Cruises, Cruise Deals & Cruise Holidays

Just a thought on this automatic tipping (hotel charge), there are 1163 crew and 3114 (lower berths) passengers. Now if they all pay the $10.50 that means Princess take $32697.00 extra a day, and if it all gets distributed to the crew they will all get approximately $28.00 each per day. Do you believe that? And do Princess mean all the crew? Or just the Pursers (hotel) staff? In which case what of Engineering and Navigation, are they left out? The whole exercise looks more and more like a corporate scam to avoid paying the staff a decent wage in the first place. And as for the person in head office who thought that subjecting passengers to public embarrassment would be a good way to encourage more people pay up, well words fail me! If ever an idea had all the makings of a public relations disaster this must surely be it.

Hi we were on the same trip, yes we also had to stand in line to have the automatic tips removed.and answer questions as to why we were having the automatic ones removed. Also in an inside cabin on Baja deck! This was our 1st cruise and in the main enjoyed it except for the tipping and a problem we had because we do not have, nor want Credit cards so this presented a problem with the shipboard account. Passenger services wanted $600 up front and would not accept a debit card.

We are going on the grand in august and wondering if this arrangement is happening on all princess ships. Like others we have travelled with princess many times and have always cancelled the automatic tips on the first day and then have collected the envelopes nearer the end of the trip to put cash in to hand personally to the staff we have dealt with and would like to tip. I wonder if this is just on the newer ships or on all of them as there is going to be a lot of unhappy people having to queue on the 1st sea day. We travelled with RCL last summer and unless you ask at the time of booking your holiday the tips are automatically added to your final invoice.

I do not like the bullying tactics and emotional blackmail that Princess are using to make people pay these gratuities. If Princess want my gratuities, then they will have to earn it and receive it at the END of the cruise as do hotel and restaurant staff at the end of a stay and the end of a meal. By allowing them to add the gratuities on a daily basis means that customers do not have a choice to amend this if they feel as though standards and service as been below expectations. Who wants hundreds of pounds or dollars extra added to their account for a shoddy holiday? When I told my partner of this, I got a silent reply. We've been looking at Spring 2011 cruises on Princess website and I must admit, we are thinking of looking elsewhere!

We always cruise with Princess and are not that happy having the tips put on our account every day but the way the tips are now dealt with means that if you tip at the end of the cruise, the recipient has to hand in the tip so that it can go into the holding pot for everyone. In a way I think this is a good thing as somebody from the laundrette doesn't come into contact with us to earn a tip. Another problem with paying daily and not to the person concerned is that some people do not pay the tips and therefore the people who have worked tirelessly for them get nothing. I don't know if you have noticed but there are always empty tables the last night of the cruise. People who do not wish to give a tip, Even though we do allow the tips on our account daily we still feel we should be giving something at the end in person so end up paying more in the longrun.

We sailed on the Grand Princess around the Caribbean in March, and like yourselves we went to the purser's desk when we embarked the first day and asked to have the automatic tips removed as we prefer to tip ourselves. They did this without hesitation so this must be a fairly new thing that they have started having to wait for the first sea day. We also sailed on the Crown Princess 2 years ago and did the same thing. I think it is time that these companies paid their staff more and did not depend on the passengers to make up the staff's wages. We are not by any manner of means tightfisted and always like to tip for good service.