Questions re sailing out of UK

[sailing canary]

I am considering a Princess Baltic cruise next summer and I have a couple of questions.

On a Baltic cruise in the school holidays, how likely is it that there will be hordes of children?

And, are gratuities included in UK based cruises?

 

TIA

[Geoffa30]

It’s likely that there will be a number of children during school holidays. This will apply to week long or two week long cruises. We’ve never found it to be a problem but it will depend whether you’re pool deck lovers or not.

 

Gratuities are included in the Princess Plus and Premier packages but otherwise payable on a daily basis per person with the amount depending on which cabin type you are in. Can’t remember whether it’s just the first two passengers that need to pay them though.

[sailing canary]

Thanks for the speedy reply. So are gratuities added to my account automatically and I would just settle my bill at the end of the cruise? Could I use onboard credit to pay? I have only cruised out of Australia before and gratuities are included in the upfront price of the cruise.

[Geoffa30]

Yes, gratuities are added daily to your account and would be offset against any OBC that is on your account.

[antsp]

If sailing out the UK do what lots of British do and remove your gratuities, passengers actually tell everyone they've done it

[Pine Man]

39 minutes ago, antsp said:

remove your gratuities,

You can't remove the 18% added to all onboard purchases.

[antsp]

2 minutes ago, Pine Man said:

You can't remove the 18% added to all onboard purchases.

I know, what passengers were doing, and saying out loud, was they had been to the desk and removed the daily grats

[leck57]

1 hour ago, antsp said:

If sailing out the UK do what lots of British do and remove your gratuities, passengers actually tell everyone they've done it

 

Oh no. Get the popcorn out - the tipping debate round 2376886 is about to start, just as soon as our friends in the US wake up.

Edited November 24, 2023 by leck57

[Guest Snaxmuppet]

1 hour ago, antsp said:

If sailing out the UK do what lots of British do and remove your gratuities, passengers actually tell everyone they've done it

You can't remove the daily Crew Appreciation if you take a package 🙂 

[skynight]

Gratuities are broken into two categories, Crew Appreciation and Service Charge. From the FAQ's.

"What is “Crew Appreciation”?
"A crew appreciation is a daily amount added to your onboard account, which is shared among the many members of our crew in hotel, dining and entertainment throughout the fleet who help make your cruise experience special. The daily amount of the Crew Appreciation is based on stateroom category." US$ PP/Day. $16 for interior, oceanview or balcony cat. cabin, $17 for mini suites and $18 for full suites.

Service Charge. An 18% service charge is added to all beverage purchases and to spa services.

Plus and Premier fares:

If you have the Plus or Premier fare the crew appreciation and the beverage service charge is bundled into the fare. It can not be removed. If you order an alcoholic drink which cost more than the $15/$20 covered by these fares you will be charged the difference plus 18%.

If you have the standard fare then your on board accounts will be charged daily for crew appreciation. All beverage purchases, alcoholic and non alcoholic will be charged the 18% service charge. With the standard fare it is possible to remove the crew appreciation by visiting passenger services. You can not remove the service charge. 

 

[antsp]

1 hour ago, leck57 said:

 

Oh no. Get the popcorn out - the tipping debate round 2376886 is about to start, just as soon as our friends in the US wake up.

Roll in 1pm gmt

[Geoffa30]

4 hours ago, antsp said:

If sailing out the UK do what lots of British do and remove your gratuities, passengers actually tell everyone they've done it

This British person who has been on 30 cruises has never removed gratuities.

[antsp]

Nor all, lots

[sailing canary]

So....if I have understood this correctly. In addition to the quoted fare, I have to add on £xxx per day crew appreciation and do complicated sums to add 18% to anything I might buy on board? I don't drink anything other than tea or water and the VERY occasional glass of wine.

Would a package make more sense? Then I would know in advance exactly how much the cruise was going to cost me?

And are there kettles???????????

[Tigrou]

50 minutes ago, sailing canary said:

So....if I have understood this correctly. In addition to the quoted fare, I have to add on £xxx per day crew appreciation and do complicated sums to add 18% to anything I might buy on board? I don't drink anything other than tea or water and the VERY occasional glass of wine.

Would a package make more sense? Then I would know in advance exactly how much the cruise was going to cost me?

And are there kettles???????????

 

Ref the 'crew appreciation', it is separate to the quoted fare.  You can either pre-pay it before your cruise (although generally I don't find the Princess exchange rate to be good enough to do that, unlike HAL) or it will be added to your onboard account each day.  If you've got OBC that will be used for the crew appreciation charge, it will be deducted from the balance each day.

 

What I do is work it out and just add it to the quoted fare, and consider the total as the real fare.  Or if I've got OBC, I just discount the amount for crew appreciation before thinking how much is available to spend.  There is often talk on these boards about people going to guest services and removing it, which is possible if you're on a Standard fare.  (I confess that I did consider doing this myself earlier this year in retaliation against Princess deciding to charge for a few things which were included at the time I booked.  However, once onboard I found the service to be so good that there was no way I was going to potentially take money from the crew because of a corporate decision.)  

