What are cruise gratuities?
Not a tip in the everyday sense. It's a fixed, automatic, pooled daily charge added to your onboard account — $16 to $20 per guest on the major lines, more in a suite. On most mainstream lines, crew pay is built around it rather than topped up by it.
How much should I budget?
Rates vary by line; the table below has the current figures. At $18 per person, per day — what Princess and Holland America charge — a 7-night cruise comes to $252 for two adults and $504 for a family of four. That's the daily charge alone, before the separate 15–20% added to drinks, spa and specialty dining.
Does my drinks package or “all included” fare cover it?
Usually not. Celebrity removed gratuities from All Included fares in October 2023, and both Holland America's Have It All and Norwegian's basic Free at Sea leave them on your bill. Princess Plus is the main exception — crew appreciation sits inside that bundle. If a fare doesn't say gratuities are included, assume they're extra.
Are they mandatory, and can I remove them?
Officially discretionary on most lines, but billed automatically every day, so most guests pay. Guest Services can adjust or remove it before the final night. Norwegian is the exception: you can't remove it onboard, and refunds need a written request after the cruise. The percentage added to drinks, spa and specialty dining isn't negotiable on any line.
Should I prepay or pay onboard?
Same money either way. Prepay to lock today's rate ahead of an increase and keep the charge off your onboard account, though prepaid gratuities are usually non-refundable once you've sailed. Pay onboard if you want the option to adjust at Guest Services.
Take the fare you've found, add your nights and guests, and pick your line. The calculator folds the daily gratuity into the total alongside drinks, Wi-Fi and the rest.
Price this for my sailing →There's a line on every cruise bill that almost nobody questions and almost nobody fully understands. Depending on the cruise line, you'll see it labeled as either gratuity, service charge, or appreciation. It's added to your account automatically, every day, and it runs higher in a suite — Disney's Concierge tier reaches $27.25.
Most people assume it's a tip. It's printed like one, it's named like one, and it sits on your bill where a tip would go. But it doesn't behave like the tips most of us grew up with.
Why it isn't really a tip
A tip, in the everyday sense, is three things: optional, variable, and tied to the service you personally received. The cruise version is none of those.
- It's fixed. Everyone in your stateroom category pays the same daily number. It doesn't go up for a brilliant steward or down for an indifferent one.
- It's automatic. It lands on your onboard account each day by default, from the moment you board, and stays there unless you ask.
- It's pooled. It's split across a wide group of crew — not just the steward and waiter you see, but dining, galley, and housekeeping staff you might never encounter.
On most mainstream lines, crew pay is built around those pooled gratuities. They count toward a crew member's overall earnings rather than landing on top of a full wage. The exact arrangement varies by line, contract and role, and the lines are notoriously cagey about it. But that's the broad shape of it, and it's why the daily charge behaves less like a tip and more like a slice of the fare that the cruise line has chosen to bill separately.
Same charge, different words on your booking:
| What it’s called | Lines |
|---|---|
| Gratuities | Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, Disney |
| Crew Appreciation | Princess, Holland America |
| Daily Onboard Service Charge | Norwegian |
| Service charge | MSC, Costa |
| Hotel & Dining charge | Cunard |
| Hotel Service Charge | Windstar |
If you search your booking for “gratuities” and find nothing, look for your line’s term instead. It’s the same money.
What each line charges in 2026
$16 to $20 per guest per day, and more in a suite.
Here are the current daily rates, per person, per day, plus the separate percentage each line adds to drinks and spa purchases.
| Cruise line | Standard / day | Above standard / day | Drinks & spa |
|---|---|---|---|
| Norwegian (NCL) | $20 | $25 (Haven) | +20% |
| Royal Caribbean | $18.50 | $21 | +18% (spa 20%) |
| Celebrity | $19.50 | $20.50–$24.50 (AquaClass/Concierge to Retreat) | +20% |
| Princess | $18 | $19–$20 (mini-suite to suite) | +20% |
| Holland America | $18 | $20 | +20% |
| Carnival | $17 | $19 | +20% |
| MSC | $17* | $23 (Yacht Club) | +18% North America (15% on most other itineraries); packages have it folded into the price |
| Disney | $16 | $27.25 (Concierge) | +18% |
| Virgin Voyages | $20** | $20** | built into prices |
| Viking Ocean | $20 | $20 | +15% on bar tabs (spa not stated) |
| Windstar | $16 | $16 | +18% |
* MSC's rate shown is for Caribbean and Alaska sailings; European itineraries are charged in euros (around €12 per day). ** Virgin Voyages charges $22 per day by default, or $20 if you prepay before sailing; the rate is the same in every cabin, suites included. Prepaying is cheaper but non-refundable — a recent change explained just below.
