To Tip Or Not To Tip?

To Tip Or Not?

Whether you call it tipping, service charge or gratuities – what do you think about paying tips on a cruise ship? I feel guilty if I don’t tip. Customers have even asked me if they remove the tips before they travel, will the staff know and treat them differently?

I don’t know whether it’s a British thing, but  many of us feel unhappy at being pressured into handing over our hard earned cash to a mysterious ship board account.

In my experience the crew members all seem to work extremely hard, on my last cruise I don’t know when my cabin steward slept – he was around at all times of the day and night,  my waiter in the dining room was superb and attentive, so I do not begrudge rewarding the people who have contributed to the enjoyment of the cruise. But, I seem to end up doing it twice though. What I do dislike, is being told I have to pay a daily amount – where does it go to? Is it fairly distributed – starting at the bottom upwards? Who knows?

Norwegian Cruise Line have just announced that from 01st March 2015 they are increasing their gratuities – yes it’s just 95 cents a day, but multiply that by the number of annual sea days x passengers – and it soon mounts up to a hefty sum.

And yes, we advise customers that they can amend the charges on board to reflect the service they feel they have received, but according to one customer of mine – he tried doing that on a recent MSC Cruise and felt intimidated and had to explain in great detail why he wanted to do this.

The cruise lines really need to sort this out – perhaps tipping should be made optional for all cruise lines and  let’s make sure that the cruise lines are paying their staff a decent enough wage when they work on board so the paying public don’t have to make up the shortfall in salary.

What do you think?