What a Free Club Royale Cruise Still Costs: About $602 for 2 Guests on a 7-Night Cruise

The offer takes away the cruise fare. The taxes and port fees stay, and so do the gratuities. Here is what they come to for 2 guests, by cruise length and by home port.

A free Club Royale cruise is not free to sail. On a typical 7-night cruise, the taxes and port fees and the daily gratuities still come to about $602 for 2 guests. The offer takes away the cruise fare, the biggest part of the price. What it leaves is smaller, but it is real money, and it changes a lot with the port you sail from.

Every number here comes from our own price data, as captured on Oct 31, 2026: the taxes and port fees Royal Caribbean lists for the 3,076 cruises we track that had not yet sailed. The box at the bottom says exactly how we counted.

The short answer

The middle (median) taxes and port fees of 1,234 seven-night Royal Caribbean cruises, priced on Oct 31, 2026, counted twice for 2 guests, plus the regular stateroom gratuity for 2 guests for 7 nights. It is an example for the first kind of offer below, where the fare is free for both guests.

Without the offer, the cruise fare alone on that typical week is about $1,533 for 2 guests: the middle inside cabin fare, before taxes, on 1,218 seven-night cruises. That is what the offer takes away. The $602 is what it leaves.

What the offer covers, in the line’s own words

Royal Caribbean’s casino offer terms describe two kinds of cabin offer that make your cruise fare free.

• A Stateroom Offer gives “complimentary cruise fare for the Recipient and one (1) guest in the same stateroom, based on double occupancy, when the Recipient pays the taxes and fees.” The fare is free for both of you.
• A Discount Stateroom Offer gives the Recipient a free cruise fare “and a Casino discount rate for one (1) guest in the same stateroom”. The second guest pays a fare. The terms do not say how big the discount is, so we do not guess one.

For every casino offer, the terms then list what is not included, among them “all taxes, fees and port expenses”, gratuities, upgrades, additional guests, air and ground transfers and onboard expenses. The taxes and fees “must be paid in full to receive a stateroom confirmation and apply to each guest.” So you pay them when you book, for each of you. Our guide Does a Club Royale Offer Cover One Guest or Two? counts which kind the offer lists hold.

Shorter is not half price

The gratuity follows the nights, but the taxes and port fees barely shrink on a short cruise. A free 3-night cruise still comes to about $382 for 2 guests, 63% of the 7-night figure for 43% of the nights.

Middle (median) taxes and port fees per person, counted twice for 2 guests, plus $18.50 per person a night of gratuities. Cruises sailing after Oct 31, 2026, priced that day. The back-to-back row is the middle of 1,087 trips of two 7-night legs on the same ship, with the taxes of both legs added.

The home port changes it most

The taxes and port fees come from the ports the ship visits, so the same free week costs very different amounts from different home ports. From San Juan, a typical free 7-night cruise comes to about $545 for 2 guests. From Miami it is about $637, from Seattle about $838, and from Seward about $1,039.

Every home port with 15 or more 7-night cruises sailing after Oct 31, 2026, cheapest first. Middle (median) taxes and port fees of that port’s 7-night cruises, counted twice for 2 guests, plus $259 of gratuities for 2 guests for 7 nights.

By the line’s own regions, a free 7-night cruise comes to about $573 for 2 guests in the Caribbean, $605 in Mexico, $649 in the Bahamas, $670 in Europe and $842 in Alaska. The taxes and fees on a week in Alaska are nearly double a week in the Caribbean.

A free back-to-back: two offers, two sets of taxes

On a back-to-back, each leg is its own cruise, with its own taxes and port fees, and the gratuity runs for every night aboard. For two 7-night cruises in a row on the same ship, with an offer of the first kind on each leg, the middle of 1,087 such trips comes to about $1,213 for 2 guests: $695 of taxes and port fees for both legs and $518 of gratuities for 14 nights. Our guide Can You Use Two Club Royale Offers on Back-to-Back Cruises? covers whether two offers can go on two legs, and What You Pay Twice For on a Back-to-Back Cruise covers what you pay once and what you pay twice.

When the free part is the smaller part

On 50 of the 3,011 cruises with an inside cabin price, the taxes and port fees are bigger than the inside cruise fare itself. 40 of the 50 are 5 nights or less, and 21 leave from Los Angeles or San Diego. On those cruises the offer saves you less than the taxes and fees you still pay.

The taxes barely move. The fare moves all the time.

Between Sep 11, 2026 and Oct 31, 2026, the inside cabin fare changed at least once on 2,992 of the 3,050 cruises we priced on two or more days. The taxes and port fees changed on 45. So waiting for a better moment rarely changes what a free cruise leaves you to pay. See How Much of a Royal Caribbean Fare Is Taxes and Port Fees? for the same fees on a cruise you pay for.

A few cruises list taxes far too low, such as $11.73 per person. When we checked one by hand on Sep 30, 2026, Royal Caribbean’s booking page charged $149.52 per person. We leave those 26 cruises out of every figure here.

Check your own number

1. Look at which kind of offer you have. If the second guest pays a Casino discount rate, add their fare. Our guide Second-Guest Fees explains it.
2. Put your offers into legtolegcruises.com. It shows what you pay to book each leg after the offer, with the taxes and fees in, and keeps the gratuities apart.
3. Add the gratuities: nights, times 2 guests, times $18.50 (or $21.00 in a suite). See Cruise Tips and Gratuities Explained.
4. Then add what you choose to spend on board. No offer covers it.

Questions people ask

How we measured this

Sources

The legtolegcruises.com Logbook is independent editorial and is not affiliated with Royal Caribbean International or Club Royale. Offers, fares, and program rules vary and change often; confirm every detail with Royal Caribbean before you book.