Nothing says “I’m in vacation mode” quite like ordering room service on a cruise ship.
In this article we will see what you can get delivered to your stateroom and how much cruise lines are charging for those wonderful treats sent right to your cabin.
I remember the days when room service was free on every cruise line and the choices were practically limitless.
But rather than dwell on the glory days of endless food being carted to your cruise cabin, I thought we’d take a look at cruise ship room service today and how each line compares.
We will look at all the mainstream cruise lines like Carnival and Royal Caribbean, in addition to premium cruise lines and even luxury lines.
How much does each cruise line charge for room service? What does the menu look like? And what can you still get for free?
We’ll compare some of the major cruise lines and so you can see the difference in room service policies between these companies. Many of these room service policies have changed in the last few months by the way. So if it’s been a while since you’ve gone on a cruise, you might be in for a surprise.
Be mindful that these menus and charges for room service are subject to change, and while we will try to keep this post up to date, you can check directly with the cruise line for any updates for your cruise.
Carnival Cruise Line Room Service
Carnival offers 24-hour room service with a breakfast menu and an all-day menu. While the continental breakfast is free, other room service items have an individual charge depending on what you order.
Breakfast:
The breakfast menu does include a continental breakfast that is free of charge, but it’s only available from 6am to 10am.
The free continental breakfast includes fruit, cereal, danishes, toast, bagels, muffins, croissants, and a selection of yogurts, including banana strawberry, raspberry, and plain.
There are also some drinks included like coffee, orange juice, apple juice, tomato juice, grapefruit juice, hot tea, milk, and chocolate milk.
There are no delivery charges but I do recommend tipping the room service attendant.
Check out our article on why I bring cash to a cruise to see more about tipping.
But what if you want a hot breakfast delivered to your door? For that you will have to pay extra but only $5 or $6.
On Carnival’s current room service breakfast menu are items like English muffin sandwiches with bacon and a fried egg, chicken and cheese in a sourdough sandwich, and a bagel with smoked salmon and cream cheese.
An 18% service charge is added to your bill for any of these breakfast sandwiches.
All-Day Menu:
The all-day menu is called leisure dining and is offered from 10am to 6am, basically any time outside of breakfast hours.
From sandwiches, salads, pizzas, and wings, the options are all priced individually ranging from a $3 order of fries to an $8 Spicy Fried Firecracker Shrimp plate.
Some of the dessert offerings are New York cheesecake, devils food chocolate cake, and a giant cookie.
The $7 wings and $6 quesadilla are some of my favorite choices, but keep in mind that all of these also come with an 18% service charge.
And while you can get coffee or juice for free at the buffet you will have to pay $2 or $3 to have it delivered to your stateroom. But you can get a whole pot of coffee delivered to your room for $3.
Royal Caribbean Room Service
Royal Caribbean International cruise ships also offer free room service but only for the continental breakfast. The line takes a different approach to room service fees than Carnival and simply charges a $7.95 “convenience fee” for each delivery.
Any guests in the Grand Suites or higher categories will not have to pay the room service charge.
Breakfast is served from 6m to 10am, and the complimentary continental breakfast includes toast, bagels, English muffins, donuts, baked pastries, cereals, fruit and yogurt.
The hot breakfast comes with the $7.95 charge and includes eggs cooked in a variety of ways (including omelettes), pancakes, hash browns, bacon, and sausage.
For times outside of breakfast Royal Caribbean has a nice assortment of pasta, burgers, salads, wings, and pizza.
This can be ordered between 11am and 6am and an 18% gratuity will be added to your bill.
Appetizers on the Royal Caribbean room service menu include chicken noodle soup, Cobb salad, Ceasar salad and chicken tenders.
The favorites section has some popular items cruisers love like Rigatoni Bolognese, Grilled Salmon, Grilled Quesadilla, pizza, and wings.
All of the sandwiches you can have delivered come with fries, and these include the Royal Burger, Grilled Cheese, a Hot Dog Your Way, and even a Classic Philly Cheesesteak.
Also, Royal Caribbean has a kid’s section on the menu as well.
Norwegian Cruise Line Room Service
Norwegian offers 24-hour room service and has recently added some changes to its room service fees. NCL has begun adding a $4.95 service fee for what was a free continental breakfast option before.
The continental breakfast includes the same kind of items on other lines like fruit, pastries, cereal, and yogurt. Breakfast can be per-ordered by filling out a door hanger which also allows passengers to specify a preferred time for their breakfast to be delivered. This door-hanger must be placed outside your cabin by 4am the previous day.
