How Much Does a World Cruise Cost? Real Fares Per Night

How Much Does a World Cruise Cost?

A full world cruise on a mainstream line costs from about £11,400 to £18,000 per person for an inside cabin, which works out at roughly £100 to £160 a night. If you only want part of the trip, a long sector of two to three months starts at £4,999.

Those figures come from the 78 voyages of 60 nights or more that Cruise Prices was tracking when I checked on 26 October 2026, across P&O Cruises, Cunard, Princess, MSC and Fred Olsen. Every price here is the lowest fare available on that day, per person, based on two sharing. Prices can change daily, so treat them as a snapshot rather than a quote.

How much is a world cruise, voyage by voyage

I split the list into two groups. Full world voyages are the ones of 100 nights or more, almost all leaving in January. Long sectors are the 60 to 99 night chunks, such as Sydney to Southampton, that lines sell on their own.

"Typical" here means the median. Across all 35 full voyages the median fare is £16,199, or £142 a night. Fred Olsen's 98-night Borealis world cruise from Southampton in January 2027 sits just under my cut-off at £13,499 (£138 a night).

The long sectors are cheaper in total but not much cheaper per night. Their median is £10,619 for the trip, or £132 a night. The cheapest one by a distance is P&O's 75-night America and Caribbean Discovery on Aurora, leaving Southampton on 3 January 2027 from £4,999, which is £67 a night. Cunard's Queen Anne does a 65-night Sydney to Southampton sector in 2028 from £7,069, about £109 a night.

Is a world cruise more expensive than a normal cruise?

Per night, only a little. The median cost per night across every sailing of three nights or more that I track is £117. Full world voyages come in at £142, so you pay roughly a fifth more per night for the long itinerary.

The cheapest world voyages actually undercut an average cruise. Queen Anne's 111-night voyage at £11,419 is £103 a night, and P&O's Aurora sector is barely half the typical nightly rate. If you were going to take three or four normal cruises in a year anyway, a world cruise is not the extravagance the headline number suggests. I made a similar point about premium lines in are expensive cruises worth it.

What really drives the bill up is the cabin. Across the 19 full voyages showing both an inside and a balcony fare, the balcony added between £2,000 and £6,600, with a median of £5,320 per person. Arcadia's 106-night voyage in January 2027 is the cheapest step up: £12,999 inside, £13,999 ocean view, £14,999 balcony and £29,999 for a suite. Aurora's 75-night sector runs from £4,999 inside to £7,499 for a balcony.

The sailing date matters more than the line

Voyages leaving in January 2027 are now less than three months away, and some have sold down to their dearest cabins. MSC's 121-night world cruise from Civitavecchia in January 2027 shows £35,964, but only because suites are all that is left on our tracker. The same line's 2028 and 2029 voyages start at £16,474 for an inside cabin. When a world cruise looks oddly expensive, check which cabin the lowest fare is for before you rule it out.

The 2028 voyages are where the choice is widest right now. Cunard has five full voyages that January, MSC has four, and Princess and P&O have three each. Only 20 of the 34 full voyages I could price still showed an inside fare, so if you want the cheapest cabin, the later sailings give you more room to watch prices before committing.

World cruises from Southampton

For a no-fly trip, Southampton is where most of the full voyages start. The options I found leaving there in January 2027 were Arcadia (106 nights, from £12,999), Fred Olsen's Borealis (98 nights, from £13,499) and Cunard's Queen Victoria (109 nights, from £13,519). For January 2028 the cheapest is Queen Anne at £11,419. For the wider picture of UK departures and deals, the UK cruise deals page is the place to start.

On a fare this size, a small percentage change is real money. A 5% drop on a £15,000 fare is £750 per person. Before you book, compare the fare with what similar voyages cost per night using the method in how to tell if a cruise price is good.

If you have a voyage in mind, you can follow it on the worldwide cruise price tracker or the Cunard and P&O pages. A free Cruise Prices account lets you save it to a watchlist and get an email when the fare moves.

FAQ

How much does the 274-day world cruise cost? Royal Caribbean's 274-day Ultimate World Cruise is not one of the voyages I track, so I cannot give you a checked fare. As a rough guide, multiply the nights by a per-night rate: at the £142 median for the full world voyages I do track, 274 nights would be about £39,000 per person, and an ultra-long one-off is likely to cost more than that.

How much is a world cruise from Southampton? On 26 October 2026, full world voyages from Southampton started at £11,419 per person (Cunard's Queen Anne, 111 nights, January 2028) and around £13,000 for January 2027 departures. A long sector such as P&O's 75-night Aurora voyage starts at £4,999.

How much does a 3 month cruise around the world cost? A voyage of around 90 to 115 nights typically costs £11,500 to £18,000 per person for the cheapest cabin on Cunard, P&O, Princess or MSC. A balcony usually adds £3,500 to £6,600 over that length, though Arcadia's January 2027 voyage adds just £2,000.

How much does a 180-day or year-long world cruise cost? None of the voyages I track run that long, so there is no fare to quote. Using the £117 to £142 per-night range from mainstream lines, 180 nights would land somewhere around £21,000 to £26,000 per person, and luxury lines charge far more.