Tips

[jeanneful]

Can't remember how much tips are per day, total for all tips

[neverbeenhere]

Search your Frequently Asked Questions

 

Q

What is Royal Caribbean's service gratuities (tips) price and policy?

A

 

 

As of September 7^th, 2022, the automatic service gratuity of $16.00 USD per person, per day for guests in non-suites staterooms, or $18.50 USD per person, per day for guests in Suites, will be applied to each guest’s SeaPass account on a daily basis. The gratuity applies to individual guests of all ages and stateroom categories. As a way to reward our crew members for their outstanding service, gratuities are shared among dining, bar & culinary services staff, stateroom attendants and other hotel services teams who work behind the scenes to enhance the cruise experience.

In the unlikely event that a guest onboard being charged the daily automatic gratuity does not receive satisfactory service, the guest may request to modify the daily amount at their discretion by visiting Guest Services onboard and will be able to do so until the morning of their departure. Guests who have pre-paid their gratuity will not see a daily charge during their cruise.

The automatic daily gratuity is based on customary industry standards. Applying this charge automatically helps streamline the recognition process for the crew members that work to enhance your cruise. We hope you find the gratuity to be an accurate reflection of your satisfaction and thank you for your generous recognition of our staff.

A 18% gratuity is automatically added to all beverages, mini bar items, and spa & salon purchases.

Guests can pre-pay gratuities by calling 866-562-7625 or logging into www.royalcaribbean.com before* their sailing. For guests booked through travel advisors, their advisor may add pre-paid gratuities to the guests' booking prior to sailing*. If gratuities are not prepaid prior to sailing, they will be automatically added to the guests’ folios once onboard.

*Pre-paid gratuities can be added to an individual reservation at any time outside of 48 hours of the sail date.

[taglovestocruise]

11 minutes ago, jeanneful said:

Can't remember how much tips are per day, total for all tips

$16.00 pp pd, voucher drinks $10 per day, Specialty dining $10 extra on the table per dinner,  Bar drinks and pool drinks have 18% added to bill. 

[not-enough-cruising]

23 minutes ago, taglovestocruise said:

$16.00 pp pd, voucher drinks $10 per day, Specialty dining $10 extra on the table per dinner,  Bar drinks and pool drinks have 18% added to bill. 

All discretionary with the exception of the bar drinks and pool drinks

[klfhngr]

0.00

[taglovestocruise]

34 minutes ago, not-enough-cruising said:

All discretionary with the exception of the bar drinks and pool drinks

Not discretionary if you believe hard work should be rewarded.  Crew works for tips, I believe non tippers are the ultimate low life.  Hopefully Royal will soon go the way of sister company Celebrity and have daily  tips be part of cruise fare.  There will always be those that think no one works hard enough to justify a tip. 

[Merion_Mom]

1 hour ago, neverbeenhere said:

Search your Frequently Asked Questions

 

Q

What is Royal Caribbean's service gratuities (tips) price and policy?

A

 

 

As of September 7^th, 2022, the automatic service gratuity of $16.00 USD per person, per day for guests in non-suites staterooms, or $18.50 USD per person, per day for guests in Suites, will be applied to each guest’s SeaPass account on a daily basis. The gratuity applies to individual guests of all ages and stateroom categories. As a way to reward our crew members for their outstanding service, gratuities are shared among dining, bar & culinary services staff, stateroom attendants and other hotel services teams who work behind the scenes to enhance the cruise experience.

In the unlikely event that a guest onboard being charged the daily automatic gratuity does not receive satisfactory service, the guest may request to modify the daily amount at their discretion by visiting Guest Services onboard and will be able to do so until the morning of their departure. Guests who have pre-paid their gratuity will not see a daily charge during their cruise.

The automatic daily gratuity is based on customary industry standards. Applying this charge automatically helps streamline the recognition process for the crew members that work to enhance your cruise. We hope you find the gratuity to be an accurate reflection of your satisfaction and thank you for your generous recognition of our staff.

A 18% gratuity is automatically added to all beverages, mini bar items, and spa & salon purchases.

Guests can pre-pay gratuities by calling 866-562-7625 or logging into www.royalcaribbean.com before* their sailing. For guests booked through travel advisors, their advisor may add pre-paid gratuities to the guests' booking prior to sailing*. If gratuities are not prepaid prior to sailing, they will be automatically added to the guests’ folios once onboard.

*Pre-paid gratuities can be added to an individual reservation at any time outside of 48 hours of the sail date.

 

Amazing that they managed to edit that website page with the higher daily figures, but still have "mini bar items".  These are long gone.

 

You also cannot prepay gratuities on line after the initial booking actions.  You can ONLY call or have your TA take care of it for you.  (if this exists somewhere, I wish that someone would announce it, because I don't think it's there)

[Ashland]

6 minutes ago, Merion_Mom said:

 

Amazing that they managed to edit that website page with the higher daily figures, but still have "mini bar items".  These are long gone.

