🛳️ Cruise Automatic Gratuity or not to Gratuity
How much is it, who should pay, and how?
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The automatic gratuity (tips) the cruise lines charge is a hot topic in cruise communities. It’s also a complex one. Certainly the housekeeping and dining staff should be adequately compensated. But it’s not an insignificant amount. How much is it, who should pay, and how?
Cruises are not all-inclusive. Tips are not included in your cabin fare on mainstream cruise lines.
These tips are automatically charged to your ship account “for your convenience”.
Tips are bundled in the cabin fare for luxury and specialty lines like Azamara, Regent Seven Seas, Seabourn, Silversea, Scenic, SeaDream Yacht Club, Ponant, and Viking.
The autocharge is not mandatory, except on Margaritaville at Sea where it’s required.
You can remove or adjust the autocharge. Go to ship customer service after it’s billed to your onboard account, which may be at the beginning of the voyage or before the end.
If you remove the autocharge gratuities, you should directly tip your cabin attendant and dining staff.
Your full tip costs include more than the automatic gratuities. Additional gratuities are automatically billed for soda, specialty beverages, and alcohol, whether you buy a drink package or buy the drinks individually, specialty restaurants that cost extra, and services like the spa.
Make sure gratuities are in your budget. See typical gratuity costs.
Tips can be a big part of your overall cruise costs. I was on a cruise that cost $1,468 for 2. The automatic gratuity ($16 pp/day) was $416. Drink package tips ($70 pp/day, 18% gratuity) are another $327. I paid $1,468 (includes Vacation Steal’s discount, which was 9%) for an oceanview cabin. Tips in this example are an extra 50% of the cabin fare.
Your automatic tip does not directly go to your cabin attendant and wait staff.
Your cabin attendant and wait staff would prefer to directly receive cash. But they’re not allowed to publicly discuss it.
Your automatic tip does not go to front and back-end staff involved with your cabin and dining.
Your automatic tip is instead pooled with automatic tips from other passengers and distributed among all ship service staff. Sometimes it may even be shared in a pool with other ships.
Automatic tips are first allocated to certain ship crew expenses and compensation.
The crew only receives what’s left over after the ship expenses above are paid.
In summary, cruise lines are using a part of automatic gratuities to pay expenses that they should be covering themselves. All of this is happening while the cruise lines are paying their own CEOs huge compensation packages of $10-20 million.
How I think about it
Here’s my thought process.
I use 4 and 5* all-inclusive land resorts with excellent ratings, including food and service, as a point of comparison.
I’m a value vacationer. Cruises are great. But they need to be competitive in price and tip amount with resorts.
You shouldn’t need to know calculus to figure out the total cost of your vacation. Hidden, extra, and surprise fees are bad. If you feel that you’re being ”nickle and dimed” (looking at you, NCL), there’s a problem. Fewer fees are better. One all-inclusive fee (see resorts) are great.
International resort wait and housekeeping staff have low pay like cruise employees. Tips are included. I still tip there but it’s a fraction of what cruise ships automatically charge.
There is a fundamental problem when tips hike the price 25% (cabin autocharge) to 50% (with drink packages) as in my example.
I conclude that the automatic tip rates are too high.
Automatic gratuity history
What’s interesting is that this is a new phenomenon. From Google:
Cruise lines have not always charged high automatic gratuities. Historically, passengers tipped crew in cash at the end of a cruise. The shift to daily automatic charges—often called “service charges“ or “hotel service fees“—began in the 1990s and has risen significantly.
Key details on the evolution of cruise gratuities:
The Shift from Cash to Automatic: To ensure all staff (including behind-the-scenes) were tipped and to stop crew from being “stiffed,” lines transitioned to automatic charges, which are often pooled and distributed.
Rising Costs: Automatic gratuities have increased over time, leading to higher, mandatory-feeling costs, frequently added to drink packages and spa services as well.
Industry Trends: While mainstream lines (Carnival, Royal Caribbean, NCL) rely on these high, separate fees, many luxury lines (e.g., Seabourn, Silversea, Virgin Voyages) now include tips in the base fare.
Alternatives: Passengers can often remove or adjust these, but they are designed to cover the gap in wages and are frequently pre-paid or added to the bill automatically.
The rise in automatic gratuities is often seen as a way for lines to keep base ticket prices looking lower in advertisements.
What to do?
Cruise tips are a mass-market cruise line choice so they can advertise lower rates.
So what’s an educated consumer to do? Many people aren’t aware of the charge or its economics and just leave it.
Here are a few excellent videos for more background and opinions. Greg @ Passport2Places Removing Automatic Gratuities, Emily @ Embrace Today I Started Taking Off The Automatic Gratuities on My Cruise and Responding to Hate Mail. Admiral Tim on REMOVING Automatic Daily Gratuities on Cruises.
Many knowledgeable cruisers like Greg accept the automatic charge as they feel it’s needed to fully compensate staff and the crew relies on and needs it. Some passengers ALSO manually tip on top of the autocharge.
Others like Emily take it off. Here are some of their reasons.
They want to tip just like they do at a regular restaurant or hotel.
They want to tip for the services they use. If they don’t use main dining, why should they be charged for that?
They prefer tipping directly to people, not through a faceless autocharge.
They don’t feel they should be tipping back of house crew, which is not typical in other venues.
My choice is NO to automatic gratuities. I remove it on my cruises. If staff need to be compensated more, then it’s the cruise line’s responsibility to pay them, not mine.
Where does this all lead?
I acknowledge the free rider effect. Passengers who autopay full gratuities are essentially subsidizing people like me who don’t autopay and tip less overall. I regret that. But only a little because this is a situation the cruise lines manufactured.
As the cruise lines continue the autocharge policy, the number of passengers opting out will continue to increase and crew tips will decrease. At some point the cruise lines may be forced to act.
They could continue to raise the autocharge rate. But that would increase the number of passengers who don’t autopay and be self-defeating.
They could make the charge mandatory like Margaritaville, in which case they might as well just bundle it in the cabin price.
They could reduce the autocharge rate - or even eliminate it like resorts. They could pay staff more on their contracts, and if needed increase their fares. This is where I’d like to see them go.
What do you think? What’s your cruise tipping position? Let us know in the comments.
Daily Automatic Cruise Ship Gratuity Charges (early 2026)
Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL): ~$20 (most cabins) up to ~$25 (suites).
Royal Caribbean: ~$18.50 (standard), ~$21 (suites).
Carnival Cruise Line: ~$16 (standard), ~$18 (suites).
Princess Cruises: ~$16 (standard) - $18 (suites).
Celebrity Cruises: ~$17.50 (standard) - $21 (suites).
MSC Cruises: ~$14.50 - $16 (non-Yacht Club).
Holland America Line: ~$17 (standard), ~$19 (suites).
Disney Cruise Line: ~$14.50 (most cabins).