Gratuities on the rise again…….

Gratuities – always a talking point with very different opinions.  It seems you either are happy paying up front, or you like to tip the staff you want to at the end of the cruise.  For me I have to say I like to tip the staff that have served me throughout my cruise.  I love been able to thank them personally and hand over their well-deserved money.  Where it does become a little more difficult is that a lot of cruise lines offer the open dining which means that most of the time you sit at a different table each evening with a different waiter.  Who then do you tip?

On our recent cruise on Carnival we decided to do it slightly different.  First of all, without a shadow of a doubt our cabin steward deserved his tip.  All I will say on this is that he managed to make my daughters cabin who is 13 and loves make-up and fashion look neat and tidy everyday…. He must have dreaded her cabin each day!!  We then took the decision to tip some of the bar staff out at the pool bar where we used to go to most days, actually it was more my husband than me!!

When I book families on a cruise a question I get asked a lot is do the children pay the same amount for gratuities?  What are your thoughts on this?  I would love to know, I do think again this is very divided.

It seems that gratuities are on the rise, for the second time this year Princess will raise the suggested amount from $12.95 per day to $13.50 a day for inside, outside and balcony cabins and $15.50 per day for guests in mini suites and above.  It seems that Princess are  not the only cruise line to do this, as RCCL and Celebrity maybe will follow suit.

As i said earlier I would love to know your thoughts on gratuities…..