DDF2821

You do what you want! I prefer not to cruise in a shopping mall.

I can’t speak to each individual cruise line. But, I think they all do it about the same. I would ask before I would cough up my money voluntarily as a “service fee” and hope that it gets to those that deserve it! If you notice in the attached quote from a cruise critic article concerning Holland America they deduct credit card fees as well as paying some “bonuses” before dispersing funds fleetwide. Holland America Line further explains that, "All of the Crew Appreciation and Service Charge payments made by all guests on all ships in our fleet are pooled, net of credit card transaction fees. The pooled funds are distributed throughout the year in the form of compensation, including bonuses, to crewmembers fleetwide who interact directly with guests and/or behind the scenes throughout every cruise, including those in the Bar, Dining, Entertainment, Housekeeping, Guest Services, Galley and Onboard Revenue areas."

What is “Crew Appreciation”?A crew appreciation is a daily amount added to your onboard account, which is shared among the many members of our crew in hotel, dining and entertainment throughout the fleet who help make your cruise experience special. This is from a major cruise line’s website

Rudeney, You will notice that this document only tells you the breakdown of the “gratuity charges”, not the disbursement of the said charges. Read the fine print on the website. Be on the lookout for the word “fleetwide”

Amazing misconceptions in this thread! Tips charged to your shipboard account do not go to the servers/stewards on your ship. They go to the cruise company distributed fleet wide as they fit. Removing them from your shipboard account has an almost zero impact on your server or your steward. If you truly are concerned with there well being, remove the tips from your account and cash tip them at the end of your cruise.(Old school). They will get your entire tip, not just a tiny percentage. Any concerns that pre-paid tips or removed daily tips is information that is available to ships crew is unfounded. Unless some rogue individual is accessing ship’s billing information and forwarding that information to crew, no one knows(or cares) when or how you tip. Each crew member signs a contract for a monthly salary. Their tip allocation is unrelated. When they receive their tip allocation, they have no idea of who these tips come from or how much, only a total.