Cruise Lines getting even Greedier?

This has to be one of the most controversial subjects when it comes to cruising! Tip, Gratuities, Service Charges whatever you want to call them? Do you pre-pay them or tip the members of staff personally when you get on board?

I suppose it’s down to who you are and how much you want to spend overall, some people like to pre-pay them as they then feel they don’t have to worry about it, but countless times I have ask and people have double tipped as they felt they had to on board so how much are you actually giving in tips?

This has been the a really big question as in the past few days P&O have announced that they will be rising the staff reward to £6.00pp per night, although this is not compulsory and not for those under the age of 12 which I think is a great thing for P&O to do.

Okay let’s say we are doing a 14-night cruise on the Celebrity Eclipse from Southampton – did you know that the Pre-paid Gratuity is £297.62 for a couple. Whereas on P&O as similar cruise would have recently been £154.00 for a couple – where is it that we draw the line to how much we tip.

Are cruise lines becoming to greedy? They want people to pay the tips but they keep putting them up – if it was a set lower amount, lets say £5.00pp per day – would you be happy to pay that or would you still want them removed. However from a family point of view I can completely understand why people are unhappy, take Royal Caribbean for example, if you have two adult and two infants, those two infants are charged the same as say a 5 and 6 year old or even two fully grown adults, and then Royal Caribbean expect them to tip too – do you think that is fair?

Personally I like to remove the tips and tip as I go, I’ll give a little to my cabin steward at the start of the cruise, then they know, if they look after me, I will tip again – what is a bigger incentive that that? Although some would argue that we pay enough for our holidays as it is without having to tip and in some cases I do completely agree.

Maybe Thomson have the right way of doing it, with Thomson your tips are included, so you are not paying them as such, but you also don’t remove them. Making for a happy crew.

What do you all do on your Holidays? To tip of not to tip? Let me know your thoughts?