i have booked my honeymoon on voyager in mid july,when booking i was told by the travel agent that tips was included in price of cruise and i was under no obligation to tip anymore, is this true .advice much welcome
Your travel agent may have added pre-paid gratuities to your bill so that you would not have to bother with tipping at the conclusion of your cruise. The pre-paid gratuity charge at Royal Caribbean for a seven night cruise is $68.25 per person. Have a nice cruise. Bobby (ex-cruiseman)
My understanding was that if you didn't prepay your tips, RCI automatically tacks it onto your bill at the end of the week. Then, you have to pay what they 'recommend' [which would be the tacked on tips] unless you throw a fit & have them take it off your bill.
I'm sure these people are deserving of their tips. But I didn't want any part of this hassle. Good luck to you. --Charity
Honeymoon Cruise RCI, Voyager of the Seas June 29 - July 6, 2003
Posts: 6 | Location: kentucky, USA | Registered: February 06, 2003
The idea of someone telling me how much to tip is appalling. We encountered this practice while sailing on the Carnival Destiny. Halfway thru the cruise we got a statement under our cabin door which an entry of $250.00 but no explanation as to what the charge was. I asked my wife what she bought and she looked at me like I was nuts....she hadn't bought anything which I knew. So off we went to the front desk and I question the charge....the first thing that that idot of a front desk person said was....the charges are correct....I again asked...what is the charge for? Finally the idiot told me that it was the TIP! I said when did CCL start adding tips to the bill? She said they had been doing it for several years....I said that is not true and demanded that the tips be taken off my bill. Furthermore there was nothing in the CCL brochure about tips being automatically add to the bill. That idiot argued that it was....so I pulled out my brochure and asked the idiot to show me where....she couldn't...then I asked her to show me in writing where it is stated.....she showed me that it was on the back of the cruise ticket in very very very small writing....She was right it was there....How sneaky of CCL to do that.....I protested that I am not paying $250.00 for tips especially since the service did not call for that kind of tipping....Heck I wouldn't tip five bucks on CCL let alone $250.00. Finally she took off the tips...muttered something under her breath......Holland America has the right attitude.....Tipping not required. Never hassaelled for tips and we always tip them anyway. So when you travel agent tells you the tips are included....BEWARE!!!! Only the better upscale lines have tipping included.
You wouldn't even tip $5 on a cruise??? Better you stay home and leave cruises to people that appreciate service at any level. It's people like you that make a bad name for everyone. These people work for very meager wages and don't deserve to be treated so badly. If I recall correctly, you were on a tipping "kick" a few months back.
The tipping policy onboard Carnival i will have to say i was taken back a little prior to our cruise to learn that we would be paying $300 for a family of 4 in tips. Although once onboard and experienced the tremendous service, I was more than happy to comply with their tipping policy, in fact we had such awesome service in our dining room that we tipped our 3 servers an additional tip!! I would have to agree with the last reply, if you don't agree with the tipping poliy, stay home!! Although i must say that i have never cruised other cruise lines, but i feel that Carnival was upfront about their tipping policy via our travel agent.
Posts: 174 | Location: Michigan | Registered: February 15, 2003
