Whether you’re buying a drink at the bar or thanking your cabin steward for excellent service, gratuities are now a standard part of cruising.
Between cash tips and automatic gratuities, tipping is expected on most cruises. To start, an automatic gratuity is a set amount of money charged to cruisers to compensate the onboard crew members. These gratuities are charged on a per-person basis and vary based on the cruise line and cabin category. Guests in higher cabins pay higher fares for more attentive stateroom service and additional amenities received in suites.
These automatic gratuities can be prepaid before setting sail or charged daily to your onboard account. Although you can technically remove these gratuities by request, this is highly frowned upon. Guests can also tip crew members in cash for excellent service, including bartenders, dining room staff, and cabin attendants.
Nonetheless, tipping has also become a controversial topic in recent years. While these gratuities are expected, there is often little transparency about how they are distributed among the staff. Some cruisers often question whether onboard staff even receive the tips. Others have wondered whether the cruise lines subsidize wages rather than actually tipping the crew members.
However, Celebrity Cruises recently provided a detailed breakdown of its tipping structure for automatic gratuities, giving guests an insight into where their money goes. The communication was recently shared on Reddit to the r/cruise subreddit in a post titled, “Gratuity breakdown on Celebrity.”
Here’s how the tips are shared, including how many cruisers feel about the transparency and breakdown shared by Celebrity Cruises.
Celebrity Cruise Gratuities
Like most cruise lines, Celebrity Cruises charges guests on a daily basis for gratuities based on stateroom type. The cruise line explains on its website, “Gratuities collected are distributed to crew members, including dining, bar and culinary services staff, stateroom attendants, hotel services teams as well as others on board who work to enhance the overall cruise experience.”
Currently, Celebrity Cruises charges the following daily gratuity amounts per guest, based on stateroom type (in USD):
$18.00 per person per day in standard staterooms
$19.00 per person per day in Concierge Class and Aqua Class staterooms
$23.00 per person per day in Suite Class staterooms
Although these rates are automatically charged, Celebrity Cruises allows guests to adjust their gratuities onboard. Those wishing to remove these gratuities must do so at Guest Services during their cruise.
While guests are accustomed to tipping passenger-facing crew members, such as their stateroom attendants and dining room waiters, these gratuities are meant to compensate behind-the-scenes workers. Many cruisers consider these gratuities part of their cruise fare; however, some prefer to wait until they are onboard to pay.
Gratuity Allocation
Many cruisers have long questioned how cruise lines allocate these automatic gratuities. In fact, some travelers have recently started to remove their automatic gratuities and instead provide cash tips to crew members directly.
In an unexpected move, Celebrity Cruises decided to communicate the gratuity breakdown to guests on a recent sailing. This type of upfront communication is uncommon for most mainstream cruise lines. Additionally, it’s unclear why the letter was shared with guests onboard the Celebrity cruise sailing.
In the letter, the cruise line states, “For your convenience, we automatically add gratuities for your restaurant and stateroom services to your onboard SeaPass account on a daily basis in the following amounts, which may be increased at your discretion.”
Read more: 10 do's and don'ts of cruise ship tipping
Continuing, the cruise line explains, “The gratuity is then shared among different areas as outlined below as well as staff from other departments who work behind the scenes to enhance the cruise experience and cannot be redistributed into a single service type or position.”
Provided in the letter is a breakdown of the following gratuity distribution:
Regular Staterooms:
Dining and Culinary Services: $10.81 (60.06%)
Housekeeping Services: $5.19 (28.83%)
Other Hotel Services: $2.00 (11.11%)
Total: $18.00
Aqua/Concierge Staterooms:
Dining and Culinary Services: $10.81 (56.89%)
Housekeeping Services: $5.69 (29.95%)
Other Hotel Services: $2.50 (13.16%)
Total: $19.00
Suites:
Dining and Culinary Services: $11.60 (50.43%)
Housekeeping Services: $5.31 (23.09%)
Suite Services: $4.09 (17.78%)
Other Hotel Services: $2.00 (8.70%)
Total: $23.00
Celebrity Cruises also reminds guests that a 20% gratuity will be automatically added to all beverage purchases, including mini bar purchases, spa services, and salon services. Additional gratuities can also be added at the guest’s discretion.
