Are Tips pre-paid with Princess?

[CruiseTobey]

Hopefully someone can answer this rather simple yet confusing question:

 

Does Princess add tips to the total cost of a cruise when you book it? For example, if the cruise is $2000.00 and the tips are $150.00, will the total quoted by Princess be $2150.00?

 

On RCI, tips are not included in the fare. Is that also the case with Princess?

 

Thanks in advance.

 

CruiseTobey

[Toto2Kansas]

Hopefully someone can answer this rather simple yet confusing question:

 

Does Princess add tips to the total cost of a cruise when you book it? For example, if the cruise is $2000.00 and the tips are $150.00, will the total quoted by Princess be $2150.00?

 

On RCI, tips are not included in the fare. Is that also the case with Princess?

 

Thanks in advance.

 

CruiseTobey

 

No, Princess adds the gratuities to your shipboard account daily. $10.50 pp for balcony and below, $11.00 pp for mini suite and full suites.

 

BUT, if you would like to pre-pay them (sort of), you can send yourself shipboard credit before your cruise in any amount. So, you can actually send yourself the amount of your gratuities ahead of time (they will be immediately charged to your credit card so can be paid off long before your cruise). They will show up as a credit on your shipboard account and they will deduct the gratuities from that credit as the cruise goes on. ;)

[mizLORInj]

And they'll automatically get charged to your shipboard account daily.

If I remember correctly, on RC we had to go to Guest Svcs to ask that they charge the tips to our account.

ENJOY

[paul929207]

, tips are not included in th cost of your cruise. However, Princess does automatically charge them to your Onboard Account.

[ugen512]

I can speak from experience that CCL, NCL, PCL and RCL all add them automatically to your onboard account. No cruise line that I know of(maybe luxury brands) include grats in cruise cost. You can pre-pay them on all except NCL, unless they changed their policy.

[elnino122]

No, Princess adds the gratuities to your shipboard account daily. $10.50 pp for balcony and below, $11.00 pp for mini suite and full suites.

 

Is there anyway of cancelling this agreement with Princess? I would prefer to give our cabin steward, waiter, asst waiter and head waiter the gratuities owed at the end of the week cash. I dont truly believe that the crew will receive whats rightfully theres.

 

Just to get another point clear, if i order a drink at the bar, does an automatic 15% tip go on to the total?

 

Kevin

 

Sailing Crown on 15-02-09

[Grego]

No, Princess adds the gratuities to your shipboard account daily. $10.50 pp for balcony and below, $11.00 pp for mini suite and full suites.

 

BUT, if you would like to pre-pay them (sort of), you can send yourself shipboard credit before your cruise in any amount. So, you can actually send yourself the amount of your gratuities ahead of time (they will be immediately charged to your credit card so can be paid off long before your cruise). They will show up as a credit on your shipboard account and they will deduct the gratuities from that credit as the cruise goes on. ;)

 

I've always liked the idea of sending a SBC before the cruise to soften the blow, not only for the tips, but for the bar tabs, excursions, bingo and whatever else we purchase onboard. When the final tab comes the final morning, the balance is much smaller and you don't have a big credit card statement next month because you have paid off a little at a time in advance.

[flamomo]

Yes, 15% is added to the tab for each beverage you get from the bars.

There have been a nunber of threads about auto-tipping here and I think you will find them if you do a "search".

However, it seems that the vast majority of cruisers DO NOT remove the auto-tip charge. IF YOU CHOOSE TO REMOVE IT, whatever you give the selected few staff in cash tips is required by the cruiseline to be turned in and put in the tip pool to be shared by all those who are, in part, paid by the auto tips. They are not allowed to keep cash tips, unless you ALSO have the auto-tips charged to your shipboard account.

If you remove the auto-tips, you will be depriving some of the behind-the-scenes staff, who contribute to your care and service onboard, of their share of the auto-tips. That means that you are depriving them of part of their paycheck.

