Sarah Bretz, ContributorGratuities are a hot topic among those who love to cruise, especially on mainstream lines like Royal Caribbean where they are automatically charged to your account but aren’t included in the cruise fare. Here, we’re going over everything you need to know about Royal Caribbean gratuities in 2024 including where exactly the money goes, how much guests are charged each day, and whether it’s allowed (or recommended) that you tip in cash.
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Royal Caribbean Gratuities – What You Need to Know in 2024
What are Royal Caribbean’s ‘service gratuities?’
Think of the daily gratuity charge as a tip for the work that crew members do throughout the day and night during your cruise vacation. Guests must pay a set amount per person, per day for daily gratuities, with the amount based on the stateroom type.
On Royal Caribbean’s website, it says that the “automatic daily gratuity is based on customary industry standards. Applying this charge automatically helps streamline the recognition process for the crew members who work to enhance your cruise.”
You may be wondering how Royal Caribbean divides these gratuities among the crew members. According to the line’s website, they’re divided among dining, bar, and culinary service staff; stateroom attendants; and other hotel services teams. Some of these crew members are those you’ll interact with face-to-face, such as bartenders and your cabin steward. Others are working behind the scenes, such as various culinary and hotel service crew members.
How much are gratuities on Royal Caribbean?
As previously mentioned, gratuities are a per person, per day amount. They are not part of the cruise fare, which is standard practice for mainstream cruise lines. (Luxury cruise brands, on the other hand, often include gratuities in the cruise fare.) This does not apply on sailings from Australia; in that case, gratuities are part of the fare when booking on Royal Caribbean’s Australia website.
The daily amount is the same for all guests in a stateroom regardless of their age, from babies all the way to adults. This means that if you’re a family of three with two adults and a baby, you’ll pay the same amount in gratuities as a group of three adults.
Royal Caribbean last updated its per day gratuities on November 11, 2023. The current amount is $18 USD per person, per day for those staying in non-suite staterooms and Junior Suites. Passengers staying in suites will pay $20.50 USD per person, per day.
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How do you pay gratuities on Royal Caribbean?
The daily gratuities are charged to your SeaPass account (your onboard account during the cruise) on a daily basis. At the end of the cruise, Royal Caribbean charges the credit card linked to your account for everything purchased onboard throughout the trip — as well as gratuities.
If you want to prepay gratuities for your Royal Caribbean cruise before you ever step on board, you can do so by calling 866-562-7625. If you booked through a travel agent, you’ll need to tell your advisor that you want to prepay your gratuities and they’ll be able to handle that for you. In the United States, there is currently no way to prepay your gratuities online. You must either call the number above or contact your travel agent.
Are Royal Caribbean gratuities mandatory?
If, for some highly unlikely reason, you don’t find that the service on your cruise was anywhere close to satisfactory, you are able to remove the automatic gratuities from your account. To do that, you can visit Guest Services on the ship all the way up until the last morning of the cruise. You can also visit Guest Services to change the amount of gratuities you pay.
While guests are able to alter or remove these Royal Caribbean gratuities, we never suggest doing so.
Can you tip cash on Royal Caribbean?
As far as the automatic gratuities are concerned, you can only pay them in cash if you add cash to your account during the cruise at Guest Services, or if you are paying your entire account’s bill in cash and will settle it before you disembark at the end of the cruise. If you add cash to your account during the cruise, it will go towards your whole account in general, not just towards gratuities specifically.
You may be wondering whether it’s a good idea to remove the automatic gratuities and instead tip cash to crew members like your dining room service team and cabin steward. While guests can technically do this, we strongly recommend against it. This is because some of the crew members that benefit from the automatic gratuities are ones you’ll never have the chance to meet face-to-face.
Instead, keep the automatic gratuities on your account. If you really feel that your room attendant or dining room servers went far above and beyond, you can always give them an additional tip in cash.
It’s a good idea to keep some cash on hand for this purpose, as well as for others you may want to tip. This includes tour guides on excursions, crew members that deliver room service, and porters that handle your luggage at the cruise terminal.
Keep in mind that Royal Caribbean automatically adds an 18 percent gratuity to all beverage purchases on the ship. This applies to beverage packages at the time of purchase as well. In addition, there’s a 20 percent gratuity added for all spa and salon services. Tipping beyond that is certainly not expected, but it’s always appreciated if you do.
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Comments
What do you think about Royal Caribbean gratuities in 2024? Do you usually tip above and beyond these automatic charges? Drop us an anchor below to share your thoughts on the increasing prices of gratuities across the cruise industry.
4 comments
BeachLover718
We do the same thing. We remove auto tips and give tips at the end to our cabin steward and dining staff. Royal needs to pay their crew and not add an additional fee and call it gratuity; it’s not a gratuity if demanded or required- it’s a fee! Less service means less tips for the staff and rightfully so. I’ll tip who I want and how much.
Mark
I do remove the gratuities on day one of the cruise. It is not my responsibility to pay for the people that the cruise lines should be paying a salary to. In addition, Royal Caribbean has cut down its cabin steward room cleaning to once a day while raising its tipping guidelines. Why should I pay an additional amount for less service. I wind up tipping all the services I come in contact with during the cruise and feel comfortable with that. I want to shake the hand that helped me during the week and personally hand them an envelope and thank them for a job well done and a gratuity well deserved
Reed Adams
Gratuities are earned for going above and beyond in the service industry. Those individuals that you “do not see” or personally interact with during your cruise experience should not be compensated with a passenger’s tip money. Those individuals should be compensated according to their Job Description. I typically do not dine in the Main Dinning Room during my 7 day cruises. I pay a premium to Dine in the specialty restaurants and tip those individuals that serve me. I should not have to contribute to the waiters and servers in the main dinning room if I do not use that service. I never use the Spa services so why should I contribute to those individuals. Common sense should prevail here. I’ve been cruising with Royal for 20 years now and it is shameful what they are expecting passengers to pay. Not everybody should get a trophy for showing up!
Don Bucolo
Unfortunately, service charges are a back door way of keeping cruise fares down. Spa services are not included in the daily charge, nor are the bartenders. Those are separate charges. Which RCI ship is your favorite?