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Do you tip on cruise shore excursions?

Another circumstance where tipping is recommended beyond the automatic cruise gratuities is during shore excursions. If you have booked a tour with your cruise line at a port of call, your guide should receive a tip at the end. This is also true for any tours booked with local guides.



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Tipping is a discretionary matter. However, it is customary around the world, if you are pleased with the excursion, to tip the tour guide. A general rule of thumb is one dollar per person for a half-day excursion and two dollars per person for a full-day excursion.

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If there was a driver in addition to a guide, tip them $1 to $5 per day. For free tours, which are offered in many large cities, you should tip between $5 to $10, depending on the quality of the tour.

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There are exceptions if your specific tour experience includes gratuities or you simply didn't have a good time, but in general, tipping your guide at the end of the tour is customary in the U.S. and Europe, though it's much more common in the States.

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Many river cruise lines include the gratuities, but for those that don't, the suggested range is between $10 and $20 per passenger, per day. Similarly, some expedition cruise lines include gratuities while those that don't recommend a gratuity of around $10 to $15 per person, per day.

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Because they are charged on a daily basis, you do not have to worry about tipping each crew member yourself. Many passengers, however, still like to leave extra tips for their stateroom attendant and dining room waiters at the end of the cruise.

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However, the general rule of thumb is to tip approximately 15-20% of your daily cruise fare plus an additional gratuity of $5-10 per person per day.

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While it's A-okay to stick to what's included with your cruise fare, the truth is that most cruisers add on a few extras. That can include shore excursions, dinners at specialty restaurants that aren't built into your fare, spa treatments, cocktails and soda, Wi-Fi and more.

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“It's up to the discretion of the customer, and it's not strictly necessary to tip in a fast food or quick service restaurant. That's very different from service at a sit-down restaurant, she notes, where the expectation is still that patrons should leave a tip of between 15% and 20% of their bill.

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Generally, it's appropriate to tip your private guide $10-$15 per day and another $5-$10 for drivers. For large group tours, you'd tip half of that.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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There are no cruise lines which offer cheaper deals on gratuities if you pay them in advance. However, it can be cheaper to do so anyway, as it can mean avoiding any price rises if you're booking at least a few months before you sail.

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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.

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