 

You also cannot prepay gratuities on line after the initial booking actions.  You can ONLY call or have your TA take care of it for you.  (if this exists somewhere, I wish that someone would announce it, because I don't think it's there)

How nice it would be to pay gratuities online...I see no reason why RCI hasn't added this option and hoping that they will at some point.

[not-enough-cruising]

2 hours ago, taglovestocruise said:

Not discretionary if you believe hard work should be rewarded.  Crew works for tips, I believe non tippers are the ultimate low life.  Hopefully Royal will soon go the way of sister company Celebrity and have daily  tips be part of cruise fare.  There will always be those that think no one works hard enough to justify a tip. 

Yes discretionary; even the cruise line says as much. 
I never once mentioned not tipping, only that the amounts listed were discretionary (even optional) 

[not-enough-cruising]

2 hours ago, Ashland said:

How nice it would be to pay gratuities online...I see no reason why RCI hasn't added this option and hoping that they will at some point.

In today’s technological age, everything about the Royal website is very below standards. 

[grandgeezer]

6 hours ago, taglovestocruise said:

Not discretionary if you believe hard work should be rewarded.  Crew works for tips, I believe non tippers are the ultimate low life.  Hopefully Royal will soon go the way of sister company Celebrity and have daily  tips be part of cruise fare.  There will always be those that think no one works hard enough to justify a tip. 

Not necessarily true, they have two fares, Always Included which includes tips, classic drink package and internet, at a much higher price. The other one is Cruise Only which is what it says it is, no extra.

[CanHardlyWait4NextYear]

7 hours ago, taglovestocruise said:

Not discretionary if you believe hard work should be rewarded.  Crew works for tips, I believe non tippers are the ultimate low life.  Hopefully Royal will soon go the way of sister company Celebrity and have daily  tips be part of cruise fare.  There will always be those that think no one works hard enough to justify a tip. 

If there is one thing If I've learned from watching politics in this country alone over the past few years. The more you try and tell people to do something, or go on about why they should, because of what you believe, the more they will do the opposite, just for the hell of it. I don't think the pro tippers, extra tippers, everyone else is a low life people are helping the workers on the ships at all. If anything I think people think about you guys when deciding to tip or not to tip, and not the performance of the workers on the ship that week. I don't think pushing people to believe and see things as you do is ever the way. I just have gut feeling you cause the opposite effect.

[crazyank]

8 hours ago, taglovestocruise said:

Not discretionary if you believe hard work should be rewarded.  Crew works for tips, I believe non tippers are the ultimate low life.  

Believe whatever you want,  tips are absolutely discretionary,  otherwise they are service fees not tips

[FamilyCruiserUK]

13 hours ago, taglovestocruise said:

Not discretionary if you believe hard work should be rewarded.  Crew works for tips, I believe non tippers are the ultimate low life.  Hopefully Royal will soon go the way of sister company Celebrity and have daily  tips be part of cruise fare.  There will always be those that think no one works hard enough to justify a tip. 

So is there a procedure to get your pre paid tips back if you feel the level of service you have received is not up to the standard your wanted or expected?

[Ptroxx]

41 minutes ago, FamilyCruiserUK said:

So is there a procedure to get your pre paid tips back if you feel the level of service you have received is not up to the standard your wanted or expected?

So you would want to penalize all the good hard working people that work on the ship for one bad persons service.      
don’t be that guy.   

[Dthomas1]

4 minutes ago, Ptroxx said:

So you would want to penalize all the good hard working people that work on the ship for one bad persons service.      
don’t be that guy.   

If the cruise lines wouldn't nickle and dime paying their employees any extra tips wouldn't be needed. Blame them not the OP.

[Dthomas1]

8 minutes ago, Ptroxx said:

So you would want to penalize all the good hard working people that work on the ship for one bad persons service.      
don’t be that guy.   

If the cruise lines wouldn't nickle and dime paying their employees any extra tips wouldn't be needed. Blame them not the OP.

[LEMJMcC]

5 minutes ago, Ptroxx said:

So you would want to penalize all the good hard working people that work on the ship for one bad persons service.      
don’t be that guy.   

Um, yes I would.  I am paying A LOT for this service in the cruise fare; it's an integral part of the cruise.  I most certainly want to penalize for bad (I'm talking lousy attitude kind of bad) service.  Just as I would reward good service.  That's what tipping is all about.  No participating trophies, you have to earn your gratuity, not just show up and expect it.

 

I recently saw a "now hiring" sign at a local eatery advertising $13/hour and tips for waiters/waitresses...horse hockey!  If you're making $13/hr in the food service industry you shouldn't expect or receive tips.  When I served tables, my hourly wage was reduced because it was expected that I would make up for it with tips, which I did.  And don't even get me started on counter service folks asking for tips!

