Which cruise line is cheapest for a 7-night Mediterranean cruise?

Costa Cruises is the cheapest line for a 7-night Mediterranean cruise, at a median $118 per person per night across 55 upcoming sailings and a median fare of $828. Princess Cruises is the priciest of the bunch at $189 per night. The median across all 2,304 sailings we tracked is $152 per night.

Cheapest sailings right now

• MSC Sinfonia (MSC Cruises), 2026-11-15, 7 nights: from $340 ($49 a night)

• MSC Lirica (MSC Cruises), 2027-01-30, 7 nights: from $387 ($55 a night)

• Costa Smeralda (Costa Cruises), 2026-11-13, 7 nights: from $402 ($57 a night)

What actually moves the number

Four things do most of the work, and none of them are the logo on the funnel.

Season first. A November sailing and a July sailing on the same ship are not the same product. Look at the sailings listed above: a 7-night MSC trip in mid-November at $340 is the sort of fare that only shows up when schools are in and the weather is iffy. Same line, peak summer, and you pay multiples of that.

Ship age and size next. Older, smaller ships in a fleet get discounted to fill bunks. That's why the cheapest sailings in the list skew toward the older hardware while the glossy new builds hold their price.

Cabin position matters more than people admit. The spread between an interior and a balcony on the same sailing is real money. The headline fare is almost always the cheapest inside cabin, and it rarely includes drinks, tips, or shore excursions. Budget for those separately or the cheap fare turns expensive fast.

Finally, how far out you book. Fares move. A sailing that looks firm today can drop when departure nears and cabins sit empty. That cuts both ways: waiting can save you cash, or cost you the cabin you wanted.

Reading the comparison without fooling yourself

Medians are not minimums. Costa's $118 per night is the middle of its 55 sailings, not the cheapest one it sells. Half its trips cost more. That is the honest way to compare lines, because one bargain sailing does not make a fleet cheap.

Sample size is the other trap. MSC shows up with 1,971 sailings. Celebrity has 30, Princess 32, Norwegian 53, Costa 55. A line with 30 sailings gives you a thinner picture, and a line with nearly two thousand dominates the overall $152 median almost by weight alone. Compare lines against their own numbers, not just the fleet-wide figure.

Then match the line to your own dates. If your window is fixed to late January, the median for a July-heavy fleet tells you nothing useful. Find sailings that fall in your window, then read their per-night figures. The cheapest line on average can lose to a mid-priced line on your specific week.

And check what the fare covers. Two fares that differ by a modest amount per night can flip once one includes drinks and the other charges for every coffee.

How to use this instead of just reading it

Pick a handful of sailings from the list above that fit your dates and set a free price alert on each at Track Cruises. The alert watches the fare and tells you when it drops. No refreshing, no guesswork, no booking at the top of the curve.

On timing: fares for a given sailing tend to drift. Book too early and you lock in a premium. Book too late and the cabin type you want is gone. The alert solves the first problem and mostly solves the second, provided you act when it fires.

One blunt warning. A low per-night number is a starting point, not a total. Add drinks, gratuities, transfers and anything ashore before you decide a sailing is genuinely cheap. The lines with the lowest headline fares are not always the lines with the lowest final bill.

Before you book

Is the cheapest line actually the cheapest for me?

Only if your dates and cabin type match the sailings that produced that median. Check the individual fares first.

Why is Costa's sample so much smaller than MSC's?

Costa has 55 sailings in the data against MSC's 1,971. Fewer sailings means less certainty in the median, so treat it as a strong signal, not gospel.

Do these fares include drinks and tips?

Assume not. The figures are cruise fares per person for two sharing. Everything else is usually extra.

Last reviewed: October 2026. Figures are per person in US dollars, taken from Track Cruises' daily price snapshots of 2,304 upcoming sailings on the cruise lines' US sites. Medians, not averages, so a few very cheap or very expensive sailings do not move them.