[Colo Cruiser]

Is there anyway of cancelling this agreement with Princess? I would prefer to give our cabin steward, waiter, asst waiter and head waiter the gratuities owed at the end of the week cash. I dont truly believe that the crew will receive whats rightfully theres.

 

Just to get another point clear, if i order a drink at the bar, does an automatic 15% tip go on to the total?

 

Kevin

 

Sailing Crown on 15-02-09

 

 

Yes go to the pursers desk and remove the auto tip then tip in cash. :)

 

And yes 15% is added to the cost of drinks at the bar.

[regnig]

Is there anyway of cancelling this agreement with Princess? I would prefer to give our cabin steward, waiter, asst waiter and head waiter the gratuities owed at the end of the week cash. I dont truly believe that the crew will receive whats rightfully theres.

 

Just to get another point clear, if i order a drink at the bar, does an automatic 15% tip go on to the total?

 

Kevin

 

Sailing Crown on 15-02-09

 

Do all you CCers think we could get Laura to put a "Sticky Post" at the top of the board with the answer(s) to the "auto tip" questions? And, then could we get her to BAN all tipping questions? I've run out of pop-corn and have far too much to do at this time so I can't get to the grocery store for more. :rolleyes::rolleyes:

[h3rjp]

Do all you CCers think we could get Laura to put a "Sticky Post" at the top of the board with the answer(s) to the "auto tip" questions? And, then could we get her to BAN all tipping questions? I've run out of pop-corn and have far too much to do at this time so I can't get to the grocery store for more. :rolleyes::rolleyes:

 

You know what? I agree. The topic seems to come up every few days and it normally breaks down into nasty arguements between posters.

[Colo Cruiser]

They (threads) don't seem to be watched very much either as they deteriorate. :(

[Donray]

Is there anyway of cancelling this agreement with Princess? I would prefer to give our cabin steward, waiter, asst waiter and head waiter the gratuities owed at the end of the week cash. I dont truly believe that the crew will receive whats rightfully theres.

 

Just to get another point clear, if i order a drink at the bar, does an automatic 15% tip go on to the total?

 

Kevin

 

Sailing Crown on 15-02-09

Please explain how you would tip the person that washes the dishes and cleans the ship public areas? Don't these people make your cruise enjoyable?

[Pam in CA]

Is there anyway of cancelling this agreement with Princess? I would prefer to give our cabin steward, waiter, asst waiter and head waiter the gratuities owed at the end of the week cash. I dont truly believe that the crew will receive whats rightfully theres.

 

Just to get another point clear, if i order a drink at the bar, does an automatic 15% tip go on to the total?

Yes, you can go to the Pursar's Desk and ask to have the auto-tip removed. However, if you tip individually, that amount gets turned in by the person and if the auto-tip is removed, it goes into the tipping pool and (s)he gets only what (s)he would get from the auto-tip; if the auto-tip is left on, they get to keep that in addition to the amount they get from the auto-tip. Also, if you remove the auto-tip, it could reflect negatively on your steward and/or waitstaff since if several do it for the same steward/waitstaff, it's assumed that service was sub-standard. And, don't forget that if you receive service in the dining room or buffet at breakfast or lunch, not to mention if you have Anytime dining, these waitstaff get a share of the tipping pool as well. You wouldn't want to leave them out when tipping with individual envelopes as many of them do a good job. IMHO, carrying cash around constantly would be a PITA but to each his/her own.

 

If you order a drink or soda from the bar, yes, there's an automatic 15% tip.

[Colo Cruiser]

 

Please explain how you would tip the person that washes the dishes and cleans the ship public areas? Don't these people make your cruise enjoyable?

 

 

They are included in the pool. :)

[elnino122]

Yes go to the pursers desk and remove the auto tip then tip in cash. :)

 

And yes 15% is added to the cost of drinks at the bar.

 

Thank you......... a nice and simple straight forward answer.

 

Unlike some others, who in my opinion need to get out more.

[serene56]

Thank you......... a nice and simple straight forward answer.

 

Unlike some others, who in my opinion need to get out more.

