There are very few American crew members on a cruiseship. Your approach is the best one, pay the $10pppd added to your onboard account and the tips will be distributed by NCL as appropriate. We always do that, and most people we meet do the same!

Another thing about tipping as you go is that the many, many people working behind the scenes who are never seen lose out. We consider that unfair, and the paying of tips to onboard account ensures that such people are also tipped.

hamrag wrote:

We always do that, and most people we meet do the same!

You seem to have changed your position, I seem to rememember a couple of years ago you said that the last time you were away you reduced your onboard tip account by 50% early on so you could have the flexibility to reward excellent service from individuals, so I guess now you have decided to do what most people seem to do & pay the complete sum advised each cruise.

Most times nowadays I just pay have the tips added to my account with Celebrity. With Cunard they are added to the bill and I just leave this as it is.
I always have my breakfast in my room and each night before I go to bed I leave the tip for whoever brings it. Saves having to try and find money with them standing there. I always get a lot of $1 when I get my foreign currency and I normally tip $2.
Tipping is a very personal thing and one is perfectly at liberty to change their mind on how they see fit to tip.
Hamrag has now cruised multiple times and like me he may now find it simpler to have the tips charged.

Sue

keela1eva2 wrote:

Tipping is a very personal thing and one is perfectly at liberty to change their mind on how they see fit to tip.
Hamrag has now cruised multiple times and like me he may now find it simpler to have the tips charged.

Of course course people can change their mind how they tip, my comments were not meant as a criticism of Hamrag and how he tips but just an observation.

Indeed, I have changed my tipping position. Two reasons really....Sue has posted some interesting thoughts on the subject over the months and highlighted the folks behind the scenes whom you never see.....Also, got fed up with the final night posturing in the dining room, both staff and some passengers!!

Just experienced Celebrity tipping.

Active promotion of pre pay and on-account cashless tipping.

envelopes provided with vouchers for the usual set of people but some ignore them if they have auto tipped and just say auto tipped last night(I did look out for the table around us to see what happened).

The auto form has boxes for additional amounts but no way to reduce so you have to stick to cash or go to customer services if you want to do this

wife and i recently came back from a 10 day panama cruise on coral princess.on all drinks purchased you paid a 15% gratuity for bar staff.we also paid £110 gratuity that was added to your onboard account at start of cruise ,this was for the rest of the cruise staff.
in total (according to how much you drink) it was possible to end up paying £150+ gratuities during your trip.
not wanting to start an arguement on gratuities because its down to the individual,but i personally wonder if nowadays cruise lines are useing it as a way of keeping the advertised cruise price lower,similar (if you were a sarcastic person) that the budget airlines do in their continual methods of hiding some charge until you actually press the "pay now" button.
i must add that you could buy a soda card for £21 each (if i remember rightly) that would allow you to have lemonade,ginger or coke, all out a pump (not cans or bottles) for the whole cruise.
if all payments were included in the advertised cruise price by law it would make it easier to compare.
finally for the americans who find tipping the norm,and ridicule the brits for moaning about it, please allow us brits to purchase the cruise on the american cruise websites where they are so much cheaper.

johnny m wrote:

but i personally wonder if nowadays cruise lines are useing it as a way of keeping the advertised cruise price lower,........

It been this way for years nothing new for US based ships, its the American way, allthough NCL now price i nthe UK with the gratuities added, probably to avoid any trading standards issues.

The budget UK lines and a few others up market include basic tips, and price drinks including the tips,

johnny m wrote:

please allow us brits to purchase the cruise on the american cruise websites where they are so much cheaper.

NCL you can buy your cruise through the US with no problems.

On some of my recent pricings the difference between US/UK for Princess and Celebrity were not that great.

You can buy cruises on US websites, it's just Princess that won't allow you to. Write a letter of complaint to their Customer service dept. It can't hurt.
Windjammer has recommended several he has used, Vacationstogo and CruiseCompete are two that come to mind. If the reservation demands a US address the travel agent lets you use theirs from what I have seen.
As you say, tipping is the norm in the US and maybe that's why the standard price is about half what is quoted on UK sites, it has to be adjusted upwards in the UK to account for the difference in custom, since UK pax seem to find it annoying.....? You can't have it both ways

You could have gone and asked the gratutity be removed but at the outset in the brochures it will tell you what the expected amount is.
All companies could simply add this on to the cruise price as a few companies do. The Companies who do this you can be certain it will be built into the cruise costs so it is swings and roundabouts.
I don't feel bad about the tips as if I went into any restaurant got a taxi go to the hairdressers I always tip. I don't think that the cruise is any different other than you eat in the dining room for a given no of nights.

Sue

has i stated gratuities are down to the individual,but with the ever increasing number of adverts showing cruise cost,it is more benificial for a cruise company to pay their staff less, thus enabling them to show a cheaper cruise price.
they then obligingly set up a system for the holidaymaker to make up the crews pay in tips.!!!.
on the topic of companies like princess who have biased pricing on american only websites, the office of fair trading should outlaw the practice.(and shutdown their british website)

I am not a big fan of tips being added to my account automaticly by the cruise line.
My last crusie with Celbrity was a good example of why I dont like it.
Our waiter was dire. No way was he getting $100+ for the service we got
On the other hand or cabin stewardess got more than she would have if we had pre paid.
I also think alot of cruise lines use the tipping process as a way of paying th ewages and have come under alot of stick for this in the past.
Tipping to me is a way of saying thank yo not to pay the wages that is upto the cruise line
I have already paid for my cruise I refuse to pay again

You are absolutely right! The cruise companies pay their wait staff and cabin staff $50 per month so the tips are their wages. Wrong but thats the reality. Staff who are not in direct contact are paid a wage but I don't think this will be a great deal. Cabin staff will use another member of staff to help them (allowed with some lines not by Cunard other than change over day) they then pay this person out of their tips.
All sorts of things go on like getting linen early getting the best tables in the restaurant etc etc I could write a book!

