Gratuity being raised up!

[leeker13]

Norwegian Cruise Line is making a nominal adjustment to its daily service charges, effective April 1, 2017.

 

Norwegian’s discretionary daily service charges make it easy for guests to provide gratuities to key onboard staff who provide superior guest service during the cruise, including their room steward, restaurant servers and behind-the-scenes support staff.

The new rates for all ships, except for Norwegian Sky are:

• $13.99 per person per day for any category up to a Mini-Suite Stateroom.
  
• $16.99 per person per day for any suite or Haven category.
  

To better address the demands of the enormously successful all-inclusive product aboard Norwegian Sky, the new rates are:

• $18.99 per person per day for any category up to a Mini-Suite Stateroom.
  
• $21.99 per person per day for any suite category.
  

Any guest that has made a booking by March 31, 2017 will have the option of prepaying their service charges at the current rate if done prior to sail date. Guests with existing cruise reservations who have already pre-paid their service charges at the current rate are not affected.

[shof515]

Still no updates to the NCL website, no emails from NCL, etc...when will NCL notify their customers?

[hawkeyetlse]

Still no updates to the NCL website, no emails from NCL, etc...when will NCL notify their customers?

It has been updated on the NCL site. You need to refresh your browser or something.

 

How much are the service charges?

- For bookings made prior to April 1st, 2017, regardless of the date of your cruise:

PREPAID service charges will be charged the CURRENT price of:

• $15.50 USD per person per day The Haven and Suites; $13.50 USD per person per day for Mini-Suites and below - FOR ALL SHIPS

(To pre-pay your service charges, Log In to My NCL or contact your travel professional)

- For bookings made on or after April 1, 2017:

All PREPAID service charges will be charged the NEW price of:

• $16.99 USD per person per day The Haven and Suites; $13.99 USD per person per day for Mini-Suites and below.

• Norwegian Sky - $21.99 USD per person per day for Suites; $18.99 USD per person per day for Mini-Suites and below.

- For sailings on or after April 1, 2017:

All service charges PAID ONBOARD, regardless of booking date will be charged the NEW price of:

• $16.99 USD per person per day The Haven and Suites; $13.99 USD per person per day for Mini-Suites and below.

• Norwegian Sky - $21.99 USD per person per day for Suites; $18.99 USD per person per day for Mini-Suites and below.

[ColinIllinois]

There's already an active thread on this.

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2472233

[zqvol]

Very misleading title. It is not a gratuity, is is a daily service charge. NCL has adopted a different way of paying their workers and while part of the DSC is used for that the workers are paid a living salary and do not rely on tips any longer. Any gratuities you leave are over and above their salaries.

[Susie51]

Very misleading title. It is not a gratuity, is is a daily service charge. NCL has adopted a different way of paying their workers and while part of the DSC is used for that the workers are paid a living salary and do not rely on tips any longer. Any gratuities you leave are over and above their salaries.

Thank you for sharing this information.

[ashley@cruisecritic]

The info is recapped in our story here: http://www.cruisecritic.com/news/news.cfm?ID=7659.

[cb at sea]

Whatever you call it...daily service charge, or gratuity...it goes to the folks serving you...and that's ample, unless you are feeling flush with cash!

[Oceangrace]

Very misleading title. It is not a gratuity, is is a daily service charge. NCL has adopted a different way of paying their workers and while part of the DSC is used for that the workers are paid a living salary and do not rely on tips any longer. Any gratuities you leave are over and above their salaries.

We'll according to NCL, it is a gratuity. It says so right there in the email. I got the same one today. Note the terms discretionary and gratuities.

 

 

"Norwegian’s discretionary daily service charges make it easy for guests to provide gratuities to key onboard staff who provide superior guest service during the cruise, including their room steward, restaurant servers and behind-the-scenes support staff."

 

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[Cassicruiser]

This may be a dumb question but if we have prepaid gratuities as one of our free at sea perks, would this affect us? I.E our gratuities are thrown in regardless of the higher rate? I would assume we wouldn't need to pay in anything extra (unless we choose to for exceptional service) but just wanted to be sure... thanks.

[Linda the Book Lover]

There's already an active thread on this.

