Gratuities to be added to sea pass account daily.

[cruzincurt]

Let's just call it what it is "a service charge". If I pay additional, then it's a tip.

[temple1]

MTD does mean you eat in the dining room just @ your time. You make a reservation and have the times you selected the whole cruise. Should you go to Chops/Portofinos one night you just let them know so they can give your table to some else who mightt want a different time.

 

That is only if you make the reservation for the entire cruise. It is not required. We make our reservations daily and if we have reservations elsewhere there is no need to contact anyone. On our last cruise, one night we forgot to make our reservation and had to wait about 2 minutes to be seated when we arrived at the host stand.

[new seekers]

Everyone calm down if you still want to pay the old fashioned way good service good tip you can

 

 

 

 

Onboard Gratuities

 

How can I pay tips?For the convenience of guests, pre-paid tips may be arranged online or added to your booking by your travel agent or Personal Cruise Specialist, before your sailing date. If you have opted not to pre-pay your Service Charge before your cruise, then for all sailings that commence after 1st March 2013, for your convenience we will automatically add a $12.00 per guest per day* service charge to each guest's SeaPass account on a daily basis. * For Grand Suites and above the daily charge will be $14.25c. Alternatively, you may pay in cash at the end of your cruise directly to the crew members you wish to recognise for their service (If you require an envelope for the crew member concerned, please see the Guest Relations Desk).

Please note, we no longer provide the pre-paid gratuity vouchers at the end of the cruise.

 

Please note gratuities are discretionary so in the unlikely event that a guest on board being charged the daily automatic gratuity does not receive satisfactory service, our guests may request to modify (increase, decrease or remove) the daily amount by visiting Guest Services during their cruise.

 

THE FACTS ABOVE

 

The moral of this story is to read the ENGLISH small print first ,before getting on your moral high horse :eek:[oh my god i mentioned HORSE we cant get away from this subject in the UK..]:rolleyes::D

__________________

[temple1]

I set sail on the Adventure March 8th and just received the wonderful:mad: e-mail..We are in California so the e-mail is now sent to everyone in the U.S. as well.

 

We tried doing pre-paid once before but noticed our service was sub-par. The following cruise we told our attendants we would be paying at the end of the week. We stated take care of us and we take care of you. Our service was AWSOME!

 

I did send an e-mail asking how we can avoid the charges. Hopefully I receive something back.

 

Angela

 

 

 

Like many we prepay our gratuities and have had nothing but great service from our cabin attendent. Except for our last cruise where the MDR was not up to par we have always had excellent service whether we chose MTD or traditional. You just had bad service on one cruise.

[peteukmcr]

I have read this thread from start to finish and i could not agree more.

Thank you

 

LOL; well said Pete.

 

Still at least in this case everyone, including our North American friends, is being treated equally - unlike with many other matters under the RCCL umbrella.

Totally agree

[peteukmcr]

Would love to know what benefits ours are :confused:? Please do tell.

One is that if you have booked direct with RCI UK, final payment is only 57 days out from sailing whereas I believe in the US it's sooner than that, I think 75 days out. The deposit amounts when booking are different in the US

 

$100pp for 3-5 nights

$250pp for 6-9 nights

$450pp for 10+ nights

 

And I believe the above amounts are double for GS and above.

 

Whereas for us in the UK it's only £75 for cruises of 1-5 nights and £150 for other durations.

[cb at sea]

What difference does it make what they call it....and just consider it part of your cruise price. You know it's there, so include it in the price yourself!

[cruzeluver]

Virtually every mainstream line now does it this way. It is what it is and none of you on this thread or the thousands of other tipping threads are making anything remotely like a new argument. See if I have missed any:

 

1. Should not have to tip for my kids (cuz apparently they do not eat, make messes or require any interaction with crew members, ever).

 

2. I don't come from a tipping culture(ever heard of "when in Rome'?).

 

3. I prefer to hand cash directly to those that serve me. (And screw those behind the scenes that also get part of the gratuities).

 

4. They should just call it a service charge (they can call it a "cheese danish", its the same dang thing!).

 

Climbing off my soap box. Go back to making the same tired old arguments that will change nothing.

[lady_cruiser]

......... Thats an additional $168.00 to $200.00 more for a 7 Day cruise.

This equls to $32.00 for the week. And the hotel I love in Galveston is $50 more. When will this insanity every end?

 

Seriously I find $32.00 more a week is a small price to pay to continue cruising.

[cruisenfever]

One is that if you have booked direct with RCI UK, final payment is only 57 days out from sailing whereas I believe in the US it's sooner than that, I think 75 days out. The deposit amounts when booking are different in the US

 

$100pp for 3-5 nights

$250pp for 6-9 nights

$450pp for 10+ nights

 

And I believe the above amounts are double for GS and above.

 

Whereas for us in the UK it's only £75 for cruises of 1-5 nights and £150 for other durations.

You are correct about the deposits, unless you book on board and then it's a reduced deposit for JS cabins and below of $100pp with no additional money due until final payment date. Booking a GS on board would require a double deposit.