The morality is wrong but how do we change it??

Sue

The morality is wrong but how do we change it??

Sue, use your feet an only book with a cruise line that includes basic gratuities in the cruise fare, there are plenty of them.

The £5/$10 a days is a trivial amount to be worrying about I put it in my cruise fare budget along with the money I know I will spend on speciality eating and then tip extra accordingly on board, Use the comment cards if the line has them these can be worth a lot more than a few $ to a crew member.

If a member of staff is so appaling that they are not up to the minimum standards then I will get it fixed while on board no point in wasting a holiday for the sake of $3.50(biggest individual gratuity) a day.

I have raised this issue during several meetings I have had with various Hotel Director/Captains etc. I have had the occassion to have a meeting with them whilst on board on several cruises.
The tips don't bother me in the slightest as I can afford them and cash is not a problem thankfully for me. I have always given more than the recommended amount but this is a personal choice. I know that it is hard for people with family and who have to save hard to take that one a year holiday.
Never the less I still think that cruising represents great value for money. There is so much included in what you pay rather than a land based holiday where so much has to be paid for on top.

I am off to Ireland in the morning and it is just so expensive to stay in Hotels etc there and everything else. Now with the Euro being so strong against the sterling makes it even more so.
I love to travelling and even though I travel solo a lot of the time staying at home is never an option for me.

Yes there are companies out there where tips are included. These companies will pay their staff no more than the ones who are asking for tips to be extra. I don't think there is any easy solution to the question of low wages paid to those who are the backbone of the Cruise Industry.

Sue

I don't think there is any easy solution to the question of low wages paid to those who are the backbone of the Cruise Industry.

With people queing up to do the jobs it will stay this way for a long time

Income is not as low as people think on the ships most do very well out of it. It is nearly all net disposable income no tax or expences.

Remember we are dealing with the world employment markets and these guys on the ships are definately getting more than the highly skilled IT workers we employ in China, they are on a par with the guys we employ in Vietnam,Rusia and India all of which are becoming relativly expensive.

Improving the income choices of work elsewhere would help which generaly would mean more trade and tourism for the source countries. Reduce supply wages will go up.

I cannot believe that a ship that includes basic grats, so most of the passengers would tip next to nothing extra, is paying wages the same as the main cruise lines that "expect" grats at the $10pppd rate, no one would work for them.

We have just returned from a 14 nighter on Norwegian Jade. This was our first NCL cruise, previously sailed with seven other cruiselines. Interestingly NCL, who automatically apply $10pppd, in common with many other lines, state that this is not a "tip" or "gratuity" but rather a service charge and gratuities are at your discretion above the service charge. NCL also add 15% to all bar bills.

There were many disgruntled passengers, mainly English, who claimed to have insisted on having the service charge removed from their account, citing various reasons (excuses) none of which seemed reasonable to me. The only excuse that, for me, had a degree of reasonableness was related to the NCL alcohol policy.

They are extremely hot at picking out liquor in luggage and carry this out to a ridiculous degree in Gibraltar, the capital of cheap booze. They had everyone queuing on return to the ship, carefully scanning everything and confiscating all liquor for collection on the final night of the cruise. It took 30-45 minutes in this queue, whether or not you had any booze! Those who had the stuff confiscated then had to wait on a lengthy queue on final night between 7-9pm, which is the time you want to eat and get to the show etc! Highly irritating, and the cause of many English passengers removing service charge in total...which is extremely unfair, as the crew members suffer for a policy from the Executive Management of the cruiseline.

We paid our service charge in full, and had no issues with doing so. What I did do was to have a discussion with the Hotel Director Julian, a lovely English guy, to pass on my views regarding some issues that had irritated me....like people with no alcohol in Gibraltar having to stand for 45 minutes in searing heat.

Gratuities will always be an emotive subject. As stated before my views have changed over the past couple of years as I have gained a better understanding of the tipping system. For me, when the brochures state clearly what the policy is regarding tipping then passengers ought to "play ball" instead of trying to reduce their total cruising bill by penalising staff who work extremely hard and often get the worst from people supposed to be chilled out enjoying themselves!

I think if everyone on the ships that allowed you to remove prepaid tips did so and then only tipped according to service in time things would change.
I think someone on Cruise Critic worked out roughly that each waiter was on around $2000 per cruise (10 day)
Our cabin Stewardess had roughly 15 cabins at over $100 per cabin on a 12 day cruise thast not low pay at all
Its probably more than some earn that have to pay for the cruise. Thenmost of the time they insist on telling you how hard up they are just before you see them walking ashore in designer gear

That's very interesting. Personally I've spent hours sitting in airports etc working out how much the maitre d would make if everyone tipped at the suggested rate, although I usually doze off before I ever get the totals . The same goes for cabin stewards. However you look at it, it's a phenomenal amount.

Being an old cynic I have my doubts about having gratuities/service charge added to my bill, (they are not quite the same thing). Will they really shell ALL of it out to crew members? Or will it be kept by the company as sometimes happens in restaurants? If I hand it to individual crew members, I know there are people who will miss out.

Personally we find lifeboat drill and shelling out tips the worst part of any cruise, and not because we're mean.