Celebrity Drinks Package Tips

Sorry if this is covered elsewhere but my searching has not returned an answer. So we're just back from our first cruise, loved it and we've already booked another. :D We booked on Celebrity on the Baltic cruise, pre-paid the gratuities and took the classic drinks package. Our understanding was that the pre-paid grats were for the cabin stewards and the restaurant staff only. Any drinks we took would have an additional 18% tip added on top, and this would be added to our bill to pay at the end of the cruise. During our cruise, we did not see any tips added to the bill and the amount taken from our credit card is no more than we thought it would be. Have we misunderstood how the bar tips piece works? Any help so we understand for the next cruise much appreciated.

Sorry if this is covered elsewhere but my searching has not returned an answer. So we're just back from our first cruise, loved it and we've already booked another. :D We booked on Celebrity on the Baltic cruise, pre-paid the gratuities and took the classic drinks package. Our understanding was that the pre-paid grats were for the cabin stewards and the restaurant staff only. Any drinks we took would have an additional 18% tip added on top, and this would be added to our bill to pay at the end of the cruise. During our cruise, we did not see any tips added to the bill and the amount taken from our credit card is no more than we thought it would be. Have we misunderstood how the bar tips piece works? Any help so we understand for the next cruise much appreciated.

Welcome to Cruise Critic.

I would post your questions on the dedicated Celebrity forum, where you will likely reach more people with direct experience:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=28

If your cruise left from the UK, the cost of the drinks/package includes the compulsory gratuity, as they must under UK law. This is also the reason for the prices looking rather higher than they do on cruises leaving from the USA.

Drink price and gratuities are not unbundled on your bill. Price shows it as combined.

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Drink price and gratuities are not unbundled on your bill. Price shows it as combined.

 

 

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If your cruise left from the UK, the cost of the drinks/package includes the compulsory gratuity, as they must under UK law. This is also the reason for the prices looking rather higher than they do on cruises leaving from the USA.

Thank you both. Yes left from the UK, so that makes sense now. :D

Welcome to Cruise Critic.

 

I would post your questions on the dedicated Celebrity forum, where you will likely reach more people with direct experience:

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=28

Thanks, will remember this for future. :)

The OP's statement "took the classic drink package" seems to indicate that he chose the Classic as a perk.

Assuming this is the case, then there would be no per-drink gratuity charge since Celebrity, unlike NCL, does not apply gratuity charges to their perk drink packages.

Ok, I am still confused. I spent over an hour discussing this with the wife and I think in the end we agreed to disagree. Booking our cruise today (possibly, some last minute hitches) and we have compensated extra monies for gratutities when buying alcohol and are sailing from the UK. She does not really drink and I have the very occasionally drink, happy to be designated driver sort of thing.

The question is, were we wrong to add on gratutites to our drinks at the bar? Or as we are sailing from the UK, they are included with the pre paid package we have gone for? Just edited this to say we will be sailing on Royal Caribbean from Southampton

For example, if you had a $10 dr k on the menu in USA it would be on the menu as $11.80 when sailing out of the U.K. The gratuity is included in the price shown on the menu.

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For example, if you had a $10 dr k on the menu in USA it would be on the menu as $11.80 when sailing out of the U.K. The gratuity is included in the price shown on the menu.

 

 

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As simple as that, thank you.

Isn't it the case that if you buy a drinks package, you would already be charged the gratuities when you pay for the package. So on the ship you don't pay anything extra. I am pretty sure we got bar "bills" with a zero amount for every round of drinks we ordered. Yes, there was a GRATUITIES line on the docket, but that was for EXTRA tips above and beyond for what you already prepaid when you purchased the drinks package.

I asked one of the bar staff and they told me that the extra tip amount would go directly to the individual staff member, whereas the automatic gratuities/ service charge is pooled for all staff. At least that's the case on Celebrity...