Each passenger on a Royal Caribbean cruise pays a daily gratuity to cover the services of hard working crew members onboard. These gratuities are shared among the dining, bar, and culinary teams, stateroom attendants, and the hotel service team.
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The extra cost of the automatic gratuity charges can be a shock to first-time cruisers. At some lines, these charges run as high as $25 per day. And, unlike the typical service fee or resort fee found at a land resort, they are not per room. They are per person.
The tips are spread out between the room steward, dining staff, and others. For example, of a $15 charge, $7 per day may be distributed to your room steward, $5 to the dining staff, and the remaining $3 is spread among other customer-facing positions on the ship.
There aren't any hard-and-fast guidelines for this type of tip since it's contingent on your experience, but $25 to $40 on behalf of a couple roughly works out to an extra $2 to $3 per person, per day, for a seven-night cruise.
How much are gratuities on Royal Caribbean? Royal Caribbean charges $16.00 per person, per day for most guest rooms. This rate applies to interior cabins, oceanview, and balcony cabins. The cruise lines charges $18.50 per person, per day for guests in suites.
In addition, when you reserve specialty restaurants, dining packages, drink packages, and spa services on Royal Caribbean's Cruise Planner website, the gratuity will be added upon checkout. Because gratuity is already included in the price of these purchases onboard, it's not necessary to tip extra.
While your cruise steward is being tipped out of the paid cruise gratuities, this is one crew member you may want to tip extra. They clean your cabin daily, storing it with towels, amenities, and anything you need.
If you buy a drink package on either cruise line, you pay an 18% gratuity that goes into the pool for all bar staff. The same applies when you buy an individual drink. If, however, you hand a specific bartender an added tip, they either keep it or share it with their coworkers at that bar.
If you want to manage your budget more effectively, it's a good idea to prepay your gratuities for your Princess cruise. The only time you would be better off waiting is if you want to use any onboard credit towards the gratuity amount.
A 18% gratuity is automatically added to all beverages, mini bar items, and spa & salon purchases. Guests can pre-pay gratuities by calling 866-562-7625 before the sailing*. Guests booked through travel advisors, need to contact their advisor to add pre-paid gratuities to the booking prior to sailing*.
No matter which cruise line you sail, crew gratuities — also known as service charges or crew appreciation — are a fact of life. This includes sailing on Princess. Like other cruise lines, Princess charges a daily gratuity fee — known as “crew appreciation” — while sailing.
If you do not prepay gratuities and are instead being charged a daily amount onboard, you can go to Guest Services and request to remove or modify this daily charge.
How much you tip on cruise excursions is entirely up to you, but a suggested starting price is $3 per person for a half-day tour and $6 per person for a full-day tour for the guide and $1 to $2 for the bus driver. You can, of course, increase that amount based on your experience on the excursion.
Do cruise ship employees actually get the gratuities? The automatic gratuity pool onboard cruise ships covers the housekeeping staff (cabin stewards) and wait staff. If a passenger is staying in a suite which includes butler service, the automatic gratuity is increased to include their butler.
While the automatic service charges will cover their basic gratuities, it's generally considered good form to tip them a bit extra for a job well done, especially if you have made any special requests. Should you choose to, for a seven-night cruise, consider tipping about $2 to $3 per person, per day.
According to the results of my three polls: 61% tip their stateroom attendant an additional $20–$40 per couple per week, 26% tip $40–$70, and 13% tip an additional $70–$140.
No. Therefore, tipping is discouraged. So while you may see a cash tip as a nice gesture, it might be prohibited by the airline entirely and flight attendants may not appreciate it either as they — rightly — see themselves as safety professionals and not customer service workers.
Midship staterooms on the lowest passenger deck are the most excellent spot to be on a cruise ship in this instance because you don't feel the vessel sway as much.
Among many difficult jobs on cruise ships, handpicking the toughest one is tricky. Still, one job will stand out in terms of horrific working conditions and cruel working hours-the galley steward.