If you’ve cruised a mass-market line, you know the deal. That cruise fare may look cheap, and likely is, but tipping service staff is part of the bargain above and beyond the fare. Affectionally known as a daily service charge in some circles, it is now customary for many mass market lines to automatically add anywhere from $12 to $15 per day (an average, perhaps more if you have booked suite acommodations), per person to your on board account to cover tips for housekeeping and dining staff. It is also customary for the cruise line to adjust these charges off your bill if you prefer to tip in cash or have experienced some kind of service failure during your cruise vacation that you feel warrants a reduction in gratuities.
According to this Cruise Critic thread, the option to remove the service charge onboard your ship is no longer in place at NCL. Apparently, you must now email a form to a special guest relations address after the cruise and they will process a refund for you. This must be done within 30 days of your cruise, and you must include a reason why you are adjusting the service charge/gratuity.
My Take
I support this. First, if you have a legitimate gripe, you are likely to be motivated to follow through with this process and provide the reason why which can lead to corrective action. If you are just cheaping out of tips which far too many people probably do, I think it is less likely that you will take the time to do this….and fortunately less likely that the hard working staff on board gets stiffed.
Personally, I make it a habit of pre-paying the daily service charge/gratuity nowadays when the fare does not include it. I have a better idea of my costs upfront, and I look at the daily charge as a minimum. If I encounter staff during my cruise that go above and beyond in service, they get extra cash handed directly to them at the end of the cruise. I know many people that tip their service staff in cash as a matter of principle, and I support that. This change in policy by NCL will still allow you to do that I assume, but you will have to take a few minutes to follow up with NCL after your cruise.
-MJ, September 15, 2015
If gratuities are not a part of advertised price, then by common sense they should not be mandatory. Putting gratuities out of main price into small prints and footnotes is clear attempt of deception which most people in U.S. somehow got rather comfortable with. For my family of four this is not Ok: extra 20% in hidden costs can well justify changing vacation plans. Let’s say once you fix a budget based on advertised price, then to offset paying $400 extra in gratuities would mean taking a cheaper room or skipping on-shore excursion. At this point the the whole idea… Read more »
This is all wrong. I don’t care how much a worker makes at his job. Tips are gratuity paid for services rendered above and beyond. It should be my choice of how much and to whom I give a tip. If they are simply doing a standard job then they should be paid by their employer. If they are exceptional they deserve more. If the cruse lines want us to pay the employees general salary then it should be clearly added to the base price of the cruse. They don’t do this as it makes the price of the cruse… Read more »
I see absolutely no problem with this service charge and automatically applying it to a person’s stateroom if not prepaid. My first cruise was shortly after 9/11 and at that time, tipping was discretionary and you handed envelopes to staff at the end. For all those of people complaining about this being mandatory, think about it this way. Waiting for cash at the end, just imagine how many of the thousands of passengers on a ship who leave without tipping 1 penny yet were waited on hand and foot by many staff members only to receive nothing at the end.… Read more »
This is not good. The gratuity line item is the only leverage you have left with the cruise lines. Last year, I bought a cruise via a large cruise travel web site with an onboard credit. I had my travel documents which showed the travel credit. The credit did not post to my shipboard account and the cruise line refused to issue the credit. They said it was my problem and I should contact my travel agent. I pointed out that the agent is an agent for the cruise line and the cruise line would be better equipped to contact… Read more »
@rjb, Thanks for sharing your experience. A few comments: 1) Most cruise lines, and it’s hard to know individual practices, have the service staff share tips, sometimes including behind the scenes service staff. It used to be that at the end of a cruise, when all tipping was individual, all the dining staff would sit down and place their tips into a common pot, that was equally shared (relying on an honor system, with anyone holding something back and caught immediately terminated). 2) The mandatory tips added to guests fares are most definitely shared with the service staff, again including… Read more »
I was on one cruise on the Diamond Princess of Princess Cruise Lines where a good 50% of guests opted out of automatic tips. the great majority of passengers were Australian and the lines at the reception desk where they went to do this were long. In fact, they boasted about their plans to do this on Cruise Critic message boards as well as sharing tips on how to smuggle wine aboard and drink them in bars out of coffee cups so they wouldn’t be caught. Overall, despite this, service was excellent, but I felt so sorry for the service… Read more »
@Stuart,
Recognizing the USA tipping culture is mostly not one that exists elsewhere, the situation on ships is what it is. Cruisers need to plan accordingly.