Princess Cruises Raised Its Bar Tab Bill — And Nobody Made an Announcement
Princess Cruises quietly increased its food and beverage service charge from 18% to 20% across the fleet in early March 2026, joining Carnival in a trend of rising onboard costs that passengers are only discovering at checkout.
There was no press release. No email to booked guests. No splashy announcement on the Princess Cruises website. Sometime in early March 2026, the line quietly updated its onboard service charge from 18% to 20% — and passengers are finding out the way most people find out about things these days: on social media, after the fact.
The change applies to dining, specialty drinks, private group functions, and other optional onboard services. According to Travel and Tour World, the increase is being rolled out gradually across the Princess fleet as ships rotate through their voyage schedules — meaning some passengers sailing right now may already be paying the new rate, while others on earlier voyages are not.
It is, as these things go, a small change. Two percentage points on your onboard bar tab is not going to make or break a cruise vacation. But the way it was handled — and what it signals about the direction of cruise pricing — deserves a closer look.
What Exactly Changed
The service charge at Princess Cruises applies to à la carte food and beverage purchases, specialty dining cover charges when booked outside a package, and other optional onboard services. It does not apply to retail shop purchases, and it is separate from the daily “crew appreciation” gratuity that passengers pay per person, per night.
That daily crew appreciation charge also went up recently — by $1 per person across all accommodation categories. So passengers sailing in March 2026 are looking at a compound increase: higher per-night gratuities and a higher percentage charge on every drink and specialty meal they order.
To put the service charge change in practical terms: a $15 cocktail that previously carried an $2.70 service charge now carries a $3.00 charge. Individually, the difference is barely noticeable. Over the course of a week-long voyage with any meaningful beverage spending, it adds up. A couple spending $100 per day at the bar — not unusual on an active sailing — would see an additional $14 in service charges over a seven-night cruise compared to the old rate.
This Is Not Happening in Isolation
The timing here matters. Princess Cruises is owned by Carnival Corporation, and this change mirrors a move Carnival Cruise Line made in late 2025, when it raised its own food and beverage service charge to 20%. Parent company, same playbook, a few months apart.
The broader industry is moving in the same direction, though not in lockstep. Holland America Line, also under the Carnival Corporation umbrella, is still at 18%. Cunard sits at the low end of the spectrum at 15%. Norwegian Cruise Line has taken a different approach, adding a per-person exclusive show charge rather than adjusting its overall service fee. Royal Caribbean drew significant attention last year for changes to its drink package structure.
Every major cruise line is hunting for yield in the same places: onboard spending, ancillary fees, pre-cruise add-ons. The methods differ; the direction does not.
The “Quiet” Part Is the Problem
There is a legitimate argument that a 2-percentage-point service charge increase is trivial. Nobody’s vacation is being ruined by an extra few dollars on a cocktail. Cruise prices remain, by most measures, excellent value for a bundled travel experience.
But the way this particular change was implemented — without direct communication to booked passengers, without a press release, with the increase simply appearing in the fine print — reflects a pattern in the industry that consistently frustrates loyal cruisers.
Guests who book Princess sailings months or even years in advance do so with certain expectations about what their onboard experience will cost. When fee structures change between booking and sailing, and those changes are not proactively communicated, it creates the kind of unpleasant surprise that colors the entire experience. Finding out at disembarkation that your final bill is higher than you budgeted is not a great way to end a vacation.
This is compounded by the non-discretionary nature of service charges. Unlike the daily crew appreciation gratuity — which, technically, passengers can request to have adjusted at guest services — service charges on food and beverage purchases are mandatory and non-negotiable. Once you order that cocktail, the 20% charge is coming.
What This Means for Passengers With Packages
If you’re sailing with Princess Plus or Princess Premier, the practical impact of this change is minimal. Both packages bundle beverages, specialty dining credits, WiFi, and gratuities into a single per-day rate. The service charge increase on individual purchases does not change what you’ve already paid for your package.
The passengers who feel this most are those who booked a base fare and planned to pay for drinks and dining à la carte — a reasonable strategy, particularly for lighter drinkers who have always questioned whether the all-inclusive package pencils out for them. That calculation just got slightly less favorable.
It is also worth noting that Medallion shipping costs for U.S. and Puerto Rico residents have doubled — from $10 to $20 per order — under the same round of updates. Canadian residents saw their shipping cost increase from $15 to $25. Each order can include up to four Medallion devices shipped to the same address.
The Bigger Takeaway
What makes this story worth paying attention to is not the size of the increase — it is the pattern. Cruise lines have become increasingly sophisticated at monetizing the onboard experience through fees that sit below the headline cruise fare but above the baseline “what does this cruise cost” calculation most travelers use when booking.
Service charges, gratuities, specialty dining fees, Wi-Fi charges, shore excursion markups, and now Medallion shipping costs are all part of a revenue architecture designed to complement — and in some cases obscure — the advertised fare.
Princess Cruises remains an outstanding product. Its ships are well-maintained, its crew is genuinely service-oriented, and the Medallion technology, when it works, is genuinely impressive. But passengers sailing this spring should go in with their eyes open: the all-in cost of a Princess cruise is higher today than it was six months ago, and the announcement of that fact was left for the internet to deliver.