Celebrity Increasing Daily Gratuities ..... Will Royal be Next?

[ChrisK2793]

See Link:

https://cruiseradio.net/cruise-line-raises-gratuities-in-2020/amp/

 

[arebee]

Of course... Well maybe not next.

[princevaliantus]

8 hours ago, ChrisK2793 said:

See Link:

https://cruiseradio.net/cruise-line-raises-gratuities-in-2020/amp/

 

Per staff on VotS, should be announced by June 2021. They are waiting to let the smoke settle on Celebrity's announcement.

[mworkman]

Didn't they just raise them not long ago?

 

[monctonguy]

Of course they will...they all will...just takes one cruise line to be the brave one and take any heat for increasing them...then the rest of the sheep can follow shortly after.

[Lovetocruise2002]

Last time, they let all existing bookings be grandfathered in so all the more reason to load up on bookings now so that you can at least “save” until April 2022.

These things are inevitable. Not really surprised.

[Srp431]

2 hours ago, monctonguy said:

Of course they will...they all will...just takes one cruise line to be the brave one and take any heat for increasing them...then the rest of the sheep can follow shortly after.

Airlines do the same thing

[BB1]

I am always hearing about how little the crew get paid and now people will be angry because gratuities go up. It's truly damned if you do, damned if you don't.  Maybe people just like being fault finders.

[ChrisK2793]

On 12/30/2019 at 12:02 PM, BB1 said:

I am always hearing about how little the crew get paid and now people will be angry because gratuities go up. It's truly damned if you do, damned if you don't.  Maybe people just like being fault finders.

I’d honestly prefer if they just charged a few hundred dollars more per person for the cruise and PAID THE CREW BETTER  ....... then you could tip the people you wanted to tip what you felt they deserved ............ i already just treat the “prepaid gratuities” as part of the cruise fare and then also generously tip the people who I come in contact with that deserve it.

 

[WAAAYTOOO]

31 minutes ago, ChrisK2793 said:

. i already just treat the “prepaid gratuities” as part of the cruise fare and then also generously tip the people who I come in contact with that deserve it.

 

This is precisely my attitude. 

[StayFrosty]

14 hours ago, ChrisK2793 said:

I’d honestly prefer if they just charged a few hundred dollars more per person for the cruise and PAID THE CREW BETTER

I agree but it will never happen.  If they do that but the other cruise lines don't, then Royal's fares will look more expensive up front.  Of course we know better but most people compare costs based on what is listed on the website, not the final bills.

[SolariumSnoozer]

On 12/30/2019 at 8:19 AM, Lovetocruise2002 said:

Last time, they let all existing bookings be grandfathered in so all the more reason to load up on bookings now so that you can at least “save” until April 2022

That isn't quite true.  They grandfathered existing bookings in if you prepaid your gratuities.  If you waited until the cruise began and allowed the gratuities to be charged to your sea pass account your were charged the new rate.  So if you wanted to use on-board credit to pay your gratuities you were charged the higher rate.

[Lovetocruise2002]

1 hour ago, SolariumSnoozer said:

That isn't quite true.  They grandfathered existing bookings in if you prepaid your gratuities.  If you waited until the cruise began and allowed the gratuities to be charged to your sea pass account your were charged the new rate.  So if you wanted to use on-board credit to pay your gratuities you were charged the higher rate.

True. I did not think the OBC part.

[KWong]

So long as the gratuities go to the crew and not to the cruise lines I'm ok with an increase.

On 1/1/2020 at 6:38 PM, ChrisK2793 said:

I’d honestly prefer if they just charged a few hundred dollars more per person for the cruise and PAID THE CREW BETTER  ....... then you could tip the people you wanted to tip what you felt they deserved ............ i already just treat the “prepaid gratuities” as part of the cruise fare and then also generously tip the people who I come in contact with that deserve it.

 

I've often wondered about how the crew salary is broken down. Do they pay the crew a normal salary but then garnish room, board and meals? Or is it low like a restaurant server but with room, board and meals included?

At the end of the day, it doesn't and won't affect how I tip (I budget for a little "over and above" the going rate anyway) but it is a genuine curiousity on my part.

