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Celebrity charge a daily service charge, as well as gratuities on every drink, spa treatment and speciality meal. Technically cruise lines cannot force you to pay gratuities, especially if you have a complaint or issue about the service you received on board. Gratuities on a cruise are not mandatory, but instead heavily suggested and added automatically.
Complete Guide to Cruise Ship Gratuities for 2024
40,000 people receive my best cruise tips, insights and guides every week. I have sailed twice with the budget river cruise line Tui, and again all tips were included. It is important to check the small print with the cruise line you are travelling with, to see if you will incur these extra charges.
Costa Cruises
Their tips are at the lower end of the scale for gratuity rates. In Africa, $15 to $20 per day is recommended for the Zambezi Queen onboard staff, and $5 to $10 is recommended for AmaWaterways tour guides. The British too are less happy tipping on cruises than Americans – and likely won’t tip as much or at all. We expect few guests actually make the effort to reduce the automatic tip. The idea is that tips are now shared among all staff, including behind-the-scenes workers, not just room stewards and waiters. After the cruise, if you ask a porter to load your luggage and wheel it to the outdoors or motor coach, you’ll need to dip into your wallet one more time.
Mainstream Cruise Lines Gratuity Rates
Yet, it can add hundreds of dollars to the final numbers and falls into the category of an important item for most passengers. Virgin Voyages includes gratuities in the cruise fare, but they call it a “Voyage Fare” instead of a gratuity. This means you won’t have to worry about tipping your crew members during your voyage. Gratuity charges are applied to your onboard account on a daily basis. This means that you don’t have to worry about remembering to tip your servers, housekeeping staff, or other crew members during your trip. Passengers are welcome to tip cruise line crew as they see fit.
Step 2 – Gratuities Will be Added to Your Onboard Account Daily
The exact charge for these cruise gratuities do vary by cruise line and by stateroom category. While gratuities are part of the cruise fare on some luxury lines, cruisers should plan to pay the following fees on the majority of major cruise lines. Olsen gratuities are entirely at the discretion of each passenger.
While considered a luxury brand, Viking is one of the few high-end cruise lines that does charge a daily guest gratuity. All guests will need to pay a hotel and dining charge of $17 per day regardless of stateroom category. The newer system of charging cruise gratuities on a per person/per day basis has helped equalize this situation. In addition to the waitstaff and room stewards receiving portions of the fee, the funds are also shared by some cruise lines with crew members in other jobs.
Carnival Cruise Line makes a dining change, asks customers to tip - TheStreet
Carnival Cruise Line makes a dining change, asks customers to tip.
Posted: Tue, 12 Mar 2024 07:00:00 GMT [source]
A 15% tip is automatically added to bar, beverage and deck service tabs. The cruise line suggests you may also wish to give your local guides a cash tip at the end of each tour. Viking Ocean Cruises tipping policy is to automatically add a daily “hotel and dining charge” to your bill. You can adjust this by heading to the Explorer’s Desk at any time. Expect a 15% service charge for bar and wine purchases plus salon services. For cruises out of Barbados, gratuities are charged in advance and automatically added to the cost of your cruise when you book.
How Much to Tip Cabin Stewards and Butlers
You might be wondering how you can get out of paying these cruise service charges. That is to keep an eye on your cruise planner and email for special promotions. Further, a 15% gratuity is automatically added to bar, beverage, wine, and deck service tabs. An 18% gratuity is automatically added to bar, beverage, wine, and deck service tabs. Cruise gratuities are the tips that each passenger pays during the trip.
If you're wondering how much you should tip on the specific cruise line you're considering or have already booked, we've compiled that information here. Below is a line-by-line look at policies for automatic gratuity charges (called service charges or "crew appreciation" charges at some lines). The roles above don’t receive tips from the daily gratuity charge collected by cruise lines. However, bartenders receive gratuities from the service charges applied to beverages and drink package purchases.
Just remember that cruise ship crew live in very tight quarters, without much room for personal belongings. So something edible (maybe a favorite candy or snack from your home region?) will be more appreciated than something they would have to store. Automatic gratuities cover just about every tipped crew member on the ship.
For instance, in recent years, Norwegian often ran Free at Sea promotions that included free crew tips in addition to free shipboard Wi-Fi and a free drinks package. The line hasn't been doing that as much lately, but these offers often come back at times when brands need to drum up more business. Similarly, if you're on a higher-end ship that lists gratuities as being included in the fare, that means just what it says.
A 20% gratuity is automatically added to specialty dining, beverage, beverage package, room service, mini bar purchases, and spa & salon purchases. Cruise gratuities are weekly or daily service charges paid by cruise guests. If you book through a travel agent, you may find that prepaid gratuities are automatically added before sailing. Otherwise you can prepay the tips up to 48 hours before your cruise. Because tips are technically voluntary, most cruise lines do allow passengers to opt out of the automatic service charge and to tip by themselves in cash. The included tip amount varies by cruise line but is typically 15% to 20% of the bill.
Check out our travel tips and resources guide for airline booking tips, ways to save money, how to find great hotels and other crazy useful trip planning info. The exact amount largely depends on which cruise line you’re going on. But many of the popular lines add on a gratuity of $15 to $20 per person a day. You can choose not to pay the gratuities or to reduce the amount, but often they make up part of the crew’s wage. Viking River Cruises recommends a standard daily gratuity rate.
You can simply head down to Guest Services to explain the situation and have the gratuity amount changed or removed. In this case, the charge will automatically be applied to your onboard account. Then at the end of the cruise the amount is paid with your payment method on file. The full charge is calculated and then you can call the cruise line or pay via your online account up to two days before your trip. This means that once you sail the charge is already taken care of. The cost is the same whether gratuities are paid onboard or before your cruise.
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