Distribution Breakdown
When it comes to automatic gratuities, the majority of tips are provided to the onboard dining and culinary staff. For regular staterooms, 60.1% of the automatic gratuity is allocated to dining, followed by 56.9% for Aqua/Concierge Staterooms and 50.43% for suites.
Dining is one of the most important aspects of a cruise experience. For many, cruise food is a highlight of their entire vacation! For this reason, dining crew members work tirelessly to ensure guests receive high-quality meals during their sailing. Not to mention, thousands of meals are served every day on most cruise ships to accommodate all guests onboard.
In the breakdown, Celebrity shares how the majority of the automatic gratuities are provided to those working in dining and culinary services. Considering this is one of the biggest departments on a cruise ship, the allocation is not particularly surprising.
Next, the cruise line states housekeeping services receive about one-third of the automatic gratuities. Guests on Celebrity Cruises receive cabin cleaning services twice daily by cabin stewards; however, many crew members also work behind the scenes, such as maintenance and laundry services.
According to Celebrity Cruises, housekeeping services receive 28.8% of regular stateroom gratuities, 30% for Aqua/Concierge, and 23.1% for suites
Finally, a very small percentage of the automatic gratuities are provided for other hotel services, between 8.7% and 13.6%. Suite guests are charged the most for automatic gratuities, with an additional distribution for suite services. This is because guests in these higher-end staterooms receive more attentive service and benefits.
What do most cruisers think of gratuities?
Gratuities continue to be a hot topic for most cruisers, especially as rates continue to increase. In the Reddit comment section, many guests expressed concern, confusion, and frustration about the implementation of automatic gratuities.
Although Celebrity Cruises was likely hoping to increase transparency with passengers, most online users questioned the sincerity of the letter.
“Tipping culture is probably my biggest dislike of modern cruising. Pay your staff a living wage. It’s so incredibly tacky to see this sort of nonsense,” responded one user.
Read more: Crew member reveals shocking truths about cruise ship tipping
Another commenter replied, “I am more peeved about the BS language: ‘in order to receive the best service’ or ‘to maintain our excellent quality of service’ please tip our staff.”
“Translation: pay our staff’s wages for us while thinking it’s a “tip” after being conned into buying a low price cruise from us (little secret - it’s only low because we’re going to charge you their wages separately)"
One cruiser stated, “I’m skeptical that crew actually gets these tips. It [is] likely used by the cruise line to offset their labor costs.”
Additionally, many passengers praised other cruise lines for eliminating tipping expectations. In this way, some cruise brands include gratuities in their cruise fare so guests. Multiple responders praised these cruise lines, such as Virgin Voyages, for their approach to tipping.
“I really appreciate that Virgin is strictly no tipping. I am surprised that other cruise lines are not following that yet,” replied one cruiser.
Another responded, “I love Virgin for other reasons and always under appreciate that tips aren’t mandatory or expected.”
“This is where [Virgin Voyages] and few other higher end cruise lines excel. Total upfront pricing,” stated one commenter.
Similarly, another Redditor said, “Try Virgin Voyages. It’s built into the price, apparently they treat and pay their employees better than competitors, too. Employees aren’t even allowed to do anything that would suggest soliciting a tip.
Finally, the comment section prompted further discussion about tipping in general. Some cruisers shared how they have decided to approach tipping differently rather than relying on automatic gratuities.
The trend unveils a certain level of distrust in the cruising industry in general. For instance, one commenter explained, “I want to tip the employee, not the cruise line!”
One traveler replied similarly, “I always go to guest services and have them remove the gratuities from my bill. I then give my cabin steward payment in cash, to make sure he/she actually receives it.
Others echoed this sentiment. One cruiser stated, “[Cash tipping] is the best way to tip. There was a post on here or one of the cruise subs a couple of months ago from an employee of a cruise ship. He talked about how they don't actually get the tips directly. They are pooled and distributed a certain way but not everyone got some. I'll try to find that post and add it. It was eye opening. He said that giving the tip in person was the way to assure the employee would get it.”
Allie Hubers
Allie Hubers has been cruising since she was a tiny toddler. What started as a yearly vacation with family quickly turned into a passion for travel, cruising and adventure. Allie's been on over 45 cruises all over the world. She even studied abroad on Semester at Sea, sailing the world on a ship while taking courses for college and visiting 4 continents.
