Table Of Content
Cruise lines typically flag their ships in countries with lax employment laws. They pay their crew (usually recruited from countries with limited economic opportunities) per contract, not by the hour. If we see the same server in the main theater nightly, we might provide an additional $10 at the end of the trip.
Personalize Your Tip-Giving Experience
The staff isn’t likely to treat you any differently or even know that you aren’t tipping (after all, some people still like to pay cash at the end of the cruise). They will still go out of their way to make your cruise comfortable and enjoyable. If that’s the case — and you decide you want to change the amount you are charged for tips — then you can do that. Gratuity charges are typically not mandatory and can be adjusted. To do so, simply head down to Guest Services on the ship to tell them that you want to change your tip amounts. The vast majority of passengers are charged these tips, no matter if they are young, old, have special requests, eat in the main dining room, or only hit the buffet.
Cruise Gratuities: Navigating Tipping & Service Charges
Additional tipping outside of daily cruise gratuities is at your discretion. The truth is, your cruise experience may or may not not change dramatically. However, it’s important to remember that tips make up a significant portion of a crew member’s pay, and they rely on tips to make a living. Even the size of your stateroom or suite may also come into play when considering how much to tip, as these larger staterooms tend to have more amenities and even butler service. Lastly, the number of people in your party will also impact gratuities, as tips are paid per person. The best time to leave a tip for your cabin steward is usually at the end of the cruise during disembarkation.
What tipping structures are in place for cruises?
An automatic 18% gratuity is added to all bar bills, specialty restaurant cover charges and spa services. Holland America gratuities are automatically charged at $17 per person, per day for regular cabin passengers and $19 for suite passengers. Passengers should visit guest services to adjust these if they want. An automatic 18% gratuity is added to beverage packages, specialty dining, spa services, bar packages and main dining room wine purchases.
Celebrity Cruises increases gratuities for crew members on its cruise ships - Royal Caribbean Blog
Celebrity Cruises increases gratuities for crew members on its cruise ships.
Posted: Wed, 05 Jul 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
With the exception of a couple cruise lines on this list, most cruises that include gratuities are luxury lines. Passengers are welcome to tip cruise line crew as they see fit. You can prepay gratuities at any time up to 48 hours before your sail date. If you booked with a travel agent, contact your travel agent and they can add gratuities to your booking. If you booked with Royal Caribbean directly, your best bet is to call or access your account online to prepay gratuities. You would think that paying a hefty daily tip would cover everyone on the ship.
What if I want to tip some crew members more than the automatically generated amounts?
During your cruise, you will interact with many crew members, although some more than others. Examples are your cabin steward, waiter, assistant waiter, sommelier, concierge, and bartenders. These are the crew members you may wish to tip an additional amount for exceptional service. Unlike the U.S., cruise lines do not have to pay a minimum wage but instead pay their crew members a salary often supplemented with tips, plus free room, board, and medical care. This motivates employees to provide excellent service and keeps cruise prices more affordable by passing the cost of tips on to passengers.
Passengers who opt for Royal Caribbean's flexible My Time Dining must prepay gratuities. A 20% gratuity is automatically added to specialty dining, beverage, beverage package, room service, mini bar purchases, and spa & salon purchases. Therefore, for a 7-night cruise, you will pay $126 per person for gratuities in a standard cabin and $143.50 per person in a suite. It’s important to account for gratuities when budgeting for a Royal Caribbean cruise. When sailing with a family of four on a 7-night cruise, gratuities can add nearly $500 on top of your cruise fare. Each passenger on a Royal Caribbean cruise pays a daily gratuity to cover the services of hard working crew members onboard.
Award vs. cash calculator
Read the full automatic gratuity policy at the Royal Caribbean website. Meet Kathy Ava, a food, travel, and cruise writer based in Los Angeles/Pasadena, and the owner and main writer of Tasty Itinerary. With over 20 years of experience planning trips and logistics at her full-time job and for herself, she's become a pro at crafting unforgettable tasty itineraries. She's always on the hunt for delicious, fun travel destinations and cruise itineraries.
