Tips on a cruise

[FeltCarrot]

How much would you be expected to lay out for tips on a 9 night cruise and who should you be tipping?

It depends on the cruise line. Some include tips in the cost of the cruise fare. Other cruise lines advise you how much to give as a tip to your waiter and room steward. Recently I’ve found that many have a system of automatically charging tips to your account at the end of the cruise, and giving these to the people who have served you. For some lines, they’ve been about £20 per person per day.

Tips are put on automatically at about £11 per person per day or you can go to have guest services and ask to have them removed. We usually top the cabin steward 50 dollars. We often add on a dollar or pound for every drink otherwise it can be hard to get served. For speciality restaurants we tip £10.
Who are you cruising with?

Which cruise line? And are you British?! Americans tip way more than us Brits.

Which cruise line? Some are included in the fare so topping extra is optional, some can be pre paid and others add them on to your onboard account.

Normally they add a daily gratuity, makes life easier. It's $11.50 per night last cruise I took

Hopefully going to book with Fred.Olsen for a Norwegian fjords cruise. ATM they have an offer to cover tips and a free drinks package. Just wondered if it was worth booking now with these offers or waiting and seeing if they have a reduction on cabin prices.
From the answers it would seem tips could cost anything between £11 and £20 pp per day so saving £198 - £360.

If you like a few alcoholic drinks per day I’d do the offer.

Ah, well Fred’s tips are much cheaper than most, £5pppd I believe. Very British!

(And typically Fred’s customers would not top up that auto gratuity).

Its always worth booking with an offer if you're likely to have more than a couple of drinks a day - not necessarily even alcohol but soft drinks, cappuccino, bottled water etc soon add up. I mean this nicely but just check that Fred is the right demographic for you, they are great at what they do but serve a very specific market 🙂

Fred seem to be the only company who sail from Newcastle to the Fjords, and we are mid 50’s! 😂

And we are not big drinkers, more on the teetotal side if anything!

It's fair to say that you'll be on the younger side of the clientele then OP! No one else goes from Newcastle you're right, most will offer a coach transfer to Southampton as an option but it's a trek from the North East.
On the plus side Fred has the best cheese board at sea 😁, or at least they did when I last visited one of their ships about 4 years ago!

How much extra is the offer to cover tips and drinks? Best bet is to roughly add what you think you're likely to drink plus standard tips, and see if it's more than the upgrade. How many sea days do you have for example - as you'll drink more then for sure.
Drinks are pretty cheap on Fred, but lots of people prefer to get the package for ease and so they don't have to think about the bill at the end.

We've been on several FO cruises and never tipped anyone; all tips were included in the fare we paid. Enjoy Norwegian Fjords, we did.

The 20pppd tip is more likely to be for a suite on an American cruise line. That’s what I paid last year on a NCL cruise.