On my last cruise, a Queen Mary 2 Crossing, I was nervous about disembarkation.
Not because the trip was ending, but I was apprehensive about a potentially uncomfortable
encounter with my cabin steward.
Him loitering and wondering if I was going to give him a tip, and me feeling guilty because
I wasn’t.
Gratuities on a cruise have got more complicated recently, and I want to talk about that, what
it means and why I wasn’t leaving a tip.
Welcome aboard.
I'm Gary Bembridge and I’m hoping you will join the gratuities debate as I know you will
have strong views on what I'm about to say.
The first big issue I wrestle with is: what exactly are gratuities on a cruise these days
Every dictionary definition says they are something given voluntarily to thank someone
for good service.
Two key aspects: “voluntary” and “good service”, suggesting people going above
and beyond their duty.
Lines are now giving up any pretense that gratuities are either voluntary or for added
good service.
When I first started cruising gratuities were just that.
We all gave cash tips directly to crew we felt had done an amazing job.
We all assumed crew in every department were getting a fair wage and these were a bonus
for passenger-facing crew.
The lines argued when auto-added gratuities were introduced that it was fairer as that
pool of money would be split and cascaded to all departments contributing to our experience
and all would benefit.
However, if that was the intention that soon changed.
Gratuities became, in my view, a tool cruise lines used to achieve lower fares to entice
us to book funded by paying crew lower base wages.
They then used auto-added gratuities to claw money back to bolster crew pay back to what
it should be.
Let’s be clear, cruise lines expect us to pay more for our cruise than their advertised
fare suggests.
They expect us to pay the fare plus gratuities.
They need us to for crew to get wages at least the going industry rate.
To ensure we paid up, lines auto-added them onto our bills but now I see 3 trends emerge
to enforce this as resistance grows to them.
First, lines auto-adding gratuities are starting to try cloud the narrative by giving them
alternative names.
For example, Princess on my recent Alaska cruise called them “Daily Crew Appreciation”,
Holland America called them “Crew Appreciation and Service Charges” on my Scandinavia cruise,
while on my Cunard Queen Mary 2 Transatlantic it was just called a “service charge”.
Maybe they’re renaming them to cloud that they are ramping up the cost of gratuities
at the same time.
Most lines now have gratuities at between $14 and $20 per person per day based on cabin
grade, which also applies to children sharing their parent’s cabin.
That adds between $200 and $300 for a couple for a seven-day cruise.
So, between $400 to $600 for a family of four.
And that’s constantly increasing.
As the cost grows passengers are noticing the scale of and pushing back on these charges.
That’s why I believe I am seeing more lines trying to obscure the size of them by offering
optional fare upgrades that bundle gratuities with Wi-Fi, Drinks Packages, Speciality Dining,
or excursion credits.
For example, Princess Plus and Princess Premier fares and Windstar All-in Fares.
Celebrity went a step further and changed to “Always Included” fares as the only
fare they offered and increased their fares upwards accordingly.
The third change was many value and premium lines, mostly UK based, bit the bullet and
joined the ultra-luxury lines like Seabourn, Silversea and Regent Seven Seas and increased
fares to include gratuities in the base fare instead.
These include Virgin Voyages, Azamara, Saga, P&O Cruises UK, and Marella.
The effect of all these changes is that cruise passengers, including me, are now paying a
rate for a cruise that covers gratuities no matter what line we cruise on nowadays.
While it is possible on almost all lines, except Norwegian Cruise Lines at time of recording,
to remove auto-gratuities on board, few passengers seem to.
In a survey on my channel of over 4,000 cruisers only 10% said they removed them.
I never remove those gratuities as I feel if I do the crew are subsidizing my trip with
lower wages.
So, is the fact that I am now paying gratuities the reason I did not tip anything to the cabin
steward I mentioned earlier?
No, it’s more complicated and getting more so.
Knowing that I have paid gratuities does give me with a dilemma around what the right thing
to do is, especially for crew I have close interactions with like my cabin steward, butler
if I'm in a suite, and if doing fixed dining, the waiting staff that that deal with me every
day.
Possibly as I started cruising in the days before auto-added gratuities and I handed
out envelopes of cash at the end of a cruise, I feel guilty not doing that.
In that poll I mentioned, 50% of cruise passengers say they pay cash tips to select crew members
on top of auto-gratuities or when on lines where gratuities are in the fare.
I am as you now know one of those, but recently I decided to stop double tipping as a habit,
as it can mount up and fares and costs of cruising are ramping up.
Now I am trying to get myself used to and follow these five principles
First, I budget on the basis that I will pay a cruise fare that always includes base gratuities
for the crew.