 

Most of the other posters are just letting you know what happens when you go to the pursers desk and take the tip off and tip with cash. Not a lot of people are aware that when you do this you are doing your service people a disservice because they will have to turn in that cash and split it with the rest of the people on the pool.

[kiwi_mica]

Americans tend to accept tipping as normal. For Australasians, the whole notion is alien as we don't tip. One of the reasons for this is that people here regard tipping as demeaning to the recipients. In our countries, we believe people should be paid a fair living wage so that they don't have to rely on 'handouts'.

 

So, I'd be much happier if the $10.50 a day was just included in the ticket price. Charging people separately strikes me as the same sort of 'hidden' fee as fuel charges.

 

We told the purser on our recent cruise to remove the daily charge and we tipped people on a 1-to-1 basis. Princess got us back though. We found out just before disembarkation that they had charged us the daily fee anyway. (When we told the purser staff to remove the charges, they claimed 'the computer was down'. (That's a new one!) We insisted they wrote out a Visa card credit but they seem to have 'lost' that. We've since tried calling the call centre to get this resolved but all they do is tell us they'll call us back, which they never do.)

[Cruisin' Chick]

Do all you CCers think we could get Laura to put a "Sticky Post" at the top of the board with the answer(s) to the "auto tip" questions? And, then could we get her to BAN all tipping questions? I've run out of pop-corn and have far too much to do at this time so I can't get to the grocery store for more. :rolleyes::rolleyes:

 

This would be a great idea if one person who's knowledgable can explain it (how removing the autotip can adversely affect the crew members) and then the thread gets locked.

[nho9504]

Thank you......... a nice and simple straight forward answer.

 

Unlike some others, who in my opinion need to get out more.

 

Actually you need to be better-informed.

 

In my opinion, you do not have much idea on how Auto-tip pool works and what would happen when you choose to remove the auto-tip.

 

Your profile said you are from UK, no wonder.

 

Just another FYI - recently when passengers remove auto-tip, they are interviewed by the Maitre d' and the hotel manager - because they want to know WHY you remove the auto-tip. Because usually people only remove auto-tip when they are not happy with the services provided, or.....

[Colo Cruiser]

Thank you......... a nice and simple straight forward answer.

 

Unlike some others, who in my opinion need to get out more.

 

 

Your quite welcome. ;)

[bhopal21]

Your quite welcome. ;)

 

Just the facts sir, just the facts.;)

 

I like that and try to emulate the same.

 

No reason for all the extra BS.

 

Mike:)

[Donray]

Americans tend to accept tipping as normal. For Australasians, the whole notion is alien as we don't tip. One of the reasons for this is that people here regard tipping as demeaning to the recipients. In our countries, we believe people should be paid a fair living wage so that they don't have to rely on 'handouts'.

 

So, I'd be much happier if the $10.50 a day was just included in the ticket price. Charging people separately strikes me as the same sort of 'hidden' fee as fuel charges.

 

We told the purser on our recent cruise to remove the daily charge and we tipped people on a 1-to-1 basis. Princess got us back though. We found out just before disembarkation that they had charged us the daily fee anyway. (When we told the purser staff to remove the charges, they claimed 'the computer was down'. (That's a new one!) We insisted they wrote out a Visa card credit but they seem to have 'lost' that. We've since tried calling the call centre to get this resolved but all they do is tell us they'll call us back, which they never do.)

 

I have been trying to figure out how people like you tip the dish washers, the people that clean the public areas, etc.

Could you please tell me.

Do you tip every crew member you that is cleaning the ship?

Do you ask to meet the people that wash the dishes and then tip them?

I have asked several times and so far no one seems to know.

[Donray]

They are included in the pool. :)

 

 

I am talking about the people that remove the auto-tips because they only want to tip the people that deserve their tip.

 

If they know everything goes into a pool why would they remove the auto tip?

[Colo Cruiser]

I am talking about the people that remove the auto-tips because they only want to tip the people that deserve their tip.

 

If they know everything goes into a pool why would they remove the auto tip?

 

 

Talking about cash after the auto tip is removed. :)