Gratuities

Cruise lines run on a gratuity system. The staff (waiters and room stewards) get a token salary, and room and board from the cruise line. They have to buy their own uniforms, and they have to pay for a company physical (over $400!) prior to the start of each contract. They even have to pay a substantial “finder’s fee” to the agency that sets them up with their first contract to work on a ship. Their contracts run about 9 months, with them working every single day for that period.

Guests are “suggested” to give a gratuity of $10.50 or $11 (depending on the size of your cabin) per person per day of the cruise. This is set up as an automatic charge against your account, under the heading of “hotel charge.” You can give something beyond that if you choose.

For a 7-day cruise, that is about $150 per couple, and is something expected by the passenger when they book the cruise. For the world cruise, the number becomes quite large…in our case over $2,400. The cruise line helps make this even more palatable for the world cruise given the size of the number…they fold the gratuities into the total quoted price for the cruise.

However, this is still a gratuity. If a passenger refuses to pay it, it is possible for them to go to the passenger services deck and ask for the hotel charge to be reversed out.

We were shocked and sickened to hear that some of the world cruisers had done just that! They decided that for $1,000 they were willing to be cheapskates. We think this is despicable. The young kids that work these jobs work very hard, are always pleasant, and put up with a lot of demands. Their base pay is only $50 per month, so when one cabin decides to behave this way, it is a significant negative financial impact on them.

We first learned about this gratuity system 30 years ago on our first cruise. I remember reading that this had been the main reason behind the explosive growth in cruising. Prior to that, cruises run out of New York had been staffed by US labor union jobs. The cruises were much more costly (about double what they are today), and they went out of business.

I sometimes start to feel badly that, in a way, cruise passengers exploit the inequality of labor rates around the world. However, we do this same exploitation (perhaps “take advantage of” is a less unpleasant way to say it) of this every time we shop at Wal Mart or at another major importer.

But, given the system, you really need to see the gratuities as part of the price of the cruise. Appreciate the roll that this system plays in making your cruise affordable. If you cannot make yourself comfortable with this size of the tip, then don’t book the cruise. It is just not right to stiff these hard-working young kids by refusing to pay the “hotel charge.”