How Cruises Won Over Generations That Once Mocked Them

Young adults are getting on board with sea vacations, enticed by lower prices than other travel options and activities more in line with their interests

By Brittany Chang

Published: 2026-11-07T20:00:01+08:00

Two days after tying the knot in April 2025, Hannah Hanks and her husband packed their bags to set off on their honeymoon. Their destination went against the advice of a travel planner and various people in Hanks’ life.

The Jacksonville, Florida, couple traveled about two hours south to Port Canaveral, where they boarded Royal Caribbean’s Adventure of the Seas for a cruise to Puerto Rico, St. Thomas and St. Croix. The honeymoon cost $1,763.82. (Her husband’s family paid for part of the trip.)

“People were telling me not to do that, but we loved it so much,” says Hanks, a 22-year-old bridal makeup artist and content creator. The couple went on their second sailing seven months later. “If you want to see different places, you’re on a budget, you want all-inclusive and you want fun things to do, well, go on a cruise.”

More young adults are making peace with cruise vacations, after years when many of them treated such trips as passé vacations for older passengers. Lately, the industry’s promise of cost-effective comfort has become an easy sell to young Americans like Hanks. Many of them are financially burdened by the ongoing debt crisis and increasingly unaffordable housing, but succumb topressure from social media to travel, even if it means incurring debt.

A shift has taken place on adults-only Virgin Voyages: During its first full year of operation, from 2021 to 2022, 32% of its guests were younger than 45. Now about 45% of them are, the company says.

Royal Caribbean Group, which operates the world’s largest cruise ships under its eponymous line, has also attracted a new cohort of passengers. Chief Financial Officer Naftali Holtz told investors in early 2025 that total guests had increased 45% since 2019, with passengers who were millennials and younger almost doubling over that time. By the second quarter of 2026, millennials and Generation Zers had accounted for about half of its guests. Royal Caribbean declined to comment on exact guest demographics in prior years.

For frequent cruisers like Jill Mone-Corallo, 33, a cruise vacation offers an affordable break from life on land. She and her husband live a 15-minute drive from the Port of Miami, a convenience that’s enabled her to tick off an estimated 25 voyages on Norwegian, MSC and other cruise lines.

During her time on these floating resorts, she’s built up status in Royal Caribbean’s casino rewards program, through which frequent cruise gamblers can earn ultra-affordable fares, among other perks.

“At times, we get those cruises for next to nothing: $200 for taxes in the ports,” she says. That’s a great value when she gets to visit destinations like her favorite, St Maarten. At that cost, cruising may be cheaper than going out in Miami, where she says dinner for a couple can easily cost more than $100.

Finances aside, Mone-Corallo enjoys the flexibility of life at sea. Her husband stays active all day, while she relaxes and reads. She thinks this model works well for the bachelor and bachelorette parties she sees on cruises: The diverse activities and amenities mean groups don't have to stay tethered together.

Mass-market cruise lines like Royal Caribbean and Carnival have fares that average as low as $75 per person a night, according to data from AAA — including food, onboard amenities, a place to sleep and the opportunity to see several destinations.

Several 2026 sailings are even cheaper than a steak dinner. A weeklong Norwegian Epic voyage from Port Canaveral to Jamaica, Mexico, a private island in the Bahamas and back, or a 13-night Norwegian Pearl sailing from Italy to Philadelphia with stops in Malta and Spain, are offered in November for as little as $31 per day, according to affordable cruise aggregator Cruise Sheet.

For comparison, US hotel prices averaged about $174 per night in 2025, according to booking platform Hotels.com, while a one-day ticket to Florida’s Walt Disney World starts at $119 per person.

A boat, for many travelers, offers much more than a bed.“It’s not 12 hours on a flight, jet-lagged, need a day to recover and then your vacation starts,” Hanks says. “As soon as you’re on the boat, before you even get to the place the boat is taking you, you’re on vacation.”

