Maralv33

7 hours ago, perakcruiser said:

Certainly this is the worst idea because you just take the money away from some cruise members and give it all to a few. With  no reason. This is why individual tipping is not "recommended" by MSC and the other cruise lines, they have all the hassle to reduce the salary for the tip winner and increase for tip losers. 

I agree that was my point. I think the majority of people do not know that

I actually felt good paying this fee thinking that it was going as a tip to the staff

I just have an issue that cruise companies call it a service fee gratuity free. In hotels and restaurants that fee that is collected is distributed among the staff. In that case just raise your prices and be up front with your fees. I feel that the major of passengers feel that this fee went to the staff that served them. Mist passengers never tio their servants because they paid a gratuity fee

15 hours ago, morpheusofthesea said:

From what I understand the mandatory gratuities go to pay the crew salaries. Those that manage to get these gratuities removed, the cruise line is forced to make up. Even the OBC one has that one is able to designate to specific staff is NOT 100% guaranteed to go entirely to those specific staff and will be pooled. This is true of every cruise line

The fee is very deceiving they should not call it tips and gratuity

4 minutes ago, morpheusofthesea said:

From what I understand the mandatory gratuities go to pay the crew salaries. Those that manage to get these gratuities removed, the cruise line is forced to make up. Even the OBC one has that one is able to designate to specific staff is NOT 100% guaranteed to go entirely to those specific staff and will be pooled. This is true of every cruise line

The fee is very deciving they should not call it tips and gratuity

Just now, Maralv33 said:

I just got off a 7 day MSC cruise and made friends with some.of.the staff. They mentioned that MSC does not share the gratuity with them.

Can someone confirm this 

I just got off a 7 day MSC cruise and made friends with some.of.the staff. They mentioned that MSC does not share the gratuity with them.