Removing gratuities

You must now wait until the last few days to make the request with Guest Services.

They're likely hoping people will forget.

I don't, as those are not tipped positions.

I don’t think anyone should be chastised for asking a legitimate question about tipping on a cruise. For example, some folks view tipping in the same manner as dining in a restaurant. You don’t pay before you consume your meal so why tip before service is provided? I’m willing to bet that a vast majority of folks do not tip the housekeeper (each morning) who cleans the hotel room they used. Both these service providers are paid minimum wages and depend on tips as well. I’ve paid tips on my own and through automatic tipping. The only time my tips are prepaid is when my travel agent or the cruiseline pays as a perk for booking that specific cruise or when I cruise on luxury CruiseLine like Silversea. As a frequent cruiser, I prefer to personally tip my cabin steward, dining room staff, concierge and certain other staff. I’ve even tipped a cabin steward who did not service my cabin. It was his pleasing personality and accurate information that prompted me to do something special for him. Overall, my personal tips normally exceed the daily amount charged by the cruiseline. I don’t understand the negative reaction towards someone wanting to remove tips and recognize staff personally with the tip. Even certain staff officers do not like the automatic tipping. To remove the tips from your account, all you need to do is make the request personally at Guest Services. Depending on the ship, it’s done immediately while you’re standing there. Certain other ships will require you to fill out a form and sign it acknowledging the removal of the tips and remove the tips immediately from your account. You can have the tips removed at anytime—within reason. You will need to check your account to verify removal. To show good faith for removing your tip, strongly recommend tipping personally halfway through the cruise. It gives the staff spending money when they have a few hours off while in port. Trust me, they will remember you—especially while in port. Just my thoughts...

Awesome response

Point 1 is that you are not in Australia when you cruise, even if you are cruising Australia. Ships have a different set of rules. Wait staff on the ship do not get paid like the wait staff in your beautiful country.

Point 2 is that, without prepaid gratuities our cruises would be much more expensive and the staff would have no real reason to provide the excellent service we get. Sorry to say, we have heard the "I am from Australia" excuse before. While you may not have meant it as an excuse, others have.

Rest assured there are lots of people that remove or won't prepay gratuities. What they are doing is making it harder on everyone. Kind of like drink pages where every adult in the cabin has to have one because so many people took advantage when that wasn't required.

I would never complain or use the “ I am from Australia” I was merely stating the norm in Australia...

i found your reply offensive...

I do the prepay, but also carry cash to reward those over and above.

Unfortunately the cruise lines have chosen to minimize the crews wages and make up for it with auto gratuities. Consider them as a part of the cruise. Removing them hurts the entire crew and not just one or two individuals that may have not been performing as expected. We would never remove the auto gratuities and for those we feel merit it such as our steward or various servers we tip them with cash as we see fit. If you encounter a problem, report them to the senior staff on the ship and if necessary to the cruise lines when you get home.

It is too bad that the cruise lines do not actually read and take to heart these posts. If they did they would roll the daily gratuity into the cost of the cruise lines and let people tip as they feel it is warranted. However since this is not how it is done these days it is best just for sanity and a lack of aggravation to pretend that the auto gratuities are a part of the cruise fee and ignore that they are there. That is the best reason and benefit with prepaying them. Out of sight ... out of mind.

This thread is over a year old...the explanation(s) are all above. exactly how did you intend to help pay for all the people you don't see?. never mind, its a rhetorical question...BTW..officially, you dont have to "prepay" gratuities on some lines. Matter of fact, when they add them to your shipboard account daily, you can march down to Guest Services and tell them all about the rotten service you got from about a dozen or more poor slobs you didnt even know existed..or, that you're from Australia and don't hold with tipping....and you know what... they'll remove em. We have had a number of threads about tipping on cruise ships...it caused me to spend all kinds of time researching just how those "lower decks" contracts are written and paid. It was horrendous. As for them sharing in the tips, you have to "trust" the cruiselines, and now that I think I understand the "mechanics" of it, Im not so sure it works to the workers advantage.....I hardly ever tipped anything extra...now I do it all the time, it makes ME feel better..and I make darn sure to put it directly into the person(s) hand Im rewarding for superior service. Mebbe its time to revisit the subject.