draco_m

No, you wouldn't owe the difference. Actually when they raised it, as long as you were already booked, you were grandfathered in at the original rate. Only if you called for a price drop or made a change to the reservation were you charged the new higher rate.

 

I too wish they would be included as mandatory, but not in the fare. Put them as part of the taxes/port charges, and call it a "Service Charge". So the fare will still appear low, but it will automatically be figured in the final amount due. Then if you feel like giving extra to those that gave you direct service, then so be it.

 

Celebrity does this with Anytime dining. Gratuities are mandatory if you choose that option. I don't see why the rest of the cruise lines don't do that.

Oh that makes sense. Regardless of whether you prepay or not, the gratuity is determined on the day you make your reservation. Seems reasonable.

I agree I wish it was mandatory and paid at the time the fare is booked. Call it a service charge or whatever. The customer should see at the time she makes her reservation how much the cruise should cost including fees, taxes, and service charges. No other industry could get away with adding a fee after the fare is paid for. Transparency is a good thing.

I guess one reason for pre-paying would be, if they decide to raise the daily gratuity rate again, you'd be locked in at the lower rate (someone please correct me if I'm wrong)?

It sounds to me that pre-paying the gratuity is simply applying a payment to your account that will later be offset by the actual gratuity. So if the gratuity increased you would still owe the difference.

What I was looking for when I originally posted this was to pre-pay the gratuity such that the gratuity would never hit my account. In other words, I wanted the gratuity to be essentially included in my fare so I pay for both my fare and gratuity at once before I board the ship.

I really wish the gratuity would simply be included in the fare in the first place. Museums, hotels, restaurants, trains, and airlines do not automatically add a gratuity to your bill.

I suspect this will never happen, though. If Carnival included the gratuity in the fare, the fares would be that much more expensive. By separating the gratuity the customer essentially sees a discounted fare that is more attractive.

When I am making a decision about how to spend my vacation dollars I include the gratuity in my analysis. It's not insignificant. $12/day times 7 days times 2 people equals $168. That's not chump change for me. Still, cruising on Carnival is a great and affordable experience for me. So I'm still happy.

Carnival, like any business, would love to get your money before you even board a ship. If everyone paid their gratuities up front that is some $30,000 per ship, for every ship that sails, in Carnivals coffers earning interest long before they have to spend it.

Add a zero on that!

2,500 passengers times 7 days times $12/day equals $210,000.

If you can snag some of the gift cards at 10% off, you can use them to prepay gratuities also.

I'm not a customer of either Verizon or AARP so I don't think I can qualify.

We always use whatever is left of OBC to offset the gratuities. :)

You guys are both correct I think. The policy is the OBC cannot be used for gratuities. However, I took a Carnival Cruise in 2014 and the remaining OBC did indeed go against gratuities. I have a feeling the computer system at Carnival has no way of tracking the difference and only applying the OBC to drinks or pictures or whatever.

I get $50 OBC because I own Carnival stock and I got an additional $30 when I booked my reservation - that was the promo at the time.

Thanks guys.

Now that I think about it - I have some credit on this cruise. If there is *any* chance I won't use all my credit on drinks, etc then I would want the credit to pay for my gratuities. (Does that make sense?) So now I'm not so sure I want to prepay the gratuities.

I'll think about it some more. I appreciate all the quick responses. This was my first time posting and I can see this is a valuable community.

Heading out on the Inspiration on Nov 30. I’ve done a couple Carnival cruises and enjoyed them. I do not like the gratuities hitting my account though. It confuses how much I’ve spent and how much credit I have left and my budgeting. So I’d like to prepay the gratuity before I get on the ship so it never hits my account. Is that possible?