Can you have gratuities removed on Carnival?

Can you opt out of gratuities on Carnival Cruise? You can opt of paying gratuities once you are onboard your ship, by speaking to the team at Guest Services. You can remove them from your account once they have been added, which happens on the second-to-last day of your cruise.



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Carnival gratuities are not optional, in that they are automatically added to your account. They can be removed, but only if you visit the Guest Services desk on the ship and ask them to take them off your account. Otherwise, you are expected to pay.

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Passengers can change the daily amount or opt out of gratuities altogether until the morning of departure. Some passengers interested in removing gratuities want to do so in order to reward crew members individually with cash tips. Others, unfortunately, want to avoid paying an extra charge.

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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.

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You would just need to visit the Guest Services desk and explain your decision, and the cruise line will remove them for you. You may be asked for your reasoning. This isn't to apply pressure to you to retain them, but just so that it's clear you understand the impact that removing the gratuities has on the crew.

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If you prepay your gratuities, you might be able to get a refund prior to your cruise; however, it depends on your booking terms. To book flexible dining, for instance, you may be required to prepay them. The best course of action would be to directly call the cruise line or speak with your travel agent.

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For lines that do have them, service and gratuity charges are touted as a convenient alternative to the practice of cash tipping on cruise ships — something that once was common. Cruise lines say they pass the money collected from service charges to the shipboard crew.

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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. Passengers can change the daily amount or opt out of gratuities altogether until the morning of departure.

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Cruise lines generally can't force you to pay gratuities unless you decide to leave it too late to have them removed. 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.

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The amount you pay will vary by cruise line, but they are all in the same ballpark. You can expect to pay about $15-$20 per person, per day. So a couple traveling together will see about $30-$40 per day in gratuities, or about $200+ over the course of a week-long cruise.

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Again, cash might be the only thing they will take, and in most of the Caribbean you can tip in U.S. currency. As a side note, it can be nice to have some cash on your cruise so you can also tip people like street performers while in port.

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Cruise passengers pay mandatory tips, not just on their basic cruise but also if they choose to buy a drink package or dine in a specialty restaurant. No one is obligated to tip above and beyond that, but many people do.

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1. Gratuitites. You can usually use your Carnival onboard credit to pay for gratuities (tips), so long as you haven't prepaid them before you board the ship. However, onboard credit that comes from being a Carnival shareholder can't be applied to gratuities.

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