 

You do not pay 18% on "all onboard purchases".  It's 18% on drinks, and someone earlier said spa services.  I don't think there's anything else but I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong.

 

Whether the packages are of value is a topic on which discussion can become almost as heated as tipping!  The best way is to do the maths but if you don't drink the extra cost coffees and only have the occasional glass of wine, my guess is that a package wouldn't be economical for you.  It certainly never is for me.

 

I've only cruised with Princess twice out of the UK but both times there was a kettle in the cabin. 

 

[sailing canary]

On 11/24/2023 at 8:20 PM, Geoffa30 said:

 

 

Gratuities are included in the Princess Plus and Premier packages .......

I can't seem to find any information on this. Where would I find it? The description on the Princess website of what is in each package doesn't mention gratuities. 

I also can't find a UK based Princess website - it always defaults to either the US or Australian one.

[Jimmys Chippy]

On 11/24/2023 at 6:45 AM, sailing canary said:

I am considering a Princess Baltic cruise next summer and I have a couple of questions.

On a Baltic cruise in the school holidays, how likely is it that there will be hordes of children?

And, are gratuities included in UK based cruises?

 

TIA

I’ve done a few Northern European cruises in the school holidays and they tend to have lower numbers than the Mediterranean ones. What kids are on there will most likely be making use of the kids clubs most of time.

[TheDawg79]

1 hour ago, sailing canary said:

I can't seem to find any information on this. Where would I find it? The description on the Princess website of what is in each package doesn't mention gratuities. 

I also can't find a UK based Princess website - it always defaults to either the US or Australian one.

 

Second row spells it out. There is no way to get out of any dining, spa or drink gratuities. 

Edited November 25, 2023 by TheDawg79

[sailing canary]

That's exactly what I mean! That must be the UK based site, as the Australian site - which I can't seem to get rid of - does not show crew appreciation in either of their packages. 

 

Fare Options.pdfFare Options.pdf

[Steelers36]

1 hour ago, sailing canary said:

That's exactly what I mean! That must be the UK based site, as the Australian site - which I can't seem to get rid of - does not show crew appreciation in either of their packages. 

 

Fare Options.pdfFare Options.pdf 89.7 kB · 1 download

In Australia, the CA is baked into the cruise fares and on board beverages also have the 18% service charge baked in.

[leck57]

14 minutes ago, Steelers36 said:

In Australia, the CA is baked into the cruise fares and on board beverages also have the 18% service charge baked in.

 

It's only baked in to the fares for Australian based cruises. I have cruises booked in Europe and Asia and have taken Peincess Plus. For us CA is not part of the Plus package. We either pay it in advance, have it added daily to our ship board account,  or visit customer services on board and have it stopped.

[Steelers36]

6 minutes ago, leck57 said:

 

It's only baked in to the fares for Australian based cruises. I have cruises booked in Europe and Asia and have taken Princess Plus. For us CA is not part of the Plus package. We either pay it in advance, have it added daily to our ship board account,  or visit customer services on board and have it stopped.

Right.  I could have done better in my post.

[leck57]

2 hours ago, Steelers36 said:

Right.  I could have done better in my post.

 

Maybe I'm just too pedantic 😐

[trinitygirl]

On 11/24/2023 at 2:53 AM, sailing canary said:

Thanks for the speedy reply. So are gratuities added to my account automatically and I would just settle my bill at the end of the cruise? Could I use onboard credit to pay? I have only cruised out of Australia before and gratuities are included in the upfront price of the cruise.

You can pay your gratuities up front - in the personaliser there is a tab where it sets out how much it is with a ‘click here’ button to pay by card.  I did that for my August and November cruises because for us (booked in australia, cruises in Europe and out of Southampton) the Plus package does not include gratuities.  I prefer to pay up front so I don’t have to think about it again (and also because I was concerned (rightly as it turned out that either the gratuities might increase or that the exchange rate would get worse - both of which happened in the 18 months between booking and sailing).   friends on the same European cruise just let the daily charges accumulate and paid at the end of the cruise.  They like to be able adjust the amount if they want to.  

[sailing canary]

3 hours ago, trinitygirl said:

You can pay your gratuities up front - in the personaliser there is a tab where it sets out how much it is with a ‘click here’ button to pay by card.  I did that for my August and November cruises because for us (booked in australia, cruises in Europe and out of Southampton) the Plus package does not include gratuities.  I prefer to pay up front so I don’t have to think about it again

Thanks for this.  Another question (sorry!!)

Did you use a UK or Australian based travel agent, or did you book direct with Princess? I can't figure out what's the best thing to do. I did book my last cruise through an agent, but the only advantage to that was that she could get me the exact cabin I wanted.There were no other perks, so if I hadn't been fussy about location, I could have done it myself.