So, that could be they are auto added, included in some bundle like Princess Premier or within
an all-inclusive fare like on Azamara.
I know that this will be in a pot shared to all those I deal with often, infrequently
and behind-the-scenes.
I do increase those auto-gratuities if throughout the cruise service and the experience has
been high so all benefit.
This was the case on my Oceania Marina Panama cruise earlier this year where right across
the board service was great and I felt all should benefit.
I especially do this if I have on-board credit that I do not use up or find myself slipping
into that habit of looking for ways to spend it, I instead use it to increase auto-added
gratuities.
Though before I do, I check if it can be used for gratuities.
I was about to do that on my recent Azamara Quest cruise as I had a lot of on-board credit
given to me as a fare price match BUT their rules did not allow it to be used for extra
gratuities.
So, I could have ended up with unspent OBC and an extra bill.
The other downside of upping auto-gratuities is the people you interact with often who
may hope or expect a tip will not know you have done that.
And so, this leads me to my second principle.
I take cash with me, though not of the scale in the days before auto-added, to tip crew
that I come into regular contact with that go above and beyond in some way and make my
cruise special.
By the way, when it comes to paying cash tips, I pay either in U.S. dollars or the official
currency on the ship, which in most cases is U.S. dollars.
But if I were, say, on a P&O ship or a Saga ship where the official currency was pound
sterling, that is what I would pay.
Let me give an example of how this has played out, which is where that cabin steward comes
back.
On my recent Cunard Queen Mary 2 Transatlantic, the waiters were fantastic.
We had the same waiters allocated for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
They learned our quirks, preempted everything we needed, from oat milk on the table for
breakfast, to spinach as an extra with my meal and even pre-emptively requesting a non-dairy
Baked Alaska alterative for my partner.
They joked with us and elevated the experience.
We gave them extra tips.
We had a butler and a cabin steward.
They provided a fine service, but it was as expected.
We had to chase up a couple of things, there were a few errors, and they did not really
elevate the trip.
So, I felt the normal auto-added gratuities were perfectly fine.
Unlike on my Oceania trip the month before where I had been upgraded into a suite where
the butler and a cabin steward were super attentive, learned all my quirks, what I liked
and I didn't like , and without asking tweaked the evening canapes by observing what I ate
and left, they knew I don’t drink alcohol, caffeine and sugary drinks, and hunted for
options and even brought a non-alcoholic sparkling wine to replace the champagne.
The butler even offered me his personal multi-USB charger to borrow because he saw I had lots
of camera equipment to charge.
So, I tipped both generously.
But I didn't tip the waiters because, again, that was a normal service.
Another example was by my partner who spends hours every day playing blackjack and interacts
and gets to know the dealers who make his cruise.
So, tips the dealers at the end of playing.
So, I do tip on top of auto gratuities if I genuinely see added service, but I still
find it stressful as old habits die hard.
There are x people I never tip, which I will come to after quickly discussing my third
principle.
I call out and name everyone that has given great service in the post-cruise survey.
This crew and managers keep telling me is key for staff to get recognition, bonus, and
promotion.
So even if not tipped individually this can help crew enormously.
To make sure I don’t forget anyone I take photos of their name badges so I can get their
name and position right.
This was a tip a crew member once gave me when stressing how important calling people
out in the survey was.
So who do I never tip then?
I never tip when I'm buying drinks as gratuity, often 18% is added on automatically, and so
I leave the section to add even more tip blank.
Gratuities are also added on to the price of any drinks package too.
The same is true in the Spa, salon, or hairdressers.
If I'm having specialty coffees or buying ice cream or gelato, again, I don't give a
tip.
Either it's auto added, or there's none expected.
If crew members handle special requests or fix things, like a broken toilet or air conditioning,
or I've messed up my safe and I need someone to come and fix it, I don't tip that.
I also never tip senior crew, including the Captain, Cruise Director, Head Chef, Maître
de, Guest Services, or Excursions Team as they are usually well paid, and in some cases
it’s not considered appropriate.
That also applies to the entertainment team who run events, the performers or the guest
artists, or any people playing live music around the ship.
Some friends like to tip the pianist in a piano bar to get their requests higher up
in the priority.
I also don't normally tip when I go specialty dining because the extra charge should cover
that, and the waiters are included in the gratuities pool already.
What are your thoughts on gratuities, and have you changed or thinking of changing what
you do?
I’d love to hear in the comments what you think.
But while you consider that look at this video where I look at seven things smart cruisers
do, starting with the one thing that I found makes the biggest difference of all.
See you over there.