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2472233

 

 

This thread was pulled or at least you get this message - Invalid Thread specified. If you followed a valid link, please notify the

[sparty1]

This may be a dumb question but if we have prepaid gratuities as one of our free at sea perks, would this affect us? I.E our gratuities are thrown in regardless of the higher rate? I would assume we wouldn't need to pay in anything extra (unless we choose to for exceptional service) but just wanted to be sure... thanks.

 

No question is ever a "dumb";) I do not work for NCL, but I would say IF your free perks do not have a restriction,(such as "up to a maximum of..."), then free is free! Have fun!

[fstuff1]

To better address the demands of the enormously successful all-inclusive product aboard Norwegian Sky, the new rates are:

$18.99 per person per day for any category up to a Mini-Suite Stateroom.

$21.99 per person per day for any suite category.

What does "To better address the demands of the enormously successful all-inclusive product aboard Norwegian Sky" mean?!

 

Are they going to hire more crew for the Sky?

 

Thus higher mandatory TIPs (yes, lets call it what it is intended to be) so that the avg $ going to each crew member will be the same as the old amount?

[Linda the Book Lover]

This may be a dumb question but if we have prepaid gratuities as one of our free at sea perks, would this affect us? I.E our gratuities are thrown in regardless of the higher rate? I would assume we wouldn't need to pay in anything extra (unless we choose to for exceptional service) but just wanted to be sure... thanks.

 

This happened one time for us and your "pre-paid service charges" are fully paid regardless of price increase.

[mking8288]

We directly booked last November (that's early for us) when free gratuities (DSC, tips, whatever one preferred to call it - no need to refer to Webster) was still one of the Freebies - so this won't affect us - going in 7 weeks but no official NCL email to us ... not a big deal.

 

For those needing to pay the difference, 2 in a stateroom is $1 a day or $7 for the week, not a big deal in itself - about 2 cans of soda or bottled water by NCL, Called it inflation, annual cost-of-living adjustment or whatever - it's not likely to break anybody's cruise budget, consider other charges and fees ... most have gone up (and, if not - most likely ... about to, IMO) Debate will go on and on - for us, it just made more sense to look at other vacation packages and factor in the best return for us investing our discretionary vacation dollars ... ended up going abroad in 2015 and 2016 for our Fall getaways, loved it.

 

The big question for us, is, since FDR & AS took over ... despite the pledges, PR and promises to take the line upscale and aiming for a different demographic, has our cruise experience been enhanced or at least maintained ... or, dare I say it, on a different heading and not better than before.

 

We can argue the little details like the insignificant "takeaway" like frozen lobster tails, shrimp cocktail, prime ribs (without a surcharge) or smoked salmon (this one is "annoying" as my favorite item @ breakfast) and I won't starve from those skinny mussels in LeBistro or petite cuts of red meat (it's healthier eating anyway) ... but the last time we're on the ship, services was just as slow and indifferent, there's exceptional employees but there's no excuse for sitting in specialty for 2 hours on a 3-course menu with a limited menu selection. We're lucky to have mostly hard-working room stewards and servers (all but one) - but, it has yet to prove to our (biased) satisfaction that it's delivering a solid & better product.

 

Haven guests paid, in most cases, substantially more & should expect more and I'm not going to compare the ship within the ship experience in the exclusive boxed corners.

 

P.S. That invalid thread was getting rather hot with the debates this afternoon - was following it, so MODs exercise their discretion to "blink" it ... gone.

[npater]

I. Received an email today from NCL regarding this

 

 

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[HowardK]

Nickel and Diming at its finest! I guess for the 14 nights next year it comes to an additional $7 for me. That should help F D R please the shareholders. I feel bad for the people in the haven suites though that have to pay a few more dollars a day.

[Linda the Book Lover]

Nickel and Diming at its finest! I guess for the 14 nights next year it comes to an additional $7 for me. That should help F D R please the shareholders. I feel bad for the people in the haven suites though that have to pay a few more dollars a day.

$2.98 for us more for both per day or $20.86 total more for our 7 day if we did not have pre-paid freebie. I look at as four Starbucks we give up..lol We will wait for free pre-pay again.

