Can prepaid gratuities be removed once you're on the ship?

[time4u2go]

1 minute ago, xpcdoojk said:

I think tipping in general has become a cash cow for companies (not necessarily for the workers), I had breakfast at First Watch this morning for two, it came to $36, when you pay with credit card, it offers you three easy options 20, 22 and 25%. I am from the USA, and I grew up thinking that 15% was a standard tip, and 20% was exceptional.  Almost all companies are using these terminals now and we are all tipping for things we never tipped for before.  I think Royal has figured out that tips are a cash cow for them as they try to climb out from under a lot of debt, back to that not paying dividends thing again.  O, I chose 20 because I am too lazy to do the custom tip, but we all should take the time because eventually they will replace 20 with 25 or 30%

I agree with you, that the traditional tipping rate was 15% for a long time.  I've never understood why it went up.  People would say something like, "to keep up with higher prices and inflation".  Well, since it's a percentage of prices that are also going up, there's really no need for the percentage to go up.

[Another_Critic]

9 minutes ago, xpcdoojk said:

hey my wife is a shareholder! They don't often pay dividends.  So, none of it is rolling to the shareholders.  It is rolling to senior management and the ship building and provisioning companies.  I just looked back at the dividend history or Royal Caribbean on their financial page, easy to find out.  She bought the stock sometime prior to their listed dividend history which goes back 9/16/2003.  She bought 100 shares, I think it was slightly more, but for simplicity sake we will keep it 100 (since my obviously limited math skills are already in question!😂) I think the purchase price was around $55 a share and I think she bought it around 2000.  So, 24 years ago she invested $5500.  I bought Carnival at the same time for the same reason to get shareholder benefits (that was a bad investment plus I found I don’t fit on their ships).  So, I added up all of the dividends she received on that 100 shares.  It came to $1703 on a $5500 dollar investment after 24 years.  If she had bought a CD paying 1% a year she would have earned about $1500.  So, clearly we are not getting rich on those dividends being paid to shareholders.  They haven’t issued a single dividend since Covid.  They have paid for a bunch of new ships.

 

How much shareholder OBC have you received during those 24 years? 

[xpcdoojk]

Now that is a completely different question.  For most of those years the share holders benefit was not combineable, so in actuality, for years most of the time zero.  However since Covid and the ability to combine discounts it has actually become significant.  

 

Let’s do a quick example 7 nights in a balcony for $2500 cruise fare.  For 6-13 nights it would be $100, which of course, is not discounted from the fare, but given to us to use as on board credit.  Which I will use to pay for over priced drinks, photos, shore excursions or shops, etc.  But in my example it is a 4% discount.  I get a 3% credit from the credit card I use, I don’t report either one to the IRS.  😂

 

I get OBC from my very good travel agent too.  So, while I like the shareholder benefit, I am not sure we are getting rich off of it either.

 

jc

Edited March 11 by xpcdoojk

[not-enough-cruising]

4 hours ago, AuDArtiste said:

That money doesn't just go to the stewards. It goes to everyone involved in your service and the service of all the people that you are paying for. They are not making the whole amount. That is why the gratuities are auto charged so they can be divided between everyone and the stewards don't just get it all. More importantly, it gets divided fairly. 

What I don't understand is why you would go cruising or even out to dinner if you can't afford the gratuity. By the way, I would wipe that laughing face off at people not understanding the math, because you are the one that doesn't understand that $20 x 6,750.00 is completely wrong. Maybe you need to learn about decimal points and how to write numbers. I have dyscalculia (dyslexia with numbers) and I can put the decimals in the right place.  You also don't understand that the money is divided between a bunch of people. They get a small bonus. They aren't getting rich cleaning up after your disgusting self or anyone else's. There is no way I would take a job cleaning up after people, that is just gross! These people deserve a lot more than they are making!!!!!!!!!! 

All of your arguments just seem selfish to me. Yes, these people may come from other countries, but they work very long hours and 7 days a week. Several of the performers who work on the cruise ship have much better benefits, and a lot fewer hours state that the service people work 7 days a week. Even then if you look up a professional ice skater on a cruise ship's income it is only about 33,000 dollars a year. Performers are generally treated like officers have more access to more areas, and are allowed to get off the ship in ports when they are not working. The people we are talking about are not allowed off the ship probably because they don't get days off. They are only allowed in crew areas except when performing their jobs, and they go for months at a time without seeing their families. Yes, they signed up for this job and the pay, with the knowledge that there would be tips added. Just like when I used to serve drinks for a living. I didn't take the job because I wanted the paycheck. My paycheck was less than my tips which is not true in cruise ship work as they get a small stipend at the end of each cruise. 

If the cruise ships get rid of the tips, your $5,000 cruise will be probably closer to $8000.00. It will cost you substantially more money. Your service probably won't be as good, because as someone who has worked for tips and then on commission for most of their adult life, I have seen the difference between salary/hourly paid people and commission/tips paid people in customer service. Working for commissions my biggest frustration was salary workers because they would get paid regardless on Friday, so they didn't care if it got done this week, month, or even ever. They got paid either way. 

We have a winner for the "most incorrect information in one post"