Should customers be able to tip at their own discretion?

In the last 4 months I have seen an increase of customers asking for me to take off the pre-paid gratuities. Personally I thought it was much easier for pre-paid gratuities to be paid for in advance so it’s one less thing for you to worry about when your on your cruise. However it seems to becoming ever more popular for customers to ask for them to be taken off at the booking stage.

When I ask the question “why is it you would like me to take them off”, I would normally be expecting an answer like ” I will pay for them with my on-board account”. However a lot of customers are now asking for them to be taken off the booking and they will speak to the Purser at reception to have them removed from their on-board account and they will tip on their own discretion .

Far be it for me to agree or disagree, however I am sure by doing this a lot of the crew on-board these ships would not receive any tipping what so ever as they are not seen by the passengers on-board the ship, even though they put in just as much hard work. When gratuities came into place this became very apparent that all gratuities would be spread equally to all crew making this a fare working progress. We must all admit that all staff work to a very high standard and and we all agree cruising would not be the same with out the level of service, expertise and general outcome and style of the brand name.

What are your thoughts and experience’s on this subject?