Service fee or as the common people call it “tip”, is the only mandatory payment that is not included in the cost of the sea cruise and is paid separately . Tips are debited daily from your cruise card.
We pay tips for the comfort and cleanliness of the cabin, service in various establishments and for general comfort on the cruise ship. To make you and I feel like VIPs, a whole team of service personnel does everything necessary for this day and night.
Service fee on a sea cruise
Service personnel are usually hired in countries with low wages. Most often Philippines, Indonesia …
Your contribution in the form of tips is a large part of what these people earn. Let’s just say that the company pays them the minimum salary, and we do the rest.
We will never meet a huge number of service personnel during the cruise. So don’t think that we only pay service fee to the guy or gal who cleans our cabin directly.
To pay or not to pay a tip
This question arises in most cases among tourists from the post-Soviet space. We don’t have a tipping culture. We were instilled with other principles and rules. We believe that this should either already be included in the price of the cruise or not at all. Mentality.
For tourists from Western countries, this question does not arise at all. If the quality of service is unsatisfactory, then any passenger can refuse to pay the service fee. To do this, you just need to go to the reception, declare it and give reasons for the refusal.
But I assure you that this will not happen! Service and maintenance on cruise ships is very high! No ship wants to lose its reputation and will do everything to make your vacation unforgettable.
Service fee. What is the asking price?
The size of the service fee is far from uniform. Each company has its own. Moreover, even on different ships of the same cruise line it may differ.
Average:
- for European cruise lines 12 euros
- for American cruise lines 14 dollars
When purchasing a cruise, immediately find out the size of the service fee. This will be useful for planning your total travel expenses.
Some travel operators offer tours where tips are already included in the total cost of the cruise as a bonus. You must understand that intermediaries cannot work at a loss and this is just a publicity stunt. They’ll take something off and put it on another.
In the end
Dear reader, I urge you to respect the orders and rules of the world where we are going on a journey. And also the work of people who create for us a unique vacation in super-comfortable conditions.
Well, in conclusion I would like to suggest
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