[JLMoran]

1 hour ago, KWong said:

I've often wondered about how the crew salary is broken down. Do they pay the crew a normal salary but then garnish room, board and meals? Or is it low like a restaurant server but with room, board and meals included?

@KWong, check out this thread from @CHRIS WONG. He's currently working for Royal and one of his earlier vlogs discusses how he gets paid and what the company covers for him while on board. You can go to his YouTube page from that thread and then go through his list of vlog posts.

 

[KWong]

Thanks!

[Va4fam]

How far in advance can you prepay gratuities? 

I'm pretty clear about how much to tip bartenders and servers for great service, but what about activities crew (ifly, escape room) or NextCruise personnel?  Do you tip them too?

Does anyone have a rule of thumb for how much to tip cabin attendant per night/per cruise?  Hotels are easy but seems like my cabin attendant does a lot more.

 

 

[WAAAYTOOO]

2 minutes ago, Va4fam said:

How far in advance can you prepay gratuities? 

You can have your grats included in your cruise price at the same time that you book your cruise.  We always do this immediately so that the grats are already included when we pay off the cruise.

2 minutes ago, Va4fam said:

Does anyone have a rule of thumb for how much to tip cabin attendant per night/per cruise?  Hotels are easy but seems like my cabin attendant does a lot more.

We usually give our room attendant an extra $50 for a 7 night....just a round number.  Sometimes more, sometimes less.  We rarely ever have a bad one, but they do pop up from time-to-time.

[Va4fam]

7 minutes ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

You can have your grats included in your cruise price at the same time that you book your cruise.  We always do this immediately so that the grats are already included when we pay off the cruise.

We usually give our room attendant an extra $50 for a 7 night....just a round number.  Sometimes more, sometimes less.  We rarely ever have a bad one, but they do pop up from time-to-time.

Thanks @WAAAYTOOO.   Great advice.   We had two rooms and two different attendants on our recent cruise.   One was exceptional, the other was not.  

[JLMoran]

@Va4fam, in addition to what @WAAAYTOOO noted, you can also choose to pre-pay your gratuities any time after final payment, up until I believe 3 days before your embarkation date; might even be up until the day before embarkation. I've done this approach instead so that I first pay off the cruise by the 90-day mark, wait for another billing cycle or two to go by while I finalize any other pre-cruise purchases, and then call my TA and ask to have my gratuities paid. Have done this for 3 different cruises now with two different travel agents, no problems any of those times.

[Va4fam]

Thanks @JLMoran.   We have two cruises booked right now (one w/prepaid grats), but are seriously thinking about booking 4 more to get to Diamond in 2021.   That would be a lot of prepaid gratuities if we pay right now.  

[Ogilthorpe]

Good News: Prepaid gratuities are paid ahead of the cruise, usually, with final payment. At booking, they are listed on the invoice at the current rate, but are not due until later.

[ChrisK2793]

20 hours ago, Va4fam said:

Thanks @JLMoran.   We have two cruises booked right now (one w/prepaid grats), but are seriously thinking about booking 4 more to get to Diamond in 2021.   That would be a lot of prepaid gratuities if we pay right now.  

 

‘You wouldn’t pay them now, they’d go on your invoice now and lock in the current gratuity rate ..... you actually pay them on your final payment date along with the rest of the cruise fare.

 

 

[JLMoran]

On 1/9/2020 at 11:58 AM, ChrisK2793 said:

You wouldn’t pay them now, they’d go on your invoice now and lock in the current gratuity rate ..... you actually pay them on your final payment date along with the rest of the cruise fare.

This is true, and if you're OK with that then by all means take that option. The reason that I deliberately wait to request that until after final payment is that I make regular monthly payments towards the fare, and there's already a bit of a "balloon payment" on the final payment -- $100-$200 per room plus the port fees and taxes that have to be paid in a lump sum. If I were to add the gratuities in, the final payment would be significantly bigger for any cruise involving my family of four.

[Jim S]

P&O cruises no longer charge for gratuities, they are included in the cruise fare. I haven’t noticed any substantial difference in the cruise prices from last year when gratuities were added to your onboard daily account.