UNCFanatik

Lets see. Land vacation for family of 4, lets say at a beach house. You arent eating out 3 times a day and arent going to come out of pocket for $72 in tips a day AND if you did an all inclusive land vacation, you arent coming out of pocket for $72 a day in tips either Edited to Add: When I tip at restaurants at home, I have less concern that the server will get the tip vs cruises where no one is really positive if the $18/day is all making it to the crew

If you book a group rate, can you add your crown and anchor discount as well?

It gets referenced because it is a bottleneck and an area of concern Yes, I agree about the promenade getting crowded which is good to see that they widened the promenade on Icon

I dont understand why Hideaway is the adults area. Its right by the slides and above the Surfside neighborhood. I prefer the adults only area to not be as loud as other areas of the ship. Its hard to get honest reviews of the Icon right now but hope that more will be coming out soon as people sail more. also, when the ship is not at full capacity, its hard to get a gauge on how certain areas will handle the crowds I am concerned about the access to the ice skating ring where it appears you have to walk through a gift shop and playmakers to get there? Seems like that will be a bottleneck when ice shows are letting out. I have also read concerns about seating capacity at the Aqua Show Dueling Piano Bar and Spotlight Karaoke will be crazy to get into at full capacity. Spotlight Karaoke on the Oasis ships has always been to small in my opinion I do like the addition of the additional complimentary food venues on the Icon. I feel like Royal has been lacking in this area and behind Carnival with this Lastly, the Pearl does nothing for me. I thought it would be more like the Sphere in Vegas. Overall, I just do not care for the aesthetics of the Icon. Color schemes are too bright for me. Even in Central Park which to me should have a more serene vibe, the brightly colored shutters on the cabins just take away from that space. I know Icon is geared towards families, I get that, but the bright colors every where are too much for me And good luck getting to hang out in any of those Outlook Pods when at full capacity... Even when the prices drop, the Icon is just not for me

try this thought experiment if you would. Say, if the people who removed auto gratuities and didnt tip at all did stop cruising and stayed home What would happen to the cruise fares? What would happen to crew staffing levels? I pay my advertised cruise fare which enables the cruise line to hire and pay their staff. I remove my auto gratuities and yet the crew still gets paid. I am not robbing or stiffing anyone. Royal charges a 18% service charge on drink package purchases before service is even rendered. I thought gratuity was supposed be AFTER service and not before???!!! Not my responsibility to pay crew a fair wage. Again, the cruise lines at any moment could make tipping mandatory and/or just putting in cruise fare and let the market sort it out. So, the anger should be directed at the cruise lines and not passengers who have paid the cruise fare that was advertised

Amen. and they already do make tipping mandatory with cruise planner food/bev purchases and mandatory 18% added on for any drinks you order at a bar. So that $8 beer costs you $9.44 cause you know its worth $1.44 for a bartender just to hand you a beer. Crazy. But dont tell people this with savior complexes when it comes to the crew...

most case...yes. Chef owned and operated restaurant, chef may be taking limited salary in first couple of years or depending on capital backer

yes, tipping culture is stupid. How many people in the US care about how much a cook makes in a restaurant? Do you think people in the US care that the tipping culture leads to sexism, ageism, racism, sexual harassment, unfair wage practices, etc...etc..etc... Tipping culture is out of control in the US.

Not necessarily. On an hourly basis, the server at a high end restaurant can make more. Also, at a chef owned restaurant, the Chef may be scraping by for restaurant to succeed. Then in restaurants where there is just a kitchen manager and no chefs, servers can definitely make more on tips then the kitchen manager will earn.