Final Payment Dates:

60 days for a cruise of 5 days or less

75 days for a cruise of 6 days or more

90 days for Holiday Sailings (Christmas & New Years)

 

I also believe that you can take advantage of price reductions after final payment whereas we can only take advantage up until final.

[tocanada]

I contacted Royal Caribbean and asked if we are still required to pre-pay gratuities when choosing MTD. They advised that you must still pre-pay.

Anyone know why we cannot use OBC instead?

 

Do we know who receives the increase in the daily gratuity or is it being retained by Royal Caribbean as an administration fee to pay for the increased cost of distributing the gratuities.

 

Andrew

[GORDONCHICK]

Virtually every mainstream line now does it this way. It is what it is and none of you on this thread or the thousands of other tipping threads are making anything remotely like a new argument. See if I have missed any:

 

1. Should not have to tip for my kids (cuz apparently they do not eat, make messes or require any interaction with crew members, ever).

 

2. I don't come from a tipping culture(ever heard of "when in Rome'?).

 

3. I prefer to hand cash directly to those that serve me. (And screw those behind the scenes that also get part of the gratuities).

 

4. They should just call it a service charge (they can call it a "cheese danish", its the same dang thing!).

 

Climbing off my soap box. Go back to making the same tired old arguments that will change nothing.

 

I agree. We cruised RCCL for the first time last March. I found it to be a pain to have to go add the charges to our account instead of doing it in cash, so I think this is a good thing. We gave out our over and above tips in cash.

 

And to those of you who think you are receiving inferior service - you need to go find the people that are over that area and tell them what your issues are. Then if they aren't corrected, go have the charges removed - but you're screwing the ones who were doing their jobs as well. I know on NCL, where this charge has been added to your on board account since we've been cruising with them (2009), we've never had inferior service. If we had, I would have contacted the HD because I know they want to hear about it while you're on board so it can be corrected instead of corporate reading about it here.

 

Honestly, I think people are on the hunt for things to complain about!

[Ocean Boy]

My feeling is that every crew member helps out and we have never had anything but exceptional service. Why are some people so cheap?

 

I really don't think this is a "cheap" issue. We never eat in the MDR. I can't stand it in there. And no I have not walked in there on the last night of a cruise and found some service team that I have never laid eyes on and handed them a tip. However, I have always taken care of the people who have provided service to, and taken care of, my family and me. But if RCI is now going to collect and destribute my funds as they see fit then I am going to have to give some thought about how I am going to handle this issue on our up coming cruise.

[PennyAgain]

The cruise lines are going to mandatory tipping in part because some people don't tip at all.

 

We've had dining table assignments with people who brag that they NEVER tip, ever anywhere including when cruising.

 

We mostly want darn good cruise fares so we have to expect more add on fees.

 

Or you can book an all inclusive cruise like on Crystal cruises and not worry about it.

[Doug S]

:eek:

 

:p And so start adding an extra $24.00 to $28.50 per day for all your future trips. Thats an additional $168.00 to $200.00 more for a 7 Day cruise.

 

 

You get absolutely no sympathy from me. To say your cruise is gonna cost $168-$200 more is basically admitting that you plan on keeping all or most of that tip money in your pocket to keep your cruise cost lower.

 

Nobody will ever admit to stiffing the staff to save money, but it happens all the time. MDR can be pretty empty on tip night. Everyone says "I always tip those that deserve it but don't want to be told what to tip." If you pay that much already, there should be just a little irritation over loss of tipping control, not the wild indignation I am seeing on various forum threads. I say its about time that everyone was expected to pay their own way. Those that can feel good about intentionally not tipping will at least have a harder time keeping the hard earned tip money in their booze and gambling budget.

 

One thing I will agree with is being manditory it is a service charge more than a tip. Lets all tell Royal to call it a service charge. I also hope they make it hard to drop without cause. To drop the whole amount you should have to have a greivance against all parties for every day the charge is assessed. Thats about 50 separate complaints. For example, if your room did not get well cleaned on day 3, you may have a legitimate cause to drop the fee for the room steward only for that day only. "I had a horrible cruise, gimme my money back" shouldn't float unless there are really unusual issues. I have personally never been on a cruise where I felt nobody deserved a tip.

[Charles4515]

I contacted Royal Caribbean and asked if we are still required to pre-pay gratuities when choosing MTD. They advised that you must still pre-pay.

Anyone know why we cannot use OBC instead?

 

Do we know who receives the increase in the daily gratuity or is it being retained by Royal Caribbean as an administration fee to pay for the increased cost of distributing the gratuities.

 

Andrew

 

Can't use the OBC because you have already paid the gratuities before being onboard.....

 

I have an OBC of $1000 on Celebrity so I am doing Late Seating. Will try to change to open seating onboard.

[Charles4515]

Not sure I understand the logic when people say this. What difference does it make to put it on the SeaPass or bring the cash with you, you it costs the same amount. If you use cash to budget and don't want your total Seapass total bill to include the tips, take your cash down to Guest Services and apply the cash towards your total. Your budget is the same either way. If you tip more, there is nothing keeping you from giving your cabin steward, waiter, etc more whenever you'd like.

