Is anyone else in the same boat as me on this? I have always prepaid my grats - just pay it and forget it was my mantra. On the ship, I've always tipped bar staff for bringing me drinks and waitstaff in specialty restaurants under the premise that they really aren't getting that much of the prepaid grats.
It now seems that more and more people are removing the grats - we are all paying a lot more for everything in life and it sucks.
If you consider the active members of this group, or any other online discussion, as a sampling of the typical passenger, it feels like my payment of grats has increased proportionally to cover all of the people who remove theirs.
Frankly, while I haven't minded paying my fair share in the past, I'm starting to wonder why I'm paying not only mine, but part of theirs. I do wish they would just add a service fee onto the bottom line - it does irk me that they call it a gratuity if they want to automatically charge for it.
One of the cruises I have booked for 2025 I didn't prepay the grats. I'm contemplating what to do. I don't mind paying my own way, I'm just getting tired of subsidizing others.