How much food can you order on a cruise?

You can eat as much as you want, so don't worry. On a recent cruise, we were next to a table with a family of 8. EVERY night they all ordered every appetizer, every soup, every salad and every entree. No, I'm not kidding---we felt so sorry for our waiter as he huffed and puffed with trays of food.



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Yes, you can order as much food as you want. Can you get food anytime on a cruise? Yes. even if the dining rooms are closed and the lido is closed, you can order room service for at least burgers and sandwiches and soup and other items to be brought to your room.

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Cruise line fares include a number of items that may usually be additional expenses for travelers, like food. And while a number of offerings, such as specialty restaurants and alcohol, might cost extra, passengers can generally dine well while spending as much or as little as they like.

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Cruise ships are good at making food available 24/7, so if you're hungry, there's usually no one to blame but yourself. The main dining room usually has set meal times, but sections of the buffet will always be open, and you'll usually be able to find a diner, cafe, or pizza shop that's open at all hours.

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The main eating area and the buffet are free to use. You can find the hours that each restaurant will be open the following day in your daily planner, which is delivered to your stateroom every evening. You can take food from the buffet back to your room if you'd rather eat away from the crowds.

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In many cases, no. Several of the biggest cruise lines, including Carnival, Holland America and MSC Cruises, have a rule that if one adult in a cabin orders a drinks package, all adults in the cabin must order the package. This is to prevent two or more people in a cabin from sharing a single drinks package.

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The notation is listed on the menu and is only listed for entrees: “a surcharge of $5 for second entree or more applies.”

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Many people suggest $100 per day, and this has generally worked well for me in my cruising experiences. Here are some guidelines to help you decide how much money to bring on a cruise.

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In addition to room service, which can be ordered round the clock, many cruise ships make food available 24/7 (or at least during normal waking hours). All-night venues might include a small section of the buffet, a pizzeria or a shipboard diner.

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You can eat as much as you want, so don't worry. On a recent cruise, we were next to a table with a family of 8. EVERY night they all ordered every appetizer, every soup, every salad and every entree.

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The main eating area and the buffet are free to use. You can find the hours that each restaurant will be open the following day in your daily planner, which is delivered to your stateroom every evening. You can take food from the buffet back to your room if you'd rather eat away from the crowds.

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Royal Caribbean only lets you order one drink at a time with your drink package. Even though you can get your fill of drinks, you can't order multiples at once.

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A small quantity is considered a maximum of 12 sealed, unopened cans/cartons of 12 ounces (ca 350 ml) each or less per person.

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Instead, it's a more leisurely way to eat. We'd estimate that having a full three-course meal (appetizer, main dish, dessert) will take at least an hour for most people, up to an hour and a half. We've eaten solo during slower times in the dining room and been done in about 45 minutes.

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To the delight of many passengers (or to the chagrin of those watching their waistlines), cruises offer no shortage of nibbles at all hours of the day. Although cruise midnight buffets are nearly extinct, several lines still offer a spread of snacks that are available into the wee hours of the morning.

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Yes, you can buy a beverage package. These all-you-can-drink packages allow passengers to pay a set fee up front for unlimited drinks (of a certain type, as outlined by the package's fine print), rather than pay per drink once onboard the cruise ship.

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Most cruise lines have port agents stationed in the port area to assist if your ship has left without you. In cases when cruisers are late returning to the vessel, the ship's crew will often remove the passengers' essential items -- passports, cell phones and medication -- from the ship to leave with the port agents.

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Most cruise lines do usually have a fridge of sorts in the cabins. These fridges are really “mini-bars.” Sometimes they are stocked full of snacks, drinks and alcohol that you can buy at an inflated price, others are empty for you to put your own drinks or snacks in.

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The easiest way for ships to do this is to liquefy the leftover food in an industrial grinder. The food is blended with water until it's a smooth mixture and then either disposed of in port, incinerated, or pumped out to sea when the ship is deep water and away from the coastlines. Simple as that.

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