Here is a Christmas do you probably haven’t costed.
Dinner aboard a cruise ship. Five courses, half a bottle of wine, a theatre show, then your own cabin and a cooked breakfast in the morning. From £119 a head.
The twist is that the ship stays put. Ambassador‘s Ambience spends the whole night tied up at London Cruise Terminal in Tilbury.
No sea. No seasickness. No taxi at midnight either.
What you get
Welcome cocktail. Five-course meal. Half a bottle of wine each. Entry to the show in the ship’s theatre.
Book the overnight and you add the cabin and breakfast.
Gratuities are in the price, so nothing lands on your account at the end of the night.
What it costs
£69 gets you lunch and a show, on Thursday 10 December. The other lunch dates are £75 or £79.
The overnights run £119 to £159.
Two things worth knowing. The 8.30pm sitting is £10 cheaper than the 6pm one on every date. And Saturdays are the priciest nights, every time.
Seven dates in all: 4, 5, 10, 11, 12, 18 and 19 December. The 6pm sitting on Saturday the 12th has already sold out.
The 4th and 5th get a disco show, Disco Inferno UK.
Worth checking before you book a group
Tables are fixed at four, six or eight, and Ambassador says other guests may be seated with you.
Name changes cost £25 each and can’t be made within 14 days of the event.
Events are over-18s only. Dietary requirements need submitting 21 days ahead, and wheelchair use has to be approved in advance, with numbers capped.
Parking should be booked and paid for up front. Alcohol can’t be brought aboard, and anything you turn up with is held and returned when you leave.
Next December is already bookable
Four dates in December 2027, the 10th, 11th, 17th and 18th, are on sale and held with a £25 deposit.
The dinner packages are £10 higher than this year’s equivalents. The Saturday lunches are £4 lower.
And the cruises
The same ship that still needs a fourth fleetmate is also running five Christmas market sailings on Ambition out of Tilbury between 1 and 17 December, from two to six nights, with fares from £404 to £602.
Those are quoted in four different cabin grades and carry a £7 per person per night service charge the party nights don’t. We’ll run the per-night sums on them separately.
The bottom line
£119 for dinner, a show, a bed, breakfast and the tip included is a decent December night out, and there isn’t much like it on land.
The things to weigh aren’t really the price. They’re the shared table, the £25 name changes, and the fact that Saturdays and the 6pm sittings go first.
If a Saturday matters to you, the 12th is already partly gone.
