Cruising Australia

[gibsonsgolfer]

I am a Canadian and I have read many forum postings regarding tipping and Australia.

 

We have a cruise booked for 2018 in Australia and one thing I cannot get through my head is the policy for paying gratuities if the cruise is booked from North America. The cruise personalizer does have a spot for prepaying the gratuities, but I really don't know if that is necessary.

 

I'm not trying to create the millionth discussion of tipping :) and we have always happily paid the gratuities and then more when on our cruises elsewhere in the world.

 

Cheers ... Bob

[cherylandtk]

When we did this sort of cruise the same thing happened. We, as a North American booking had the daily gratuities automatically added as is usual. Our table mates from Australia did not; theirs were supposedly included in the booking price. We did not go so far into the conversation as to compare pricing, but they did say they had booked fairly last minute because of a good sale, but I've no idea what kind of pricing that meant.

[cb at sea]

Do as the cruise line suggests for YOU...then you will be "right" with the world!

[LHT28]

Some Countries do not have a tipping culture (just read some of the many tipping threads) & the gratuities will be hidden in the total fare for those booking with ships homeported in those Countries

 

You pay the gratuities the same as you do on any cruise

Pre pay or have it added daily to your ship board account

 

Pay now or pay later ..your choice

[iancal]

We had two cruises in Australia last year. The first was a pre booked Princess cruise. The second was was a last minute RCI cruise. The Princess cruise was booked in North America. We booked/paid the RCI cruise with RCI Australia while we were travelling in Australia.

 

Daily gratuities were added to our account each day on both cruises. When we booked the second last minute cruise we found that even adjusted for currency, the cost of booking in Australia was 30 percent less than if we had booked with our on line TA in North America. RCI Australia gave us an excellent senior discount and a good OBC that more than paid for the daily gratuity charge.

 

The other difference was on board charges. Sun Princess currency was AUD. This is very close in value to our Canadian dollar. The RCI on board currency was USD. This was a premium of 25 percent over our currency. Drink prices were about twenty percent higher on RCI than they were on Princess. So the $10. drink (in CAD) on Princess was as much as $15/16 (in CAD) or more on RCI, after the gratuity was added.

Edited November 23, 2016 by iancal