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First time cruising solo? Start with the 21 things nobody tells you before your first cruise:
The first time I booked a cruise by myself, I spent more time worrying about the single supplement than I did planning any actual excursion. That surcharge — the cruise industry’s way of charging solo travelers for the privilege of not sharing a cabin — can add 50 to 100 percent to the cost of your fare. On some ships, it doubles the price entirely.
I’ve cruised solo more than once now. I’ve figured out how to avoid paying double, which ships are genuinely built for solo travelers, and what it actually feels like to sail alone. The short version: it’s one of the best ways to cruise. Here’s the longer version.
The Single Supplement Problem
Cruise cabins are priced assuming two people sharing them. When you sail alone, you’re occupying space the cruise line could have sold to a second passenger — so they charge you for it. The standard single supplement is 100 percent, meaning you pay the full double-occupancy rate on your own.
Some lines are better than others. Norwegian Cruise Line caps the single supplement at 75 percent on many sailings, and Royal Caribbean occasionally runs solo supplement sales that bring it down to 50 percent. But if you’re booking at regular pricing without any solo-specific cabin options, you’re often paying full double fare for a room to yourself.
The good news: there are real ways around this.
Studio Cabins: The Best Thing Norwegian Ever Built
Norwegian Cruise Line invented the studio cabin, and it changed solo cruising completely. These are smaller cabins — typically around 100 square feet — designed and priced specifically for one person. No single supplement. You pay one fare, you get one cabin, done.
The ships that have them: Norwegian Epic, Breakaway, Getaway, Escape, Joy, Bliss, Encore, and Prima. If you’re sailing NCL and solo travel is on your mind, check whether the ship has studios before you book anything else.
The cabins themselves are compact but smartly designed — think of a well-laid-out hotel room that happens to be on a ship. What makes them genuinely great, though, is the Studio Lounge: a private common area exclusive to studio cabin guests. It’s where solo travelers congregate before dinner, share a drink, and — if you want — actually meet other people traveling alone. I’ve had some of the best conversations on ships in that lounge.
You can browse NCL sailings and filter by ships with studio cabins here.
If you’re anxious about the social side of cruising alone, the Studio Lounge solves it. You’re not forced to interact with anyone, but the option is there, and the people who end up there tend to be good company.
Royal Caribbean’s Solo Options
Royal Caribbean doesn’t have dedicated studio cabins on most ships, which means you’re generally stuck with the single supplement. That said, a few things work in your favor:
First, Royal runs solo supplement promotions fairly regularly — sometimes as low as 50 percent above base fare, which makes the math much more reasonable. Signing up for their email list and watching for sales is worth it if you’re flexible on timing.
Second, Royal’s ships — especially the larger ones like Wonder of the Seas and Icon of the Seas — are so activity-dense that sailing solo never feels lonely. There’s trivia, there’s the pool deck, there are specialty restaurants where sitting at the bar alone feels completely natural. The sheer scale of those ships means you’re never short of things to do or people to talk to if you want to.
I’ve done Royal solo and had a great time. I just paid more for it than I would have on NCL.
You can browse Royal Caribbean sailings and check solo supplement rates here.
Virgin Voyages: Another Solo-Friendly Option
Virgin Voyages is worth a look if you’re considering solo cruising. Their ships — Scarlet Lady, Valiant Lady, and Resilient Lady — offer solo cabins specifically designed for single occupancy, no single supplement required. The line is adults-only (18+), which creates a different atmosphere than NCL or Royal: smaller ships, no kids, a club-hotel vibe rather than a traditional cruise feel.
The solo cabins on Virgin are compact but well-designed, and the all-inclusive pricing model (most dining and non-alcoholic drinks are included in the fare) makes budgeting straightforward. If you’ve been curious about Virgin Voyages and want to sail alone without the supplement penalty, it’s a genuine option alongside NCL’s studios.
You can browse Virgin Voyages solo cabin availability here.
Other Ways to Avoid the Single Supplement
Beyond studio cabins and sales, a few other approaches work:
Repositioning cruises. These are sailings where a ship moves between home ports — say, from Miami to Barcelona at the start of European season. They’re longer, often transatlantic, and cruise lines price them to fill cabins. Solo supplements frequently disappear entirely on repositioning sailings, or drop to 10 or 25 percent. The tradeoff is that you need flexibility on dates and destination, and you’ll spend several sea days in a row. I find that relaxing. Some people don’t.
Guarantee cabins. When you book a guarantee cabin, you’re accepting whatever cabin the cruise line assigns you — usually announced a week or two before sailing. In exchange, the price is lower. Solo travelers occasionally get assigned double cabins at single rates this way, though it’s not guaranteed. Think of it as a lottery you don’t lose much by entering.
Last-minute deals. Cruise lines discount unsold cabins in the weeks before departure. If you can book on short notice, solo supplement percentages often shrink because a half-price cabin for one is still more revenue than an empty one.
NCL dynamic pricing. One pattern worth knowing from my own experience: NCL uses a dynamic pricing structure, and rates often drop significantly after final payment is due — typically around 90 days before sailing. My first solo cruise was a Bahamas sailing on the NCL Sky, oceanview cabin, solo — $149. That kind of deal shows up when you watch prices in that post-final-payment window. It requires flexibility, but if you can book on shorter notice, it’s one of the best ways to make solo cruising genuinely affordable.
Dining Solo
This is the thing people worry about most, and it’s the thing that matters least. Main dining room on most ships offers shared tables — you can request to be seated with other guests, and on Royal and NCL both, this works exactly as you’d hope. I’ve had dinners with retired teachers from Ohio, nurses from the UK, a couple celebrating their fortieth anniversary. It’s one of the genuinely unpredictable pleasures of cruising solo.
If you’d rather eat alone, the buffet makes that easy and comfortable. Specialty restaurants — particularly ones with counter or bar seating — work well too. Nobody looks twice at a solo diner on a cruise ship. It’s more common than you’d think.
Shore Excursions
Booking excursions through the cruise line costs more but comes with one practical benefit for solo travelers: they wait for you if something goes wrong. If you miss the ship on an independent excursion, you’re on your own for catching up at the next port. That’s a real consideration.
For lower-risk ports — somewhere like Nassau or Cozumel where you can walk off the ship and find plenty to do within a short radius — independent is fine. For farther-flung destinations, I tend to stick with ship-sponsored tours when I’m sailing alone. The math changes if something goes sideways.
What Solo Cruising Actually Feels Like
There’s something specific about being on a ship alone that doesn’t happen the same way anywhere else. You have a schedule if you want one and no schedule if you don’t. You eat when you’re hungry. You go to whatever show sounds interesting. You skip the things that don’t.
I’ve traveled solo on land plenty of times. Cruising solo is different because the ship itself is the community. You’re not navigating a foreign city alone — you’re on a floating town where the same few thousand people are going the same direction, eating in the same places, watching the same sunset from the same deck. It’s social without requiring you to be social. That’s a specific kind of freedom that I didn’t expect before I tried it.
If you’ve been putting off a cruise because you don’t have anyone to go with, stop putting it off. The single supplement is the only real obstacle, and it’s solvable. The rest takes care of itself.