Why do cruises charge gratuities?

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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You have the right to refuse this automatic gratuity charge and may compensate cruise staff on your own terms. However, you will need to notify the front desk of this desire. Otherwise it will appear on your bill when your cruise ends and it will be charged to your credit card on file.

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If you do not prepay cruise gratuities before sailing, the cruise line will add them to your onboard bill. The cruise line will then charge your credit card for the gratuity amount at the end of the sailing – along with other purchases you made with your cruise card (drinks, souvenirs, spa treatments, tours, etc.).

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Paying gratuities and tipping the staff aboard a cruise ship is not compulsory but is considered the right thing to do. Cruise Tipping is a gesture of goodwill to reflect your gratitude for the service provided and to say a big “Thank You” to the crew members.

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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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Typical extra tips may be $15-20 per passenger for a seven-day cruise paid to the cabin steward for exceptional work, or an extra $10-20 per passenger to a waiter who offered spectacular dining service. Similarly, it is often acceptable to tip $1-3 when room service is delivered depending on the size of the order.

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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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In the unlikely event that a guest onboard being charged the daily automatic gratuity does not receive satisfactory service, the guest may request to modify the daily amount at their discretion by visiting Guest Services onboard and will be able to do so until the morning of their departure.

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Cruise gratuities or service gratuities are daily service charges automatically added to your onboard account. The total cruise bill is charged at the end of the cruise to the credit card on your account. Cruise gratuities are used by the cruise line to tip crew members throughout the ship.

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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. If you want to remove or reduce your gratuities, you need to visit the Guest Services desk.

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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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If you plan to remove tips from your onboard bill, you will need to plan in advance to bring enough cash for personal tipping, then wait in a potentially long line at the guest services desk to remove the auto-gratuities and chase down all the crew members you wish to thank on the last evening.

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Typical extra tips may be $15-20 per passenger for a seven-day cruise paid to the cabin steward for exceptional work, or an extra $10-20 per passenger to a waiter who offered spectacular dining service. Similarly, it is often acceptable to tip $1-3 when room service is delivered depending on the size of the order.

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Your auto-gratuities will cover all waitstaff in the main dining room, buffet restaurants and specialty dining venues alike. If you dine at the same table and enjoy regular service from one or two particularly excellent waiters, consider leaving an additional $10 to $20 at the cruise's end.

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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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$200 to 300 per cruise is average although some may prefer to tip more. Butlers tend to be offered on luxury cruise lines, and many of those – including Regent Seven Seas and Silversea – have tips already included, which are designed to cover the butler. But that doesn't stop people from tipping extra.

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If you do not opt to prepay gratuities, a daily charge will appear on your SeaPass account every day of the cruise for the daily gratuity rate per guest.

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A gratuity (often called a tip) is a sum of money customarily given by a customer to certain service sector workers such as hospitality for the service they have performed, in addition to the basic price of the service.

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