Other cruise gratuity advice
You do not need to tip the maitre d', as they are a ship's officer and paid accordingly. Wine ordered with meals will generally have a 15% service charge automatically applied. If the service has been exceptional, consider a tip of $10 to $15 at the end of your cruise.
This converts to a daily range of about $7-$11, helpful for shorter / longer cruise calculations. However, If we enter our cabin with a steward nowhere to be seen and we don’t ask for anything above basic service, we’ll sometimes leave nothing extra. It’s also important to remember that gratuities included in prepaid packages are nonrefundable, so you won’t be able to modify tip amounts even if you get bad service during the cruise. It’s just important to remember that if you go this route, it's on you to opt out of the ship’s gratuities program by going to guest services at the beginning of your sailing. Also, if you find that you’re unsatisfied with the service you’re getting, you can ask guest services to modify the amount you’re being charged each day. Royal Caribbean lets you make changes up to the morning of your departure—but to avoid confusion, you should contact guest services as soon as possible to make these types of changes.
Each line has different gratuity guidelines and slightly different policies regarding requests to adjust the amount. This can be done at any time during the sailing but may not be amended once you have disembarked. Automated billing is now ubiquitous in the cruise industry but cash tips to individual crew members are permitted. It is encouraged even on some luxury cruise lines that don’t bill gratuities separately, with recommended amounts posted on the respective websites.
18 Disney Cruise Tips 2024 — Disney Cruise Secrets - Reader's Digest
18 Disney Cruise Tips 2024 — Disney Cruise Secrets.
Posted: Thu, 01 Feb 2024 08:00:00 GMT [source]
Again, this normally runs around 18%, but can range from 15% to 20%, depending on the cruise line. We’ve seen instances of multiple increases in a year and other times when rates won’t change for a year or two. Just like the price of anything else, you should expect over time for these rates to continue to rise slowly but surely. Typical increases are around $1 per person, per day and seem to happen about once a year.
Some cruise lines also set aside some of the funds for other staff in hotel services. The cruise daily gratuity added to each account varies from around $12 to $18 per person, per day. Cruisers staying in suites and other high end staterooms are charged higher daily gratuities. Gratuities that are included for free as part of a booking promotion are also not eligible to be reduced or refunded for credit. One alternative tipping strategy is to prepay your gratuities before departing on your cruise. This can help you budget for additional costs and ensure that all crew members receive their fair share of tips.
This is a personal decision and I’m not sure if there’s a tipping etiquette for it. If you feel that you wish to give an extra amount to anyone who you feel has done a great job, they will be appreciative. Royal Caribbean crew members work extremely hard throughout their multi-month contracts, and gratuities are a way to reward them for providing amazing service. Finally, if you order anything from room service, then it’s expected that you give a couple of bucks to the staff member that delivers the food. Be aware that when you sign the receipt there will be another line for an additional tip. That said, it’s unusual to adjust the gratuity amount, and the staff works extremely hard to make your trip enjoyable.
Often, these crew members are part of the tip pool, and they lose part of their expected income each time a passenger removes autogratuities. Cruise lines pay these workers very low wages for the long hours that they work each day, and expect that passengers will tip to increase the crew members’ earnings to a reasonable rate. The practice of tipping is controversial, even in the United States where paying tips is part of the culture. In some service industries where wages are substandard, customers are expected to pay a gratuity, typically 15 to 20% of the bill, to augment the workers’ low hourly wages. I’ll explain everything you need to know about cruise gratuities—from who you should tip, how much you should tip, and who you should never tip on a cruise ship.
If your line raises the rate between the time you pay and the time you sail, you won't pay more. Tipping on a cruise does not have to be complicated, but you need to understand the big picture to budget for your vacation appropriately. Read on to learn all about cruise ship tipping culture and how much you'll need to tip on your next cruise, based on which cruise line you're sailing. This is an excellent article, which really clearly explains all the issues around tipping. In the UK, tips are completely discretionary and are only to reward service that goes above the normal expectations.
No comments:
Post a Comment