For travelers like 22-year-old Lexi Bell, an interior designer and dance teacher in Maryland, cruises offer an affordable and accessible way to test-drive an unfamiliar destination. She estimates her initial cruise fare tends to cost around $125 per day, not including upsells such as drinks or excursions.

She says she’s been on 16 cruises with family, friends and solo since her first in 2014, most between three and four nights. She’s happy to fly, but her recent plane trips have been to places she first visited by ship, like Aruba and St. Maarten. “I wouldn’t have necessarily picked St. Maarten if I hadn’t been there on a cruise,” she says.

In decades past, cruise ships operated more like simple all-inclusive resorts that floated. These days, they look more like amusement parks outfitted with go-kart tracks, virtual-reality arcades, zip lines and even roller coasters — attention-grabbing attractions that capture the attention (and, subsequently, wallets) of young, would-be travelers on social media. TikTok youngsters now proudly post about their at-sea vacations in the form of cabin tours, outfit recaps and “Everything I Ate” videos.

Mone-Corallo is partial to adults-only Virgin Voyages’ food and Disney Cruise Line’s nostalgic charm. But her favorite is Royal Caribbean, best known for its fleet of giant ships topped with water parks and ice skating rinks. She’s especially fond of its 7,600-guest Icon of the Seas, where she enjoys the adults-only pool deck, evening comedy shows and trendy tea- and coffee-infused cocktails at the Rye and Bean bar. The ship’s watering hole-lined walkways seem purpose-built for post-dinner bar crawls, and the late-night themed parties feel like a college function, passengers say.

And when the sun rises, Royal Caribbean’s megaships are still full of amenities to attract younger cruisers, according to Allie Thompson, a travel adviser and cruise specialist with Kingdom and Cruise Travel. Examples include the six waterslides (part of the largest water park at sea) and “walking the plank” on the Crown’s Edge thrill ride.

“Those are all things that bring back your childhood,” Thompson says. “The millennial generation is very adrenaline-driven. They don’t just want a vacation. They want an experience.”

Thompson notes that more than 70% of her cruise bookings are for Royal Caribbean. She estimates about half of those are millennials or younger. She’s noticed a substantial uptick in this client demographic over the past 18 months, especially among those who want to celebrate multi-generational family reunions or life milestones at sea.

Mone-Corallo and Thompson agree that Virgin is the millennial cruise. In 2027, tickets range from $327 per person for a three-night California and Mexico sailing to $4,610 per person for an 11-night Spain, Portugal and Morocco itinerary, according to pricing as of Nov. 2.

The company’s four kid-free ships have amenities like Korean barbecue restaurants, complimentary fitness classes and tattoo parlors. There are drag shows with raunchy jokes and shipwide red-themed parties where red lingerie is considered an appropriate outfit. It’s common to see upside-down pineapple magnets on cabin doors, code for, “We are swingers.”

Even Disney Cruise Line, whose brand identity is effectively the opposite of Virgin’s, is vying for the wallets of millennials and Generation Zers. Thompson has several adult clients who are child-free but love Disney cruises. Its newer ships feature extensive cocktail menus and adults-only bars themed around the Star Wars saga and the Haunted Mansion theme-park attraction.

The fares can be steeper: In 2027, these floating Disney resorts range from $884 for two people on a three-night voyage from Singapore to $66,034 for two people on Disney Believe’s maiden five-night Mediterranean cruise, according to pricing as of Nov. 2.

To appeal to the nostalgia of ’90s babies, some ships also carry cruise-exclusive merch and stage productions inspired by hits from the era. There’s a Broadway-style adaptation of the 1997 film Hercules on Disney Destiny.

This younger generation of cruisers is the key to the industry’s long-term sustainability. If they don’t already have kids of their own to pass on the tradition of family cruising, many will soon.

Hanks and her husband were both raised in cruising families. But their honeymoon represented their first voyage together, planned in pursuit of a more affordable getaway. “I would consider myself a cruiser for the rest of my life,” Hanks says. “We’re very excited for family cruises and getting to have that experience with our kids as well.”