That Word Again!

Cruiseco colleagues and I in the casino on P&O Britannia

There is one word used on a daily basis at work that causes more discussions and strong opinions than any other and that is GRATUITIES.

The discussions have become more heated recently with both Carnival increasing from $12 to $12.95 and Royal Caribbean increasing their rate from $12.95 to $13.50 per person per day. Norwegian Cruise Line and P&O have also raised their amounts in the past year.

The general dictionary definition of the word gratuities is “a gift or reward, usually of money, for services rendered”.

The controversial part of cruise tipping is that it is applied automatically to your on board account, or in some cases can be paid with your cruise fare, and so is not for services rendered but services anticipated. If a family of 4 travel on a 14 night cruise, this “gift” adds up to over £500 so is no paltry sum.

I am not mean and have no problem rewarding exceptional service which the vast majority of crew do give. I personally do however have an issue with paying this upfront or automatically. Not many people realise that it is not mandatory but those who do and ask guest relations on board to remove the charge from their account, are usually worn down and put it back on. On a family cruise on Grand Princess, I asked for the tips to be removed so I could reward personally the people who had made my holiday extra special and I then received no less than four notes in my cabin over the next two weeks asking me to reconsider.

Having paid over £14,000 for 10 of us, to expect another £1200 was rather steep.

The crew do all work hard and very long hours but I would rather the fare was slightly higher and included tipping than the awkwardness on holiday of who and how much to give. Maybe I need to spend more time in the casino on board just to try to pay for the tips…hmmm maybe not!

What do you think?