[Moby0215]

Very misleading title. It is not a gratuity, is is a daily service charge. NCL has adopted a different way of paying their workers and while part of the DSC is used for that the workers are paid a living salary and do not rely on tips any longer. Any gratuities you leave are over and above their salaries.

 

 

 

Sure it is. That's exactly how NCL describes it and is meant to replace the old system of handing out envelopes.

 

 

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[DirtyDawg]

Gratuity being raised up!

 

WOW with a title like that I thought the Service Charge was going up to $50 per person per day!

But it's just Gratuity being raised up.

 

.😴 Whoop dee doo

[newmexicoNita]

Nickel and Diming at its finest! I guess for the 14 nights next year it comes to an additional $7 for me. That should help F D R please the shareholders. I feel bad for the people in the haven suites though that have to pay a few more dollars a day.

ofgs: it is so little, I guess you could call it nickel and diming but which would you prefer: a slight increase every year or so or a huge increase once every 2 or 3 years. I remember when a decent tip was 10% for good, then up and up. Now we consider a tip or gratuity, 18 to 20% as pretty standard. For those in the Haven suites, the service they get should require a higher DSC. Have you ever stayed in a haven suite? :rolleyes:

[SeaShark]

Gratuity being raised up!

 

WOW with a title like that I thought the Service Charge was going up to $50 per person per day!

But it's just Gratuity being raised up.

 

.😴 Whoop dee doo

 

Yep...

 

Forget that this is FDR's third increase in the dollar amount

Forget that the gratuity rate on drinks was raised from 15% to 18%

Forget that an 18% gratuity is now MANDATORY in the specialty restaurants (even though the servers still get to participate in the DSC)

 

 

Yep...

 

"Whoop dee doo" . . . it is only a small increase. So what? Where is the harm in that?

 

 

 

There is an old and familiar story: If you take a frog and place it in a pot of boiling water, it will immediately struggle to escape the searing heat. However, if you place it in a pot of cold water and gradually turn up the temperature, it will not notice each small but threatening change in its environment. The heat, slowly growing to unbearable levels, will eventually overwhelm and kill it. However, by the time it realizes the danger, it will already be too late.

 

"Whoop dee doo" is right. Frog legs anyone?? :eek:

[NLH Arizona]

You know the more I think about it, I really wish NCL would just roll in the DSC into the cruise fare, even though I have not been a proponent of doing this.

 

NCL has to pay their employees and whether it comes from the DSC or the cruise fare, it has to be done. Right now, some complain that the DSC doesn't go to the crew, but the crew seems to get paid, so no matter if part of their compensation comes from the DSC or all of it, we are still paying it. Now, if it were included in the cruise fare, we would still be doing the same thing....paying their salaries, but folks would not be allowed to (1) removed any of it or (2) continue to say, without proof, that the DSC doesn't go to the crew.

 

I do realize that folks will then have an issue that the cruise fare prices have increased, but at least we won't have any more DSC threads. And no matter what anyone says, we (the customer) are going to pay the crew's salaries, just like we do with every other company we do business with.

[mickeysgal]

Very misleading title. It is not a gratuity, is is a daily service charge. NCL has adopted a different way of paying their workers and while part of the DSC is used for that the workers are paid a living salary and do not rely on tips any longer. Any gratuities you leave are over and above their salaries.

 

People still view it as tips. Call it, label it whatever.

[penwah2002]

You know the more I think about it, I really wish NCL would just roll in the DSC into the cruise fare, even though I have not been a proponent of doing this.

 

NCL has to pay their employees and whether it comes from the DSC or the cruise fare, it has to be done. Right now, some complain that the DSC doesn't go to the crew, but the crew seems to get paid, so no matter if part of their compensation comes from the DSC or all of it, we are still paying it. Now, if it were included in the cruise fare, we would still be doing the same thing....paying their salaries, but folks would not be allowed to (1) removed any of it or (2) continue to say, without proof, that the DSC doesn't go to the crew.

 

I do realize that folks will then have an issue that the cruise fare prices have increased, but at least we won't have any more DSC threads. And no matter what anyone says, we (the customer) are going to pay the crew's salaries, just like we do with every other company we do business with.

 

My thought has alway been that they call the income something other than income, therefore it's not taxable to the corporation. It's a tax decision.