Tipping on the Mariner

[roberto]

I have not cruised for over 20 years with Royal . Have been cruising on Holland they add the tip on your room bill every day. plu i give extra in cash. Will royal add anything at all to your room bill without me telling them to. Help with this so i know if i have to give more to the waiter thanks

[Dave]

Royal Caribbean is one of the last holdouts on defaulting to automatic tipping. They don't do it except for bar sales. You can have the tips added to your account, but you have to go to the desk and ask for it. They will then provide vouchers to you, which are for the suggested amounts, and you put these in the envelopes for handing out on the final night.

But otherwise, it is handled the old-fashioned way with the passengers expected to hand out cash on the last night.

[Sonny V]

You can go to the Guest Relations Desk and request to pre-paid the gratuity and you will get voucher with envelopes on the last day of the cruise. Each envelope is marked for each crew member: Waiter, cabin steward, etc.—you can add to the envelope if you want to.

Sonny

[Jim C.]

Actually, I think this is one of the things RCI has gotten right. On CCL, they add the tips to your account and you basically walk off the ship... With RCI, you can still have the auto tipping thing (so you don't need to have a bunch of cash for the last day) but they give you the voucher and envelope so you can actually hand a tip to those you feel deserve it and thank them.