Med Cruise and tipping.....

booyaka

Booked a med cruise with Royal Caribbean yesterday for myself, wife and 2 kids (8,5) - going July 2016.

Now, I will state that I'm not totally sold on a cruise - none of us have been before but the wife was really keen to do something different this year for a holiday etc. Usually do 2 weeks hotel/beach/Canary Islands etc.

Booked the cruise from Southampton, round the Med and back, including various stops (rome, nice, gibraltar etc)

Independence of the Seas is the ship.

What i'm a bit confused by is the tipping/gratuities situation. The lady at the travel agents said, don't pay your tips up front as they charge full tips for kids as well, just tip as you go. However most other places i've since read seem to say, less hassle paying up front etc.

Any "tips" on what's best?

Greg Hook

Never been on a cruise, would love to go!

But why would you pay tips up front? Isn't the point of a tip to reward someone for good service?
If it were me I would tip as you go.

Steve N

How much are you having to pay for parking out of interest?
When I was looking at cruises from Southampton I was told parking would be around £200 plus for the week

booyaka

£108 it was, however I noticed the travel agent just used "holiday extra" website and I told her I would do it myself and get cashback on it. The £108 was swiftly reduced to £15 "admin fee" to book the parking. Load of bollocks - can't be bothered with travel agents but the wife insists they are worth using.

Came home after booking and found it was pound for pound the same price using Royal Caribbean's own website and I would have got 4% cashback! Last time i'll be using a travel agent!

Tom1986

Hi mate, don't know if you've found the information you want yet. All cruise lines do this (apart from Thomson, who have everything included....but I wouldn't personally cruise with them again), it's not just RC.

Onboard Gratuities

The above link might help.

With some cruise lines the benefit of paying tips beforehand is a reduced tipping rate & also allows access to their "freetime" dining (so any time, not fixed times). However, I think RC are totally anytime dining now? So no benefit there of paying upfront. Maybe a slightly reduced rate though.

However, and what the cruise lines don't really 'advertise', you don't have to pay their recommended tips. As per the website linked to:

If you pre-pay - this doesn't become an option anymore. You've paid and that's that.

Whilst onboard, the tip amount (in RC's case currently it looks to be $12 per guest per day) will be added to your onboard account. This amount can be amended to whatever you wish to pay by just going to reception up to the day before disembarkation and requesting they change the amount. Don't be scared to do it - they can't hold it against you (if this worries you, do it on the very last day you can)! You can alter the tip amount up/down depending on how you see fit.

We've cruised with Holland America, P&O, Thomson, MSC & NCL. We've amended the tips down on 2 occasions, and both times for specific reasons due to what we saw as service failures.

Some people have told us they've also removed the tips completely and decided to 'tip as they go' to individual staff members. This probably ends up costing more as it goes!

Your travel agent person doesn't really sound like they understand how tips/gratuities work. The link above should help...but if not then feel free to ask anything else and I'll help if I can!!

On a side note, Royal Caribbean is the next line we want to go with - I'm sure you'll love it!

booyaka

Thanks @Tom1986

Done some more reading and seen pretty much what you have noted above. Just seems extremely presumptuous to charge £400/£500 in tips, in advance of the cruise!! It's like tipping for a meal I'm going for with the wife, this coming Saturday!!!

Will do some more reading but agree with what you say about seeing how things go and adjusting accordingly. What slightly sticks in my throat is the $12 a day per person includes the kids as well! 8 and 4 year old!! $50 a day x 14 nights = £480 at current rates!

Tom1986

Fully agree with your post @booyaka - the cruise lines that offer the 'added benefits' for tipping in advance are the worst in my opinion...basically holding you to ransom if you want the freestyle dining, etc.. At least you'll get that as standard on RC (quick disclaimer, I've never cruised Royal Caribbean, so don't hold me to that - I just THINK that's how Royal Caribbean work in that everything is freestyle on their ships).

The money you mentioned in your post above IS crazy for a holiday you're already paying a lot of money for. Like I said, make sure you adjust accordingly if you see fit - your 2 kids won't get £120 worth of service (as good as it will be), I'm sure. As I mentioned, don't feel bad about adjusting, it's literally one form which you put a brief reason on, tick a box & sign - and more people do this than you think now that people are realising you can.

Bad form, in my opinion, that your 'travel agent' didn't let you know all of this before booking!

DJT75

When just having a drink or meal, how do the serving staff know who's prepaid & who's on tip as you go? Is everything on account or can you pay with cash/cards?

There's no way I'd pay in advance

booyaka

It goes on your onboard ship account everyday. I believe you can adjust it as you go, or you can remove them and tip as you go. "most" people I've spoke to who have done cruises say pre-pay the tips to save any hassle but I'm not paying $12 per person, per day ($48) when 2 of the 4 of us are 8 and 4 years old, and it's 14 days long!

As I said to the travel agent, you wouldn't book a meal for Saturday night and pay your tip before you arrive at the meal would you?

Tom1986

Just re the highlighted section, you don't adjust as you go....you adjust all at once. You can do this at any time, but usually you'd choose to do it at the end when you decide what a 'reasonable' adjustment is.

Out of the cruises we've done, we've only ever felt the need to adjust the tips down twice for [what we felt were] specific service failures.

Hence, adjusting everything at the end gives you a sense of what you want to do.

I would only ever pre-pay the tips if the particular benefits of pre-paying them were of particular importance to me (although, I don't think it's fair that there should be a benefit!).

I'm not really sure if the service staff know if you have already tipped or not. I suspect they don't. As if you tip as you go with cash, we've been told by multiple staff members on board, they have to put this into the overall pot anyway - they can't keep it (and the risk of doing so is too big for them).

When it comes to buying drinks, etc., it's all on an onboard account with a pre-registered card which they bill at the end - no cash for purchases.