 

This change is fine for me. We've got two cruises booked with MTD, I've already pre-paid. We've done cash tips, pre-paid tips, MTD and have never had bad service. We haven't gotten better service by not pre-paying. Having always known the cost of gratuities, this doesn't effect our budget at all. If people tip more, maybe this saves people a buck or two, if people tip less, then shame on them.

 

Personally I hope this will take the awkwardness out of the whole envelope situation, especially for prepaid guests.

 

If your response is 'this will cost me more', then you were doing it wrong.

 

Prepaid or automatic collection has cost me less than doing it myself. When I did it myself I would always round it up, not going to put coins in the envelope or add a few more dollars. With automatic collection or prepay I usually go with the flow unless someone was outstanding or did something outstanding.

[ctcruiser1721]

It forces a lot of PASSENGERS to tip where they haven't in the past.

 

Good point. Though the tipping culture is different in different parts of the world, anyone who has spent any length of time on these boards knows that there is s a fair amount of excuse-making and downright cheapness coming from folks who don't want to tip right here in the good 'ol US of A.

[Clagmeister]

Also it forces a lot of foreigners to tip where they haven' t in the past. Hope I continue to Get the great service we have in tithe past.

 

Define foreigners on a ship with an international crew and equally international complement of paying guests:rolleyes: I recall being berated by my american associates during a convention in Las Vagas because I had tipped a taxi driver too much and they would be expected to do the same! The reality is that on cruise lines (unlike most European cultures) and in the US, graduities form part of the living wage for the service industry and can be inconsistent. So it is good that RCCL has decided to level this out so that every guest pays their share. So let's not put provence on who tips and who does not because it is nonsense. Instead we should applaud that RCCL are doing something to ensure consistency in the process. There is nothing to stop those 'big tippers' we read so much about on these boards pressing a few more $$$ in the palms of cabin stewards or waiters on the final day :)

[Ocean Boy]

Thank you. I will probably be one of those people, on line and wading through the chairs of the folks that they have set up to watch as I supposedly stiff the staff:rolleyes: but will have them removed, tell guest services that my 'team' was fantastic and I choose to do the tipping myself in cash and not the company. A tip should come from me!!

 

Now-if you want to raise the cruise fare-go ahead, I would not care. I guess maybe then I would be going Yipee.:rolleyes: I just want to do the tipping and not someone sitting behind a computer in an office.

 

And-why will I do that, because they have just said I can. I'm not going against the system, just making a choice that they have offered me. Believe it or not, a huge line may appear. At that point they will probably either remove the above in red or give you back a choice due to GR line getting longer then usual.

 

However, I am not seeing the same wording on the US RCI website that our British friends have supplied. This is the section of the website that my e-mail points to. Is there a different section that contains the other wording?

 

http://www.royalcaribbean.com/customersupport/faq/subject.do?faqSubjectName=Gratuities&faqSubjectId=415&faqType=faq&et_lid=clickhere&et_cid=em_3625655&et_rid=228533790

[fishtaco]

Auto tips are added daily usually late night or early in the AM to your sea pass account by the pursers office so they show up each day along with other on board purchases:D

 

You can visit GS daily and have them removed but only on a day to day basis:D

 

If you want to remove them "totally" in favour of cash tipping you will have to let them be added to your account every day by purser and then go and remove the whole lot on the last night which causes a very long queue:D

 

If you tip in cash and then miss GS last night (which always closes early) the staff will be very very happy:D:p

[ctcruiser1721]

Auto tips are added daily usually late night or early in the AM to your sea pass account by the pursers office so they show up each day along with other on board purchases:D

 

You can visit GS daily and have them removed but only on a day to day basis:D

 

If you want to remove them "totally" in favour of cash tipping you will have to let them be added to your account every day by purser and then go and remove the whole lot on the last night which causes a very long queue:D

 

If you tip in cash and then miss GS last night (which always closes early) the staff will be very very happy:D:p

 

And am I correct in thinking that it looks like you will have to claim that you received inadequate service? I hope so. There shouldn't be an easy work-around to this. I just hope that people don't start lying about the service they receive in order to avoid paying the gratuities.

[heatherb1958]

Not received the e.mail yet but unusually for our next cruise we had pre paid the gratuities as it was a 'free' cruise and that was one of the conditions.

 

Last night DH went through all our bookings and pre-paid selecting MTD for each cruise as he went. We are just hoping service standards don't drop, time will tell.

[reallyhooked]

So far, everyone who has reported this has been from the UK.

I live in Texas. Got email yesterday. I think it's a good idea. Keeps me from having to calculate tips for everyone.

 

Joyce

[thinfool]

The cruise lines are going to mandatory tipping in part because some people don't tip at all.

 

 

Thank you Penny. So very true.

 

I was waiting at the pursers desk for something...a tall, well-dressed guy at the next position asked the purser for the form to remove tips.

 

I was appalled. This guy, I am sure, had no problem paying the tips...he was just being cheap. The attendant told me, after he left, that it 'happens a lot'.