Some of the breakfast offerings by Norwegian include omelettes, steak & eggs, avocado toast, french toast and breakfast smoothies.
Norwegian has claimed to have expanded the options available on the room service menu including breakfast offerings, but a $9.95 convenience charge will be added to each order in addition to a 20% gratuity service charge. Only the continental breakfast will be exempt, although guests will still have to pay the $4.95 service fee. There are some reports that this is not fleet wide yet, so keep an eye out for news related to Norwegian room service.
Guests in the Haven will not have to pay the $9.95 charge.
The all-day menu will include items like chicken noodle soup, Caesar salad, Cobb salad, a cheese plates, BLTs, all kinds of sub sandwiches, and hot dogs.
Some entrees you can order to your room include Spaghetti Bolognase, Half Roasted Chicken, Skirt Steak, Grilled Salmon, Fish & Chips, and pizza.
For special occasions you can order a jumbo shrimp platter for $35 or even a selection of international cheeses with bread, walnuts and grapes for $32.
MSC Cruises Room Service
Room service with MSC comes with a $4.99 charge per delivery for those with the lowest “experience” chosen, the Bella Experience. With the Fantastica Experience breakfast is delivered for free, and with the Aurea Experience there is free delivery 24-hours a day.
Besides this delivery fee there is the cost of the options in the menu, and the room service menu has both free and paid options.
Some of the room service selections with MSC include garden vegetable soup, a variety of cheeses, Mediterranean salad, Caesar salad, veggie wraps, smoked salmon sandwich, a fruit plate, and even a fruit basket just to name a few.
The Italian cruise line promises to have a fresh-baked pizza delivered to your cabin within 20 minutes of ordering. This can cost around $11 or $12 depending on what kind of pizza you get.
And when it comes to pizza, MSC has a myriad of choices. You can get everything from Mariana and Toscana to Calabrese and 4 Formaggi. Even a Calzone Napoletano was available last time I checked.
If you’re in the MSC Yacht Club you will not have to worry about any room service fees as the service is complimentary as well.
Princess Cruises Room Service
Princess has 24-hour room service offered to all its guests. Breakfast is from 6:30am to 10:30am, you can get pizza from 5:30 to 9:30pm and the specialty dining menu is from 5:30pm to 9:30pm.
For the most part room service is free, but there are some items that will cost extra if you want to ramp up your cruise vacation experience.
You can actually order a selection of dishes to your room that are from the specialty restaurants on board. From appetizers to main entrees these fees can range from $5 to $20.
This allows you to have Filet Mignon, Rib-eye steak and Jumbo Prawn delivered from Crown Grill for about $19 each.
Even pasta dishes from Sabatini’s can be delivered through room service, and you can select from the many desserts as well.
Using the app or stateroom TV allows you to sort through the many choices you have, and you can see all the up to date prices there, as they may change by the time you go on your cruise.
Some of the categories of food you will find in the app are appetizers & snacks, hot food, sandwiches, sides, sweets, kids, pizza, and specialty dining.
To have a shrimp cocktail delivered to your room will cost $8.
Celebrity Cruises Room Service
At the end of 2022, Celebrity made a major policy change in regards to room service. Each delivery now costs $9.95 with an additional 18% gratuity charge on top of it. (So basically $11.74 for every room service order)
Prior to this change room service was free and cruisers were only charged $4.95 when ordering after 11 p.m.
In keeping in line with some of the mainstream lines, however, a continental breakfast is still free between 6am and 11am.
Additionally, Zenith-level members and suite guests will still be able to get food delivered for free.
Passengers staying in the retreat will get free room service for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Holland America Room Service
This is one of the last premium/mainstream cruise lines that still offers free room service. Only a few select items cost extra.
Breakfast is available from 6am to 11am and there’s more than just the continental breakfast that is complimentary.
Besides the usual cereal, fruit, pastries and yogurt, Holland America guests can have eggs, hash browns, bacon and sausage sent to their staterooms for free.
If you do want to splurge for breakfast there is a Lobster Benedict for $12.50, a Steak and Eggs breakfast for $15, and breakfast smoothies for $4.95.
The All Day menu offered by Holland America is loaded with starters, sandwiches, entrees and sweets.
Starters: Quesadilla, Cheese and Fruit, Chicken Noodle Soup, Three Bean Chili, Caesar Salad, and Cobb Salad
Sandwiches: Caprese Panini, Roast Beef Panini, BBQ Pulled Pork Sub, Club Sandwich
Sweets: New York Cheesecake, Fresh Fruit, Chocolate Layer Cake, Chocolate Chip Cookies
Entrees: Rigatoni, Oven-Roasted Chicken
From 11pm to 6am guests are able to have a smaller sampling of the above menu with foods like quesadillas and club sandwiches in addition to salads and some sweet desserts.
