Service Charge vs Tips???

[Hui C Stanek]

Apologies, searched through the boards and couldn't find an answer. We are first time cruises and have booked an upcoming cruise on Celebrity and NCL. With Celebrity, they let you pre-pay tips, which I assume goes for room and restaurant staff?? Meanwhile, NCL adds tips to Drink Packages for bartenders but doesn't otherwise have a pre-pay tip option, however, they do have an $20/day/person service charge, which is $600 on our cruise. Is this service charge a "tip" for room/restaurant staff??? Or will there be an end of the cruise tip option> Thank you!

[shof515]

the 20 day per day is the daily gratuities charge like what other cruise lines call it. this is for the room steward and dinning staff. this is separate then the drink package gratuities that you pay for on the drink packages

[Two Wheels Only]

From NCL FAQ.....

 

Why is there a service charge?
The reason there's a fixed service charge is an important one: Our Crew (as are the crew from other lines) is encouraged to work together as a team. Staff members including complimentary restaurant staff, stateroom stewards and behind-the-scenes support staff are compensated by a combination of salary and incentive programs that your service charge supports. How much is the charge? Onboard Service Charges are additional.

 

How much are the service charges?

 

For bookings made on or after January 1, 2023:

• $25.00 USD per person per day for The Haven and Suites;
• $20.00 USD per person per day for Club Balcony Suite and below;

 

For bookings made before January 1, 2023, that pre-pay their service charges before their sail date:

• $20.00 USD per person per day for The Haven and Suites;
• $18.00 USD per person per day for Club Balcony Suite;
• $16.00 USD per person per day for all other stateroom types

 

For bookings made on or after April 1, 2022, that prepay their service charges before their sail date:

• $20.00 USD per person per day for The Haven and Suites;
• $18.00 USD per person per day for Club Balcony Suite;
• $16.00 USD per person per day for all other stateroom types

 

For bookings made on or after April 1, 2020, that prepay their service charges before their sail date:

• $18.50 USD per person per day for The Haven and Suites;
• $18.00 USD per person per day for Club Balcony Suite;
• $15.50 USD per person per day for all other stateroom types

 

Unlike most other ships in the cruise industry, there is no required or recommended tipping on our ships for service that is generally rendered to all Guests. While you should not feel obligated to offer a gratuity, all of our staff are encouraged to “go the extra mile,” so they are permitted to accept cash gratuities for exceptional or outstanding service if you care to offer them. Also, certain staff positions (e.g., concierge, butler, youth program staff and beverage service) provide service on an individual basis to only some guests and do not benefit from the overall service charge. We encourage those Guests to acknowledge good service from these staff members with appropriate gratuities. Additionally, there is an 20% gratuity and spa service charge added for all spa and salon services, as well as an 20% gratuity and beverage service charge added for all beverage purchases and an 20% gratuity and specialty service charge added to all specialty restaurant dining and entertainment based dining.

[BirdTravels]

1 hour ago, Hui C Stanek said:

Apologies, searched through the boards and couldn't find an answer. We are first time cruises and have booked an upcoming cruise on Celebrity and NCL. With Celebrity, they let you pre-pay tips, which I assume goes for room and restaurant staff?? Meanwhile, NCL adds tips to Drink Packages for bartenders but doesn't otherwise have a pre-pay tip option, however, they do have an $20/day/person service charge, which is $600 on our cruise. Is this service charge a "tip" for room/restaurant staff??? Or will there be an end of the cruise tip option> Thank you!

Welcome to Cruise Critic.

 

The $20/day is essentially the same thing as the Celebrity pre-paid tips. 

[KeithJenner]

When the usual suspects arrive to have a huge discussions about how the service charge isn’t a tip, just ignore them. They have to go through that at least once a month, but it’s irrelevant.

[mistertomatoe]

I believe you can remove the daily service charge and tip yourself but it's inconvenient for the staff and you end up leaving certain crew members out that it covers like the people cleaning the shared areas and all the secondary people helping with dining and your cabin.

