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A 20% gratuity is automatically added to all spa & salon purchases. A 18% gratuity is automatically added to all beverages and mini bar items. Welcome to High Seas Cruising, your resource for exploring the exciting world of cruise ship travel. We provide expert advice, insightful reviews, and comprehensive guides to help seasoned and novice cruisers create their ideal sea journeys. Whether you desire adventure, luxury, or exploration, High Seas Cruising is your compass to unforgettable cruise vacations. If you choose to thank the staff for making your trip enjoyable, you can choose to tip extra by giving them cash or adjusting your automatic gratuity.
Step 2 – Gratuities Will be Added to Your Onboard Account Daily
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Many cruise lines will tack an automatic gratuity charge onto the bill for extra-fee drinks, restaurant meals and spa treatments. Many Australia based cruise ships don’t charge an automatic daily gratuity charge, however, this can vary by cruise line. Many, but not all, luxury cruise lines include gratuities in the price of your cruise, as do some river cruises. This can be confusing, but it’s best to check before you book so you know what is included on your cruise, and what is not. Cruise gratuities are services charges that are not included in a standard cruise fare on most contemporary cruise lines, similar to a hotel resort fee.
Cruise Gratuities – Guide to Tipping on a Cruise Ship
How much to tip extra on a cruise is entirely up to you because it is in no way required. Technically not, but I really can’t state this enough – you shouldn’t remove gratuities from your cruise, because it unfairly impacts many of the crew on the ship. Guests are able to remove gratuities during their Princess cruise by visiting the Guest Services desk, but only if they do so before making their final payment on disembarkation day. Once paid for, the gratuities cannot be refunded.View Princess Cruises’ terms here. When a cruise line adds gratuities to your cruise fare, you can usually ask for them to be removed. You would just need to visit the Guest Services desk and explain your decision, and the cruise line will remove them for you.
Why You Might Remove Automatic Cruise Gratuities
Cruise lines will add the gratuities to your cruise account at different times, but it is often only added to your account on the second-to-last day. Your gratuities are worked out based on how many people are staying in your room, and how long you are sailing for. As well, some people like to hang onto their cash for as long as possible. If you prepay the tip charges when you buy the cruise, you are essentially giving the cruise line more of your money to hold, potentially months in advance of your trip. The biggest advantage is simply getting the charge out of the way.
Some cruise lines, like Carnival and Royal Caribbean, may have special offers where you get a set amount of onboard credit to enjoy during your cruise. You can also get onboard credit for some cruise lines if you’re a shareholder. There are a couple of key reasons why it makes sense to prepay your gratuities, and a third reason which applies only to some cruise lines. There are also some other cruise lines which may offer special deals where gratuities are included – look out for these when you book. Also keep in mind that the 20% gratuity is already added in when you sign the receipt for a drink at the bar. Feel free to tip more if you like, but know that you’ve already paid, and it’s not required.
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If you’re someone who isn’t a fan of tipping in general, you should understand that these crew members rely on tips for their salary. Tips are not really a reward – they are essential, and if you choose to avoid paying tips you’re essentially saying the crew shouldn’t be paid. But if you have already prepaid, you won’t pay extra, even if the costs do increase before you sail. The cruise line won’t tell you to pay the difference between what you’ve prepaid and what you would pay with the new pricing. But just because you can remove gratuities doesn't mean you should. Below, we explore the pros and cons of tipping versus not tipping on a cruise, and consider times when passengers may or may not think about removing cruise auto-gratuities.
Norwegian Cruise Line asks guests to report any service issues while on board, so that they can make it right. Should passengers still not be satisfied, there is a reimbursement request form that you can fill out. The daily gratuities is in addition to the 18% gratuity automatically added to all beverages, mini bar items, and spa & salon purchases. The option to prepay gratuities means locking in the current gratuity rate, along with spreading out the overall cost of the cruise by integrating it into the cost of the cruise. While you can adjust the automatic gratuities charged each day, there is no way to change the automatic 18% charge on things like drinks. If there was a legit reason to pay less, you could take it up with Guest Services, but wanting to pay 15% instead of 18% — simply because you think that’s more reasonable – can’t really happen.
