform your life.

But there are destinations where I absolutely see the appeal.

After a long flight, knowing somebody is waiting for you and that you’re heading straight to your hotel or ship can remove one of the least enjoyable bits of the journey. It can also work particularly well for families or groups, where the price difference compared with several individual transfer tickets isn’t always as enormous as you’d expect.

There’s something to be said for upgrading the stressful parts of a holiday rather than automatically upgrading the luxurious ones.

8. Buy A Spa Or Thermal Suite Pass

If you’re someone who loves spas, this could easily move several places higher up the ranking.

Many cruise ships have thermal suites with heated loungers, saunas, steam rooms, hydrotherapy pools and other facilities that you can access throughout the cruise with a pass.

That can be brilliant on a sailing with lots of sea days, particularly somewhere cooler where spending eight hours beside the outdoor pool doesn’t sound quite so appealing.

It’s much less compelling if you’ve booked an intensely port-heavy itinerary and plan to leave the ship every morning and return just in time for dinner.

That’s a useful rule for cruise upgrades generally: think about how often you’ll actually use them.

Something you enjoy for an hour every day could be far better value than something more impressive that you use twice.

9. Pay For Priority And VIP Perks

Priority boarding sounds wonderfully glamorous. There’s something undeniably satisfying about walking past a queue because your ticket says you can.

Being able to board sooner, get priority for tenders, access reserved areas or enjoy other added benefits can remove quite a lot of the waiting around that comes with cruising. None of those things will transform the holiday on their own, but together they can make everything feel a bit easier, especially on a busy ship or an itinerary where tenders are used regularly.

They can be particularly appealing if you value convenience, dislike queues or simply enjoy having a few extra touches built into the trip. On longer cruises, those small perks also have more opportunities to prove useful rather than being something you benefit from once and forget about.

I’d still check exactly what’s included before paying extra, because VIP packages vary considerably between cruise lines and ships. But if the benefits match the parts of cruising you usually find frustrating, they can be one of those upgrades that you appreciate more than you expected.

10. Upgrade The Length Of Your Holiday Instead

This is the one I’d check before clicking the button on any of the others.

If you’ve got another £500, £1,000 or more available, what else could that money buy?

It might pay for a couple of nights in the embarkation city before you sail, allow you to choose a longer itinerary, fund some brilliant experiences ashore or even make the difference between two cruises you’re considering.

I’d happily take an Inside cabin on a fantastic 14-night itinerary over a suite on a seven-night cruise I wasn’t nearly as excited about.

That’s not going to be true for everybody, of course. Some people would much rather have seven luxurious nights than stretch the budget to ten or 14.

But it’s always worth asking the question before upgrading: am I making this cruise better, or could this money buy me more of the holiday I actually want?

Sometimes An Upgraded Fare Works Out Cheaper

There’s one more bit of maths worth doing before buying all these extras individually.

Cruise lines increasingly offer upgraded fares or packages that bundle several popular extras together. If you already know you’re going to buy three or four of them, the package price can be considerably more attractive than adding each one separately.

Holland America’s Have It All fare is a great example. It combines Shore Excursion Credit, a Signature Beverage Package, speciality dining and a Wi-Fi Package, with the amount of shore excursion credit and number of speciality dining meals varying according to the length of the cruise.

That combination makes sense because these aren’t obscure perks you have to remember to use. They’re four of the upgrades many cruisers are already likely to consider paying for.

It still doesn’t mean everybody should automatically book the upgraded fare. If you don’t drink much, actively want to disconnect and prefer exploring ports independently, a bundle containing drinks, WiFi and excursion credit suddenly looks rather less exciting.

But if you were going to buy those things anyway, compare the total cost before booking them separately. Holland America says Have It All can offer 50% savings compared with buying the included amenities individually. For most, these are the enhancements that make cruising even more enjoyable, and bundling them creates excellent value.

Read more: Holland America Have It All Package: Is It Worth It?

The important bit is to compare the package against what you would genuinely buy, not the theoretical value of every inclusion.

Final Word

The best cruise upgrades aren’t necessarily the fanciest ones.

For most people, I think a significant cabin upgrade probably makes the biggest difference because you benefit from it for the entire sailing. But that’s only true if you’re going to use the extra space. Someone who treats their cabin as somewhere to sleep could spend exactly the same money on excursions, meals or a longer trip and get far more from it.

That’s why I’d start with the part of cruising that matters most to you.

If food is a big part of your holidays, invest there. If you’re travelling somewhere you’ve always wanted to visit, put more of the budget towards experiences ashore. If your idea of bliss is sitting quietly on your own balcony as the ship sails into port, you already know where the money should go.

And if you want several upgrades, look at bundled fares before paying for everything one by one. Holland America’s Have It All is genuinely good value and it’s something I’d always consider when I book a cruise with them.

There’s no prize for having the longest list of extras attached to your booking. The best upgrade is simply the one that makes your cruise noticeably better.

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