Another Tipping Question.

[sail7seas]

sorry......don't know how it posted double. :(

[sail7seas]

There is a hold placed of $60 per person per day.

Included in that $60 is the $10 per person per day automatic tipping. That will leave $50 of the reserved amount to cover any other spending you do on the ship......spa, shore excursion, beverage purchases, photos etc This is not to say that you can't spend far more than that if you wish. You certainly can and many people do.

 

Your credit card will only show the actual amount of money you spent. If you are aboard for 7 days and you do not spend any money at all, your credit card statement will be $70 for each person. If the same Visa or M/C or AmEx or whichever credit card number was given to the office to use for your onboard purchases for both of you, your final bill will be $140 if you spend no other money.

 

(There is the possibility of people removing the automatic tip but no reason to go into that in this thread. This thread (I think) has gone in the direction of what is the hold amount and what does it include.)

 

 

[Navy_Chief]

You may have to take a credit card for your cruise. We were told that we would have to provide a Credit card within 24 hours of boarding the ship, or we would not be allowed to charge anything to our room. I don't know if that is true, because we always give our credit card then go and pay the account with travellers cheques the day before we disembark, leaving just the last day on our credit card.

 

No Credit Card is needed unless you want to use it to buy things ashore. You can pay right up front when you board with Traveler's Cheques which is what we do when we cruise. We also pre-buy shore tours, tux rentals, ect. before we get on board. Normally, we place around 2000 on our account for 10 day+ itineraries and always get some back in the end. We take extra for shore activities.

 

.....I'm one of those people that believe the tip should be tacked onto the cost of the cruise. Then anything additional we would leave, would just be "extra." ....

 

In a round about way, it is included unless you plan on removing it from the bill. IMHO, (as others said) I think it is really just covering bases for the service. You can give extra to someone who does something that made your trip more memerable and/or mention it to his/her boss in the comment cards or go directly to the boss and tell him/her about the wonderfull service you received and who provided it. That goes a long way for the crewmember as well. It really is open to one's judgement and there is no hard and fast rule governing what you do.