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Why Prepay Gratuities?
However, even if your room steward was sloppy and your waiter was rude (extremely rare occurrences), or if you come from a non-tipping culture, please reconsider removing the automatic gratuity charges. The tips are not merely goodwill gestures; they're a critical portion of crew members' pay. The staff who delivers your room service may not participate in the automatic gratuity. While many cruise lines charge a room service delivery fee, it may not be shared with the crew member delivering your meal. Note that if you purchase a dining or beverage package, most cruise lines will charge you gratuities based on a percentage of the package price. If you get one of these packages for free as a booking perk, as with Norwegian Cruise Line's Free at Sea promotion, you might still be required to pay the gratuities on the free perk.
Who is charged gratuities on Norwegian Cruise Lines?
The All Included cruise fare now incorporates some basic amenities to provide a more all-inclusive feel. A housekeeping floor supervisor is included in the tip pool on most lines, and takes home $1,300 or more. A laundry attendant is usually not compensated with gratuities and might earn as little as $700 a month. As mentioned above, not all members of the ship staff receive a share of the gratuities paid by passengers. Bartenders, main show entertainers and third-party shop employees are some of the more obvious ones, but they're not the only ones.
→ They want to control how they tip and ensure the stars get the majority of their generosity. Some cruisers get personal joy and satisfaction of rewarding good service face to face. Others also like to ensure that the crew members who stood out the most are rewarded more handsomely than others. Instead of judging one another or criticizing the cruise lines, I think it’s important to know more about tipping and why the cruise lines have this practice in the first place. Finally, people who provide you with service on land — such as baggage handlers and shore excursion operators — are not affiliated with the cruise line, so should be tipped separately.
Passengers say that the best benefit to using this method of payment is sticker shock avoidance. While it may not sound like much money when quoted as a per person/per day cost, seeing the total on your final onboard bill can feel expensive. The only exception is where you’re able to apply onboard credit against your gratuity charges, and where you don’t intend to spend that onboard credit on other things. But most cruise lines also give you the option to prepay your gratuities – paying for them in advance. You can sometimes add this option as you book your cruise, otherwise, you would log into your account with the cruise line and add them on once the booking has been made. In some countries and cultures, gratuities are neither the norm, nor are they expected.
If you can’t find it, or you have any problem adding it to your account, you should call the cruise line to find out more. Yes, if you have onboard credit it might make sense to put that towards gratuities instead. Some onboard services aren’t subject to automatically-included gratuities. Since these are people that you may interact with on a daily basis, it’s nice to add them to your gratuity list. Don’t pre-pay gratuities and if there’s an increase, you’ll pay a bit more at the end of your cruise. If you’re paying for a family, it could be a very costly added expense.
This is an expense that many travelers overlook when tallying the cost of a voyage. Yet, it can add hundreds of dollars to the final numbers and falls into the category of an important item for most passengers. So if you’re inclined towards prepaying your gratuities, do so as soon as you can, to lock in the price before it goes up.
There are also regular promotions that include free prepaid gratuities too. Many luxury cruise lines have gratuities included with the cruise fares. Guests may tip additionally at their discretion, but tipping beyond the automatic gratuity isn’t mandatory or expected. They are often expressed as the rate for a single person (despite having to pay for double occupancy) and don’t include port fees or taxes.
If you want to avoid having a traditional dining sitting, giving you the option of visiting the Main Dining Room at a time that suits you instead, you have to prepay your gratuities in full. Where they are not included in your fare, they are still automatically applied to your account, but you can have them removed. Gratuities are never mandatory on a cruise, unless they are included in your cruise fare. When they are, you can’t ask for them to be removed in order to get a discounted fare. We are fans of prepaying the gratuities just because it makes things simpler to have your charges taken care of before you board. You would think that paying a hefty daily tip would cover everyone on the ship.
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