3,410 Margaritas in 8 Hours: Princess Cruises Is Officially in the Record Books
On National Margarita Day, guests and crew aboard the Regal Princess in Cozumel sold 3,410 handcrafted 24K Margaritas in eight hours, smashing the previous Guinness World Record of 2,728.
February 22 is National Margarita Day, which most people acknowledge by ordering one with dinner and calling it a celebration. Princess Cruises took a considerably different approach.
On February 17, with the Regal Princess docked in Cozumel during a 7-day Western Caribbean cruise out of Galveston, the ship’s crew and guests collectively sold 3,410 handcrafted 24K Margaritas in a single eight-hour window—enough to smash the existing Guinness World Records title and write Princess Cruises into the history books. The previous record stood at 2,728. That margin of victory, 682 cocktails, is not a squeaker. Princess Cruises confirmed the achievement in an official press release alongside a statement from a Guinness World Records adjudicator who was onboard to verify every last pour.
“You could feel the celebration in every bar of Regal Princess as Princess Cruises made history with a new GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS title,” said Thomas Bradford, Official Adjudicator from Guinness World Records.
The Cocktail That Started It All
The 24K Margarita is Princess Cruises’ signature cocktail and, apparently, a serious juggernaut. Made with Pantalones Organic Blanco Tequila, Cointreau, Grand Marnier, and margarita mix, served over ice in a salted-rim glass, the drink is part of the cruise line’s “Love Line Premium Liquors Collection”—a portfolio of celebrity-backed spirits the line has been curating in recent years.
Pantalones is the tequila brand co-founded by Camila and Matthew McConaughey, which has become one of the more visible celebrity alcohol partnerships in the cruise space since the two sides joined forces in October 2024. When word of the record reached the McConaugheys, they sent a congratulatory video message directly to the ship’s passengers and crew—a small but genuinely fun touch that turned the record attempt into something closer to a communal event.
The 24K Margarita isn’t some niche experiment either. Princess Cruises reported that between January 1, 2025 and January 7, 2026, more than 1,038,000 units of the drink were sold across the fleet. That’s over a million margaritas in just over a year, which suggests this is not a brand partnership that’s flying under the radar. By any reasonable measure, it has become the defining cocktail of the Princess experience right now.
Why Cozumel Was the Right Stage
Timing and location in this story are worth appreciating. Cozumel is one of the most visited cruise ports in the Western Hemisphere—a place that practically runs on margaritas. The port calls tend to be full-day affairs, which means guests have extended time aboard before and after going ashore, and for a record attempt built around volume, that matters enormously.
With approximately 3,560 guests aboard the Regal Princess, selling 3,410 margaritas in eight hours means that nearly every single guest on the ship would have needed to purchase one during the attempt window. That’s a remarkable level of participation, and it speaks to how well-organized and enthusiastically promoted the event must have been.
The presence of a Guinness adjudicator onboard adds an element that transforms a marketing stunt into something with genuine credibility. These official adjudicators don’t simply take the line’s word for it—they count, verify, and certify. The fact that Princess pulled this off under full independent scrutiny makes the number more impressive, not less.
The Larger Picture for Princess Cruises
Record attempts like this aren’t spontaneous. They’re marketing exercises built around a genuinely popular product, executed at scale, with a built-in story to tell afterward. And Princess Cruises has been telling it well.
The Pantalones partnership arrived at a moment when cruise lines have been investing heavily in signature food and beverage programs as a way to distinguish onboard experience. In a market where the major lines are competing fiercely for repeat business, a signature cocktail that guests remember, associate with a good vacation, and want to order again becomes a meaningful loyalty tool. A million-plus units sold in a single year is the kind of metric that validates that strategy emphatically.
There’s also a community dimension that shouldn’t be understated. Getting 3,400-plus people to collectively participate in something—not a show, not a dinner, but an act of deliberate, coordinated consumption for a shared goal—requires an energy aboard the ship that money can’t entirely manufacture. The guests on that sailing chose to participate. They drank the margarita, they raised the glass, and when Matthew McConaughey popped up on screen to congratulate them, they were part of the story. That’s a different kind of brand moment than a billboard.
What It Means for Future Sailings
If you’re wondering whether Princess will do this again—almost certainly yes. Record attempts tied to themed calendar moments (National Margarita Day, in this case) are repeatable, scalable, and generate exactly the kind of earned media coverage that a paid campaign struggles to replicate. Expect the 24K Margarita to remain a centerpiece of Princess’s beverage marketing for the foreseeable future, and wouldn’t be surprised to see more structured events built around it on future voyages.
For passengers currently booking Western Caribbean sailings out of Galveston, this episode is a useful reminder that onboard culture varies more than brochures let on. The Regal Princess right now has a particular energy around this cocktail and this partnership—and apparently, a very motivated bar staff.
The record is official. The salt rims are all washed. And somewhere, Matthew McConaughey is probably quite satisfied with how February went.