Hooray! British Cruise Line To Scrap Tipping Policy

This week there has been an announcement made by our most popular British cruise line stating that they are scrapping the gratuities policy on all cruises from May 2019.

I have to say that I really welcome this news, announced by P&O on Monday 20th August. It really gets my goat when cruise lines expect the paying public to subsidise the hard-working crew’s wages. In my humble opinion they should just pay them a decent wage to start with then everyone is happy.

It’s no surprise to me that it is a British cruise line that has made this bold move as we have a very different tipping culture to the Americans. It would be great to see some of the other big U.S. cruise lines following suit, however I can’t see that happening any time soon. Marella (formerly Thomsons/TUI), another British cruise line have never charged extra for gratuities and indeed have gone a step further and included an all inclusive drinks package on all their ships from Summer 2019.

I hope that P&O are going to increase the wages of the crew to reflect this change as the last thing we want to see are the crew who work tirelessly for extremely long hours losing out. I am sure that tipping will still be prevalent on board the P&O ships, but it will be passengers tipping the amount that they want to the staff that they want rather than being dictated to by the cruise line as to who and how much to tip.

Many people that are new to cruising have an idea that there are many ‘hidden charges’ when booking a cruise, when in reality it’s the gratuities that is the main extra. People are often surprised when I say that drinks, excursions and upgraded restaurants are not included in the basic price of a cruise. I’m not sure why as you wouldn’t book a full board land holiday and expect all these extras to be included.

I would like to say bravo to P&O. It’s a brave and very positive move which I hope will encourage more people to book on their ships.

Hurrah P&O!