There’s also a kid’s menu available for room service that is available from 5:30pm until 9:30pm. This menu for children includes quesadillas, fruit, salad, mac and cheese, spaghetti, hot dogs and even peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
Virgin Voyages Room Service
Virgin charges a $5 delivery fee for room service it calls “Ship Eats Delivery”. Virgin offers breakfast from 5am until 11am with meals like eggs, french toast, fruits, cereals, breads, and yogurt.
All day food offerings are served from 11am to 5am and include the following:
Starters: Chicken Noodle Soup, Wedge Salad, Braised Polpettine, Beet Hummus, Charcuterie & Cheese Plate
Mains: Roasted Cauliflower Steak, Cheddar Cheeseburger, Pappardelle Al Ragu, Slow Roasted Striped Bass, Roasted Chicken Breast, and Grilled New York Strip
Snacks: Popcorn, Chocolate Covered Pretzels, Gummy Bears, Trail Mix
Desserts: White Chocolate Coated Confetti Cake Pop, Blueberry-Green Tea Vegan Cheesecake, Red Velvet Cookie Cake
Disney Cruise Line Room Service
With Disney Cruise Line room service is included on every ship for free, and you can see all of the available selections on the Navigator app.
The breakfast menu includes an assortment of cereals, juices, pastries, and breads.
The All Day menu has some of the following selections:
Appetizers: Cheese & Crackers, Greek Salad, Mixed Garden Salad, Grilled Salmon Salad, Creamy Tomato Soup, Chicken Noodle Soup, and a Fresh Fruit Bowl
All American Fare: Baked Macaraoni and Cheese, Crispy Chicken Tenders, Grilled Hot Dog, Cheeseburger/Hamburger, Buffalo Chicken Wings
Pizzas: Pepperoni, Cheese, Magherita
Made to Order Sandwiches: New York Panini; Tomato, Basil, and Mozzarella Panini; BLT; Grilled Cheddar Cheese Sandwich
Desserts: Key Lime Pie, Chocolate Chip Cookie, Oatmeal Rasin Cookie, Snacks, M&M’s, Slated Peanuts, Buttered Popcorn, Salted Cashews
Luxury Cruise Line Room Service
Luxury cruise lines still offer complimentary room service, and that hopefully will not be changing any time soon. Cruise lines like Viking, Seabourn, Silversea, and Regent Seven Seas all have a wide assortment of menu options for food delivery, and you never have to worry about a convenience charge, unless it’s a specialty item.
Read our article on the best all-inclusive cruise lines to see what else is included in a luxury cruise experience.
FAQ on cruise ship room service
Did Carnival get rid of free room service?
Yes and no. Carnival still offers free room service, but it’s only for the continental breakfast. The rest of the menu is more à la carte and each item has a cost from $3 to $8. This is in addition to the 18% service fee.
Does Royal Caribbean charge for room service?
Yes, but just like mentioned above, Royal Caribbean still offers breakfast room service for free if it’s a continental breakfast. There is a standard $7.95 charge and additional fee of 18% for gratuities.
How much is room service on Norwegian?
Norwegian still does offer room service but you can’t get it for free any more. Even the continental breakfast comes with a $4.95 service fee and the other select menu items will cost $9.95 plus a 20% gratuity charge.
Can I order room service any time of day?
Pretty much. But the menu may be different depending on what time of day you decide to order. Most cruise lines have 24-hour room service and breakfast is not offered until around 6am the next morning. So for late-night snacks, room service is still the way to go.
How do I order room service on a cruise ship?
Each cruise line is different but most these days have an app that is the easiest way to order room service. This will also allow you to see the complete menu and if there is any extra cost per item. Some lines also let you order room service through the stateroom TV. For breakfast many cruise lines provide door-hangers that you can fill out and place outside your stateroom before 4am each night.
How much should you tip for room service on a cruise ship?
It’s all up to you but I like to tip about $2 – $3 per item, depending on how large the order is. This is also why I like to have some small bills in cash on me when I cruise. If you order a lot of room service go ahead and let the delivery attendant know how much you appreciate their service.
Keep in mind that this also depends on which cruise you are sailing, as some luxury lines may include all gratuities.
Which cruise lines offer free room service?
Disney Cruise Line and Holland America Line are some of the only mainstream lines where room service is available for free. And of course luxury lines that are all-inclusive also provide the service at no additional cost. But even then, there may be some menu items that incur a cost.
