Standard Cruise Gratuities and Tips Explained

How do standard gratuities work?

This is one of the most asked questions by cruisers, and one of your final bill’s line-items that come as the biggest surprise to first time cruisers. Understanding how these work will help ensure you are rewarding the people who have made your vacation a stand out experience in exactly the way you prefer to. After reading this blog, you should have a clearer picture as to what these fees are, how they are used, and what options you have for changing them.

How much should I expect to spend on tips?

Depending on the cruise line, gratuities will vary slightly. However a general standard for non-luxury lines is about $14.50 per person, per day. For guests in suites, it usually goes up to about $17.50 per person, per day.  This includes cruise lines such as Royal Caribbean, Princess, Carnival, Disney, MSC, P&O, Celebrity, Norwegian, and Holland America.

Who and what is covered by standard gratuities?

The main people who benefit are your stateroom attendant and assistant stateroom attendant if you have one. Also your waiter and assistant waiter if you have one. However, they also go to behind the scenes people such as line cooks, laundry staff, buffet waiters, etc. All of these employees go to great lengths to make your experience the best they can.

Here are some quick bullets about the most often asked questions about SPG (standard prepaid gratuities).

Kids are charged at the same rate as adults.

A lot of times people expect kids to pay fewer gratuities, however they are charged at the same rate as adults because when it comes down to it, they require just as much, if not more service. Think about it – a kid eating supper makes three times the mess an adult does when eating meals. Room attendants have twice the beds to make, and will also go out of their way to make pull-out beds in the evening and put them back away in the morning for you if they are sharing a room.

Cruisers that received free or discounted cruise rates still pay the full amount for gratuities.

Even if your cruisemate or child gets a discounted ticket, they still will be charged full rates for gratuities. Some examples of sales are “kids sail free” or “50% off the second guest”. The only exception to this rule is if the cruise line specifically states they will pay gratuities.

You can pre-pay gratuities before going on the ship.

Ask your travel agent (me!) to help you prepay gratuities so they don’t come as a surprise expense while you are on board.

You can add additional tips if you like.

Three ways to add additional tips:

1. Go to Guest Services with the names of the people and your room/dining table number and have them add it to your bill.
2. Give cash to the recipients in person.
3. Leave a tip envelope with cash at the guest services counter.

You can use onboard credit towards tips.

If you receive onboard credit from the cruiseline or travel agent, it can automatically apply toward your daily gratuities. If you are looking to take advantage of this, don’t prepay gratuities, since most onboard credits cannot be applied to gratuities beforehand.

Employees are allowed to accept cash tips.

Tipping in cash is one way to ensure your tip goes to exactly the person you want it to in full. Sometimes they will pool it with others in their area, but at least you know it is their decision at that point.

You can ask to remove gratuities from your bill and tip as desired.

Some cruisers like to remove gratuities and will tip their attendants directly with cash instead. On most cruiselines you can do this by going to guest services on board the cruise. If sailing Norwegian, you have to ask for them back after the cruise. A benefit of tipping this way is you have more control over where your money is actually going.

If you decide to go this route, let your waiter and attendants know early on, so if they find out you have removed the tips they do not feel slighted. Supposedly gratuities also go to behind the scenes staff as well. If you decide to tip individuals instead, maybe ask guest services or your attendants who all your standard tips would have gone to, so you can add them back to your list of people to tip.

You can take tips off and forego them all together.  😕

I do feel it is important to mention that whatever your feelings are about tipping in general (And to show I am not saying this because of a personal bias towards tipping, I will tell you I actually dislike the practice in general. I don’t understand why certain jobs are dependant on tips while other equally difficult and equally service oriented jobs aren’t. I also don’t like that in some cases workers aren’t given a standard living wage so even if they provide terrible service you still feel the need to tip them, which seems to defeat the purpose of what a tip initially was intended to be – a recognition of great service).

But I digress…

If the cruise line is automatically adding tips to your bill, it means they probably are not compensating those positions as well and those employees are dependant on the tips. Just keep that in mind if you are at all considering removing them.

So what do I do about tipping?

Everyone has an opinion about tipping, and those opinions can be absolutely opposite of each other at times.  What we are used to as the norm in America is very different from the norm in some other countries, so everyone feel free to do what you feel is appropriate.  I will tell you what I personally do but take it just as that, what I as one person does. Other people have given different advice and I have actually considered changing my standards because of this, so we’ll see if it changes in the future.  

I generally prepay the standard gratuities so I don’t have to worry about extra expenses on my vacation. I am a person who likes to know exactly what something will cost, and when I am pricing out a cruise I add the gratuities into the cost because it can vary from ship to ship. Additionally, sometimes the cruise line will pay the gratuities for you. This can change the overall cost of the cruise, and quite substantially at times. 

At the end of the cruise, especially if I have onboard credit left, I will give extra to certain people who have really stood out to me with exemplary service.  These are sometimes stateroom attendants that went the extra mile by remembering we like to have ice each day, waiters who took the time to get to know us and allowed us to get to know them, or bartenders who saw us sit down and walked over with our favorite drink without us even needing to ask.  I personally tip the extra at the end because I like to recognize those who went the extra mile and took pride in their job not just because of the promise of money, however I do recognize the benefits of tipping in advance.  Some guests give cash on the outset to key service providers who tend to go out of their way afterwards to go above and beyond.

There are a number of service providers who are not covered by the standard daily gratuities. For a list of those people, check out my post on additional cruise gratuities.

How do you tip your service providers on cruises? Did I miss anyone who you feel deserves a tip? Leave a comment with additional ideas or questions on cruise tipping below!