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Gratuities Increase!!!!

shof515

By shof515,
in Carnival Cruise Lines

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shof515 "Live from...." Rare

shof515

Posted
Posted (edited)

I received this email about my upcoming cruise:

Quote
October 18, 2018

 

Dear Carnival Guest,

Effective with all cruises departing on or after December 1, 2018, the recommended onboard gratuities will be as follows:

  • Standard staterooms: $13.99, per person, per day
     
  • Suites: $15.99, per person, per day

The recommended gratuities are automatically added to your onboard Sail & Sign® account as a convenience. However, while on board, you are free to adjust gratuities at your discretion. No adjustments will be made after the cruise.

Guests who have booked directly with Carnival may visit our website to pre-pay their gratuities online prior to December 1, 2018, at the current rates ($12.95 per person, per day for standard staterooms and $13.95 per person, per day for suites).  Should you decide to do so, follow these simple instructions:

 

  • Visit Carnival.com and access "Your Cruise Manager"
  • Click on "Cruise Details" 
  • "Add" under "Prepaid Gratuities" 

 

100% of the gratuities go towards our shipboard team members.  They work hard to provide exceptional and friendly service, so we hope you will agree that this minor increase is well deserved.

 

We welcome our guests showing appreciation for the crew's efforts and the entire team looks forward to having you aboard for a fun and memorable cruise!

 

 

 
 

 

Sincerely,
Richard Morse New
Richard Morse
Senior Vice President, Hotel Operations

 

Edited by shof515
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evandbob

evandbob

Posted
Posted

Doesn't affect me in the least, it's a $1 pp/per day increase, so $14 extra for a couples' week long cruise, not a big deal.

Will affect cruising families more, of course.  I've often posted that cruiselines should just fold the gratuities into the fare price, but that shows no signs of happening.

I hope this doesn't increase the # of cruisers "adjusting" or eliminating tips at GS the last night of a cruise.  I'm all for giving the crew a higher wage, they make a pittance for the hours they put in every day.

Chengpk once posted that the average crew member gets some ridiculous amount, it was so low I hope he comes back to remind us what that was.

 

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jimgpayne

jimgpayne

Posted
Posted
1 minute ago, mikel24m said:

I bet that's to combat all the losers that remove grats. Hopefully next we'll see that they cannot be removed or adjusted except for certain documented circumstances

 

As long as they are gratuities; they can never be mandatory. By their very definition, they are optional. If they make them mandatory, then they will have to classify them as some kind of housekeeping fee. Which then means that Carnival must declare them as income and pay taxes on them. Right now, as gratuities, Carnival doesn't pay taxes on them - only the receiver does (or may, depending on the tax jurisdiction).

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pyropoodle Great Review Rare

pyropoodle

Posted
Posted

At first, I panicked, because I'm not that good at math and for some reason I had calculated that this would cost us an extra $256 on our upcoming cruise.  then I thought to myself, "that's crazy, it can't be correct" .  so I busted out the old calculator and sure enough, it's closer to $64.00, so I calmed down a bit.   we always pre-pay grats and we always put something in an envelope on the last day anyway, so, it's all good.   but man, for a moment there, I was a little bit shaken.  I need to go take another math class :)

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pyropoodle Great Review Rare

pyropoodle

Posted
Posted
1 minute ago, aknguyen said:

We already pre-paid for our tips for next year's cruise. Do we now need to go back in and pay the balance? I'm having trouble logging into Carnival right now. (I forgot my password. :classic_blush:)

I just logged in an looked at ours since we prepay as well, and nothing had changed.  you should be good. I think it's for people who did not prepay and they are giving them an option to now prepay at the lower rate.

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eljd

eljd

Posted
Posted
2 minutes ago, aknguyen said:

We already pre-paid for our tips for next year's cruise. Do we now need to go back in and pay the balance? I'm having trouble logging into Carnival right now. (I forgot my password. :classic_blush:)

If you have/will prepay your gratiuties before 12/1/18, you won’t have to pay more. 

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BENHANDEL

BENHANDEL

Posted
Posted
1 minute ago, eljd said:

If you have/will prepay your gratiuties before 12/1/18, you won’t have to pay more. 

 

Have you confirmed that? We have already prepaid our gratuities. I got the email today. I logged into my account and it does not indicate any balance due. I was wondering if the extra would be added once we were on board or if we would be grandfathered in?

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eljd

eljd

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Posted
Just now, BENHANDEL said:

 

Have you confirmed that? We have already prepaid our gratuities. I got the email today. I logged into my account and it does not indicate any balance due. I was wondering if the extra would be added once we were on board or if we would be grandfathered in?

The email implies that any one who paid before 12/1, regardless of when before that time, will be grandfathered in to the current prepaid gratuities. 

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katscrapfever

katscrapfever

Posted
Posted

aren't the gratuities automatically charged to your sail and sign card?  i prefer to tip in person as we've done in the past.  it should be optional instead of automatic, in my opinion.  we do tip generously. don't get me wrong, we know the help works hard and diligently.  but we've requested the gratuities be taken  'off' the credit card so that 'we' control whom and what is given.  

breakdown.thumb.jpg.efb4c829abf31d85b74040b4b69b54b5.jpg

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Bevv

Bevv

Posted
Posted
5 minutes ago, katscrapfever said:

aren't the gratuities automatically charged to your sail and sign card?  i prefer to tip in person as we've done in the past.  it should be optional instead of automatic, in my opinion.  we do tip generously. don't get me wrong, we know the help works hard and diligently.  but we've requested the gratuities be taken  'off' the credit card so that 'we' control whom and what is given.  

 

Options are:

Prepay, have them charged to your sail and sign card and leave them, or have them charged to your sail and sign card and adjust/remove them. 

I prepay them and tip more if I feel it is warranted.

 

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