Do you pay gratuities before or at the end of your cruise?

[Sigyn]

I can't recall when gratuities are added on for RCCL - at the beginning when you pay your cruise in full, or at the end of the cruise once you're on board? I'm trying to determine if OBC is a good thing to have once I'm on board. 

[FamilyCruiserUK]

At time of booking if you want to prepay

Or daily when on board.

👍

[teddybear231]

You can request to prepay them before you sail (which is what we do). If you don't, then they are charged to your seapass card daily.

[LooneyCruzer]

Eh, the way it’s going, best to prepay because they can up the rate at anytime and you get the lower cost

[foxgoodrich]

It's your choice.  You can prepay when you book your cruise and make final payment, or you can choose to add the gratuities aboard the cruise.  (In that case they add the daily amount to your account each night.)

 

While it's true that you may occasionally get caught by a rate change between your booking and account settlement, we prefer not to prepay our gratuities.  We actually did get caught by the rate change recently and the difference for the cruise for the 2 of us was a total of $21 for our 7 nighter in January.  We did not feel it was a significant enough amount to worry about.  (The last rate change was in 2018, so there were 4 years between rate changes.  This was the first time in 22 years of cruising Royal that we were caught by a change.)

 

We have the grats added daily to our account, then pay up at the end when we settle the account.  That way we can be sure all our OBC gets applied - we always start off with refundable OBC (travel agent, BorfA points, etc.) but sometimes we also receive non-refundable OBC while on the cruise due to something getting cancelled or changed, something going wrong with our cabin, dining, etc.  Royal applies non-refundable OBC first, then refundable.  We never waste any OBC, esp the non-refundable kind!

Edited March 10, 2023 by foxgoodrich

[smokeybandit]

37 minutes ago, LooneyCruzer said:

Eh, the way it’s going, best to prepay because they can up the rate at anytime and you get the lower cost

But if they up the rate (which happens only once every few years) you can prepay at that time to keep the old rate.

[nelblu]

1 hour ago, LooneyCruzer said:

Eh, the way it’s going, best to prepay because they can up the rate at anytime and you get the lower cost

If one knows that there's an increase coming you can call Royal and prepay the grats.

[Ryder101]

If you don't pre pay it will be charge to your account daily. This is the way to go because if you have bad service, you can remove the automatic gratuity at guest services at any time up until the morning of departure for any reason by going to guest services or calling guest services from your cabin and requesting they be removed. If you pre pay, this no longer is an option.

[The Fun Researcher]

Before, at time of booking.  I don’t need, or want, to see a bunch of daily charges showing up on our onboard account and something drastic would need to happen for me to try to remove them anyway . 

[ShillyShally]

49 minutes ago, The Fun Researcher said:

Before, at time of booking.  I don’t need, or want, to see a bunch of daily charges showing up on our onboard account and something drastic would need to happen for me to try to remove them anyway . 

This is how I do it too, I consider it part of the fare and tip as I go onboard to those that stand out!

[The Fun Researcher]

9 minutes ago, ShillyShally said:

This is how I do it too, I consider it part of the fare and tip as I go onboard to those that stand out!

Ditto 👍🏼👍🏼

[time4u2go]

1 hour ago, Ryder101 said:

If you don't pre pay it will be charge to your account daily. This is the way to go because if you have bad service, you can remove the automatic gratuity at guest services at any time up until the morning of departure for any reason by going to guest services or calling guest services from your cabin and requesting they be removed. If you pre pay, this no longer is an option.

Good point.  I always wait and pay it as it accumulates daily.  No sense letting them hold my money before they have to.

[Vacationdreamer<><]

I prepay. 
I like to have as much behind me as possible. 

[ShillyShally]

7 minutes ago, Vacationdreamer&lt;&gt;&lt; said:

I prepay. 
I like to have as much behind me as possible. 

Agreed, it's one of my favorite part of cruising, how much I can have wrapped up before ever leaving home!

[firefly333]

1 hour ago, time4u2go said:

Good point.  I always wait and pay it as it accumulates daily.  No sense letting them hold my money before they have to.

That's how I feel. Why prepay.  I often have obc for part or most of my tips applied to the total. 

[moposh]

I have been paying on board.  Was already paying enough beforehand, didn't want to pay more at the time.

[lenquixote66]

We paid when booking the cruises

[Jam0610]

We pay by final payment. That way it is done and out of the way. 

Tip additional to room steward. Servers and bartenders.

[shofer]

6 hours ago, teddybear231 said:

You can request to prepay them before you sail (which is what we do). If you don't, then they are charged to your seapass card daily.

We always pre-pay them so one less thing to worry about and knowing what the total cost is upfront.

[springfire]

6 hours ago, Ryder101 said:

If you don't pre pay it will be charge to your account daily. This is the way to go because if you have bad service, you can remove the automatic gratuity at guest services at any time up until the morning of departure for any reason by going to guest services or calling guest services from your cabin and requesting they be removed. If you pre pay, this no longer is an option.

Agreed!

[teddybear231]

3 hours ago, shofer said:

We always pre-pay them so one less thing to worry about and knowing what the total cost is upfront.

I completely agree, one less thing to worry about!

[cruiselvr04]

I Iike to pre pay unless we have enough OBC to cover it which is rare. I like keeping the on board account easier to figure out.  I usually call a couple of weeks before the cruise.

[SNemeth]

19 hours ago, Ryder101 said:

If you don't pre pay it will be charge to your account daily. This is the way to go because if you have bad service, you can remove the automatic gratuity at guest services at any time up until the morning of departure for any reason by going to guest services or calling guest services from your cabin and requesting they be removed. If you pre pay, this no longer is an option.

Just curious how you handle it.  Say you have bad service in the MDR so you want to take the tip off for that service.  How do you handle tipping everybody else that was not part of your bad service experience?  Seems unfair to remove tips for those behind the scenes who had nothing to do with a specific bad experience.  

[not-enough-cruising]

2 hours ago, SNemeth said:

Just curious how you handle it.  Say you have bad service in the MDR so you want to take the tip off for that service.  How do you handle tipping everybody else that was not part of your bad service experience?  Seems unfair to remove tips for those behind the scenes who had nothing to do with a specific bad experience.  

Behind the scenes personnel are not tipped positions in my world. 
I handle those I have personal contact with, everyone else is on a salary, and that’s between them and their employer 

[George C]

I rather just pay at the end , why have them hold your money for a few months . We also always tip in person .