 

Can you take off the Free at Sea Open Bar gratuities and tip as you go?  Again, it's inconvenient for the staff even if you use cash and you might have multiple people helping with your drink order but I feel like I overpay. We pay 20% on the full package price regardless of how little we drink. I do not get the service that warrants that much gratuity for the drinks I order. I rather tip as I go for the drinks I actually order. Of course, if people drink over the package amount, the 20% is probably not enough.

[pghflyer]

Yes you are pretty much all good if you have a drink package (includes tip) and pay the daily charge. I LOVE the auto tips, I would despise cruising if I had to spend my whole vacation with a wad of cash trying to figure out how to compensate people. Do be aware, there are some people who are excluded from all the auto-tip stuff because they are considered "extra" services for specific passengers and include suite butlers and concierges, casino dealers, kids camp workers, and spa workers. 

 

These are all VERY hard working people and generally from less prosperous parts of our world, so it is a kindness to leave a little more if you feel someone went out of their way to help you. But it isn't required/expected at all and they don't linger around trying to get something from you either. 

 

We generally stick to the auto-tips as we don't use those the extra services and often feel like we receive the normal good service we already paid for and expected. But every few cruises, we will give an extra $10/$20 at the end if we frequented and liked a particular bar tender/ server who remembered us (not really normal for us) and perhaps another $20-$40 if our steward was above average and really made our trip special. 

 

There are more threads on this topic than stars in the sky, so you could read about it from now until your cruise departs 🙂

[KeithJenner]

3 hours ago, mistertomatoe said:

Can you take off the Free at Sea Open Bar gratuities and tip as you go?  Again, it's inconvenient for the staff even if you use cash and you might have multiple people helping with your drink order but I feel like I overpay. We pay 20% on the full package price regardless of how little we drink. I do not get the service that warrants that much gratuity for the drinks I order. I rather tip as I go for the drinks I actually order. Of course, if people drink over the package amount, the 20% is probably not enough.

No, you can’t adjust the free at sea gratuities.

[Hui C Stanek]

On 3/25/2023 at 8:20 PM, shof515 said:

the 20 day per day is the daily gratuities charge like what other cruise lines call it. this is for the room steward and dinning staff. this is separate then the drink package gratuities that you pay for on the drink packages

Thank you so much!

[Hui C Stanek]

On 3/25/2023 at 8:55 PM, BirdTravels said:

Welcome to Cruise Critic.

 

The $20/day is essentially the same thing as the Celebrity pre-paid tips. 

Thank you!

[azalea4va]

On 3/26/2023 at 3:11 AM, KeithJenner said:

When the usual suspects arrive to have a huge discussions about how the service charge isn’t a tip, just ignore them. They have to go through that at least once a month, but it’s irrelevant.

Actually, I just discovered it it relevant.  Certainly making sure someone providing a service is fairly compensated is important and as long as the money ends up in the person's pocket, who care what it is called. But how the money is provided and what it is called does matter.  If I give my waiter $10 for their service, I consider it a tip.  In the US that gets reported differently than an amount of money provided by an employer as part of their compensation purposes.  In many countires, the compensation system for service employees is far different from how it works in the US.  For example, wait staff get paid a "normal" wage just like say a worker in a Walmart store.  There is no "tipping" wage.

But more importantly, there is a $250 difference with respect to my upcoming cruise. I am about to cruise on Holland America and will receive a $250 onboard credit for being a stockholder.  The HAL description of that credit says the following, "This benefit ... cannot be used for ... gratuities charged to your onboard account".  So the question becomes, can that stockholder benefit be used for the "Crew Appreciation" charge (HAL's official term) that gets added to one's account?  Others on this board have reported the benefit can be used for the crew appreciation charge. If that is the case, HAL considers the Crew Appreciation charge as being something different that a gratuity.  If HAL considers them to be the same thing, then that would not be the case.  And I would consider using different terms in their official documents as unacceptably confusing and deceptive.  In my case,  if I cannot use the stockholder credit for the crew appreciation charge, with the all-inclusive package, there will be nothing I want I could use the credit for except excursions.  But I usually sign-up for excursions before the cruise and pre-pay them.  So if gratuity and crew appreciation are the same, I have to delay signing up for enough excursions till I am onboard (and risking them becoming sold-out) so the stockholder benefit can be used to pay for them. Otherwise that $250 benefit goes unused.