[Dthomas1]

4 minutes ago, LEMJMcC said:

Um, yes I would.  I am paying A LOT for this service in the cruise fare; it's an integral part of the cruise.  I most certainly want to penalize for bad (I'm talking lousy attitude kind of bad) service.  Just as I would reward good service.  That's what tipping is all about.  No participating trophies, you have to earn your gratuity, not just show up and expect it.

 

I recently saw a "now hiring" sign at a local eatery advertising $13/hour and tips for waiters/waitresses...horse hockey!  If you're making $13/hr in the food service industry you shouldn't expect or receive tips.  When I served tables, my hourly wage was reduced because it was expected that I would make up for it with tips, which I did.  And don't even get me started on counter service folks asking for tips!

If the cruise lines wouldn't nickle and dime paying their employees  tips wouldn't be needed unless you decided to. Blame them not the OP.

[Joseph2017China]

15 hours ago, taglovestocruise said:

$16.00 pp pd, voucher drinks $10 per day, Specialty dining $10 extra on the table per dinner,  Bar drinks and pool drinks have 18% added to bill. 

Took only one post fof someone to  brag how much they tip extra.....instead of just answering the question.....hopefully this does not turn into a bragging thread

[Joseph2017China]

First, prepay your tips, it is part of the cost, and is $16.00 per day.  This is not a USA customary amount, but a cruise line customary amount.  

 

Second, a persons pay is not anyone's  business.  They get paid a customary amount for an international cruise line, not an inflated dollar amount based on USA standards.  They don't belong to the USA.  

 

Tips are added to drinks, at 18% and for whatever reason, they chose a USA customary amount, but they should not have.  Should be more like 5% at most.  

 

No one cares if a person wants to tip extra on a drink, that takes 15 seconds to make.  I will not and am proud not to.  If I get a receipt, I will never sign it, just put an x across the money. 

 

If I do tip extra, for the room or dinner, I certainly will not tell anyone I did it, since it is no one's business what I give or don't give, but most times, I give nothing extra. I tipped the customary amount already.

 

Customary tips always was shared somehow in back of house.  Never our business to care. 

 

So called nickle and diming is not tipping, although, if you prepaid everthing, than no need to pay anything.  

[RandomUser123]

My take on tips for cruises is simple. Whatever the cruise line charges for tips is what I pay. I will not go to guest services and have them lower the amount but I will also not tip more. 

[Travel R]

1 hour ago, FamilyCruiserUK said:

So is there a procedure to get your pre paid tips back if you feel the level of service you have received is not up to the standard your wanted or expected?

 

Yes - A passenger can go to guest services and get the amount voided and returned to their card.

 

However, the tips go to a large number of staff members, so when a passenger stops the pre-paid tips, it affects many (those the passenger interacts with and those working out of sight). If the passenger did not enjoy the service of a select few individuals, let RCI know on your feedback form (or better yet, go to a manager while on the cruise so that they can remedy the situation).  Note that discretion also needs to be made in determining whether it was the individual or due to other reasons such as staff shortage or supply chain issues, which should not be taken out on the servers/stewards.

 

If the passenger has an issue with the service overall, then once again let them know on the ship and on their survey, then talk bigger volumes with your wallet and cruise elsewhere. But once again - don't take it out on the staff if you have issues with the line itself - the staff (IMHO) works very hard.

 

Although many may not think about it, but the staff works for a total salary that includes their base, but what they make on tips.  Yes, in a sense, we are paying part of the salary of the staff, since it is cheaper for the cruise lines to pay them and when tips are pre-paid they are technically a service fee (or a bribe), but the way I think about (others are free to think otherwise) it is that it is just part of the cruise fare and NOT a tip. [As someone suggested above, they should go ahead and just make it part of the fare - but it is a marketing ploy. Adding it to the fare upfront would make the fare look higher, which is not good when cruisers are comparing it to other cruise lines.]

 

I will "tip" staff at the end of a cruise for going above and beyond (although at a bar, will tip after receiving drinks), but that is at my own discretion. [There are times I have been very, very generous, and times I have not given anything at the end, such as one cruise where myself or family never saw the steward, who did not do a very good job cleaning the cabin (but did not remove the pre-paid $). I will also make a point of calling out the names of the staff members on my review to ensure that they are provided the appropriate accolades. [Also, when the maitre de comes by your table, make a point to tell them how good your wait staff is.]

 

To put the above in context - I am American (and used to the tipping culture), and I have had the need to work for tips myself, so I know what it is like from their end (and I did not have to work for six months away from my family and live in a cramped room with three other people).

 

And that's all I got to say about that.

 

 

Edited September 16, 2022 by Travel R

[Tulsacoker]

Question.... if you tip and no one sees it or you don't tell someone .... did it really happen?  😕 asking for a friend 

Edited September 16, 2022 by Tulsacoker

[Joseph2017China]

12 minutes ago, Tulsacoker said:

Question.... if you tip and no one sees it or you don't tell someone .... did it really happen?  😕 asking for a friend 

Tell you friend that the person that got the tip, saw it, and that is all that matters