Remove the auto-gratuities. Tipping is not mandatory unless Royal forces it on you. If tipping is supposed to be a reward for good service, then why the mandatory 18% tacked onto food/beverage purchases made on cruise planner? Its really a service fee. How do I even know if that 18% makes it to the crew on my sailing? Why pay for service BEFORE it is rendered. AND with the cutbacks in room cleaning, the daily auto-grats went UP not DOWN. So, we are supposed to pay MORE for LESS service??? My cruise fare helps the cruise line hire more staff. Royal is responsible for compensating their staff, not me. Im not stiffing or hurting anyone because I paid the advertised fare and removed the auto-grats I say let Royal and other competitors raise their fares and eliminate and auto-gratuities and let the free market sort it all out. They could have already been doing this but dont. Tells you all you need to know about their employment practices.

of course they are advertising as such to exploit their worker base to lower labor cost and try to guilt the customer in supplementing wages when they could pay higher wage to start with and raise cruise fares accordingly and let the market sort it out It would stop all this savior mentality of tipping people based on where they come from to assuage some kind of 1st world guilt

i see you support blind bidding for your order and paying before service is performed good to know

As am I Royal raise fares and stop tipping culture and let the market sort it out But we all know they wont.

No, this applies to food & beverage purchases on the cruise planner. Mandatory gratuities charged before service delivered

But people on the cruise lines do often tip based on attractiveness of those waiting on them or other external factors that have NOTHING to do with level of service provided.

I love it when people calling it "stiffing" as it is a mandatory matter. The restaurants i go to dont put a mandatory gratuity charge on my bill and expect me to pay before receiving the product as Royal does. AND, if my server doesnt do a good job, I will not leave them a tip. Thats not called stiffing. No one should feel obligated to leave a 15-20% tip regardless of service provided. That attitude has created entitlement. And yes, I think that US restaurants should pay employees more but it is simply a false equivalency to compare US restaurants to a multi-billion dollar cruise line. I am more sympathetic to small US restaurant owners if tipping was done away with and their ability to survive paying workers more in wages vs a cruise line that could afford to do so and not bat an eye

if tipping should be based on service provided then why do more attractive servers "earn" more. Do less attractive servers deserve less money for same level of service? Why does the clothing a server wears, "earn" them more tips? Why do many other factors not related to service provided, affect what a server "earns" But yet, tipping creates these kind of issues but hey, those dark sides of tipping dont give you the warm fuzzies when you pat yourself on the back for helping

This is what Door Dash is piloting now for a message when an order is placed "Orders with no tip might take longer to get delivered — are you sure you want to continue? Dashers can pick and choose which orders they want to do. Orders that take longer to be accepted by Dashers tend to result in slower delivery." Of course this is rich coming from a company that in 2019 had to restructure their pay model because they werent giving their drivers the full amount of tips

And service where tip creep culture is happening has not improved. The tip is not seen as an incentive but now the tip is seen as an entitlement. Door Dash is now saying that if someone doesnt leave a tip when they order, the customer risks having their food delivery take longer. Tipping before service is delivered is crazy. This will turn door dash into a blind bidding system based on amount tipped before hand. But hey...this is the world that has been created by the people who brag about tipping

On every drink I purchase, Royal deems it necessary to tip for me by adding a mandatory 18% gratuity. Whether I get a craft cocktail that takes time and skill for bartender to prepare or if they just hand me a beer. What sense does that make? So, my $8 beer is now $9.44? Someone handing me a beer is worth 18% of the cost of beer? AND where is the incentive for "exception service" when their is a mandatory gratuity already added? AND why if I purchase a drink packager pre-cruise, am I charge for service that is yet to be delivered? Where is the incentive for "exceptional service" Why dont you expect "exceptional service" to be the minimum base line for the level of service that a crew member is paid by the cruise line to do? Handing me a beer, doesnt made my experience "so much better"

In your world a cheapskate = someone who pays over $5000 for their family to cruise. In my world, removing auto gratuities that have increased while service has decreased is the only smart thing to do. I would rather be considered to be a cheapskate than a gullible rube

I hate dynamic pricing. Thats all....

Anyone that would pay more for less is gullible. Who pays more for less?

Yup, I remove auto gratuities and its funny that someone paying todays cruise fares would be considered cheap. And does it bother you that you are one of the gullible people that fall for Royal decreasing service while increasing gratuities? They saw you coming.

But its so baked in the American Tipping Culture that it will never happen. It is only getting worse with everywhere you go now there is a tip jar or prompt on the Point of Sale to leave tip at places where tipping never was the norm before