Tips are on the increase again

Celebrity Cruises are the latest company to increase their daily gratuities. P&O did the same recently but their tips are still quite reasonable at £5.00pp per day
The latest increase introduced by Celebrity will mean that passengers are now paying $13.50pp per day and more in concierge cabins or above which is the equivalent of around £10.00pp per day
Personally I think this is too much. I am happy to tip and usually leave my tips on my account as the staff work so hard and deserve their tips at the end of the cruise. However my next cruise is on Celebrity Eclipse for 8 nights and as a family of 4 will mean our tips will be around £320.00 !!
That’s an awful lot extra on top of the cost of the holiday. If we were going for 2 weeks we have to budget an extra £560.00 just to cover the tips.
Often people travelling with children remove the tips for the kids and just leave them on for the adults. I am also seeing more and more people just removing them completely and opting to give cash to the deserving individuals.
I think with the increasing amounts for tips and the heavy handed way some cruise lines add them they are actually forcing people not to pay them at all.
If they kept the amounts more reasonable people would accept it as part of the cost and pay them on their account instead of removing them and possibly not tipping at all.
Life would be much easier if the cruise lines just built the tips into the price so everyone knew exactly how much their cruise was going to cost without any hidden extras.