For me, $250 is not irrelevant.  I have written HAL requesting a clarification.

[ I know this is an NCL forum but I am addresing the concept of service charge vs tip which I found out can be relevant on any cruise line. ]

Edited April 26, 2023 by azalea4va

[redmomof4]

On 3/26/2023 at 6:25 AM, pghflyer said:

Yes you are pretty much all good if you have a drink package (includes tip) and pay the daily charge. I LOVE the auto tips, I would despise cruising if I had to spend my whole vacation with a wad of cash trying to figure out how to compensate people. Do be aware, there are some people who are excluded from all the auto-tip stuff because they are considered "extra" services for specific passengers and include suite butlers and concierges, casino dealers, kids camp workers, and spa workers. 

 

These are all VERY hard working people and generally from less prosperous parts of our world, so it is a kindness to leave a little more if you feel someone went out of their way to help you. But it isn't required/expected at all and they don't linger around trying to get something from you either. 

 

We generally stick to the auto-tips as we don't use those the extra services and often feel like we receive the normal good service we already paid for and expected. But every few cruises, we will give an extra $10/$20 at the end if we frequented and liked a particular bar tender/ server who remembered us (not really normal for us) and perhaps another $20-$40 if our steward was above average and really made our trip special. 

 

There are more threads on this topic than stars in the sky, so you could read about it from now until your cruise departs 🙂

Spa services are also assessed an auto 20% gratuity, but the workers will try to get you to leave more. 

[redmomof4]

2 hours ago, azalea4va said:

Actually, I just discovered it it relevant.  Certainly making sure someone providing a service is fairly compensated is important and as long as the money ends up in the person's pocket, who care what it is called. But how the money is provided and what it is called does matter.  If I give my waiter $10 for their service, I consider it a tip.  In the US that gets reported differently than an amount of money provided by an employer as part of their compensation purposes.  In many countires, the compensation system for service employees is far different from how it works in the US.  For example, wait staff get paid a "normal" wage just like say a worker in a Walmart store.  There is no "tipping" wage.

But more importantly, there is a $250 difference with respect to my upcoming cruise. I am about to cruise on Holland America and will receive a $250 onboard credit for being a stockholder.  The HAL description of that credit says the following, "This benefit ... cannot be used for ... gratuities charged to your onboard account".  So the question becomes, can that stockholder benefit be used for the "Crew Appreciation" charge (HAL's official term) that gets added to one's account?  Others on this board have reported the benefit can be used for the crew appreciation charge. If that is the case, HAL considers the Crew Appreciation charge as being something different that a gratuity.  If HAL considers them to be the same thing, then that would not be the case.  And I would consider using different terms in their official documents as unacceptably confusing and deceptive.  In my case,  if I cannot use the stockholder credit for the crew appreciation charge, with the all-inclusive package, there will be nothing I want I could use the credit for except excursions.  But I usually sign-up for excursions before the cruise and pre-pay them.  So if gratuity and crew appreciation are the same, I have to delay signing up for enough excursions till I am onboard (and risking them becoming sold-out) so the stockholder benefit can be used to pay for them. Otherwise that $250 benefit goes unused.

For me, $250 is not irrelevant.  I have written HAL requesting a clarification.

[ I know this is an NCL forum but I am addresing the concept of service charge vs tip which I found out can be relevant on any cruise line. ]

I have read of people with a similar issue on NCL, they book the excursion with their credit card and then go to the Shore Ex desk and have the person cancel the excursion and then rebook using their OBC. You could probably do this. People have reported that they didn't really "cancel" and were able to keep the excursion tickets they already had. 

 

[mistertomatoe]

What happens to the extra tipping? I’m guessing NCL does it the same way as:

 

https://www.cruisehive.com/carnival-cruise-line-offers-details-on-how-gratuities-are-shared/99286#

[FuninWB]

So if I go to the spa to get a manicure and pay the 20% tip on top of that, the spa worker does not get that extra money?  I'm confused.