Two lines are missing from that table on purpose, because they don't charge a daily gratuity at all: on Azamara and Oceania, gratuities are already built into the fare, so you won't see a daily line on your account. The math is done before you board.
• Oceania and Azamara
• Most ultra-luxury lines — Regent Seven Seas, Seabourn, Silversea, Explora Journeys
On these, extra tipping is optional — the crew is already paid, so anything more is a personal gesture.
The second charge most people miss
The daily gratuity isn't the only one.
Look at that last column in the table: every time you buy a drink, book a spa treatment, or order at a specialty restaurant, a further 15% to 20% is added automatically at the point of sale — on top of the daily charge you're already paying.
This is where a lot of guests feel, correctly, that they're paying twice. Your daily gratuity covers the dining-room and housekeeping teams. The bar's 20% is a separate service charge on that specific drink. Both are automatic, and they are not the same money. A drinks package doesn't escape it either — the percentage is usually added on top of the package price. On a formal premium line, the gratuity and bar charge work a little differently — see our Cunard gratuities and drinks guide.
It's printed on menus and receipts, so nobody is hiding it. But the daily charge is easy to lose track of when a second one is landing on every glass of wine.
Where the money actually goes
The line collects the daily gratuity and spreads it across the crew — pooled, then shared among the dining, housekeeping and behind-the-scenes staff who keep the ship running.
On most lines it counts as part of the crew's pay, not a bonus on top of it.
There's also a reason it shows up as its own line instead of being built into the fare. Breaking it out keeps the advertised price lower — the headline number you compare when you're shopping between lines leaves it out. That's a marketing choice as much as anything, and it's why a "$799 cruise" can turn into $799 plus $252 in gratuities for a couple over a week.
When you compare cruise prices online, the headline fare usually leaves out:
• Daily gratuities — the charge on this page
• The 15–20% service charge on every drink and spa visit
• Wi-Fi, on most lines
• Specialty dining
None of it is hidden. None of it is in the number you're comparing either. So add it up before you book.
Habits differ even where the money doesn't. On the lines that build gratuities into the fare, you'll still see some guests handing extra cash to a steward who has already been paid, while others take "included" at face value and never reach for their wallet — same ship, same service, two very different instincts.
Are cruise gratuities mandatory?
Technically, on most lines, no.
The daily gratuity is officially discretionary — the cruise line's own policy calls it a recommendation, not a fixed fee. In practice, though, it's added to your account automatically every single day unless you step in and change it. So do you have to pay it? No. Will you pay it unless you ask not to? Almost certainly — which is why, for most guests, it may as well be mandatory.
The one part you can't opt out of is the percentage added to drinks, spa and specialty dining. That's a fixed service charge.
Can you remove it? And should you?
Yes, you can remove gratuities, provided the cruise line charges it daily.
Adjust or remove it by visiting Guest Services before the final night of your cruise. One big exception: Norwegian no longer lets you remove it onboard — there you pay it in full and email guest services after the cruise if you want a refund. If you prepaid it at booking, it's refundable if you cancel before you sail — but once you're onboard, it's generally treated as part of the fare.
Whether you should is your call. Two things worth weighing first:
- On most lines, it's tied to crew pay, not company profit. Because the pooled gratuity generally counts toward crew earnings, removing it is more likely to cut what front-line staff take home than what the cruise line spends — though the exact mechanics differ from line to line.
- If the service really fell short, raise it onboard. Removing the charge on the last night fixes nothing. Telling Guest Services while you're still sailing gives them a chance to put it right — best to raise any issue as soon as it happens, rather than letting it fester and spoil your cruise.
And if the whole question sits badly with you, there's a clean way around it: on the lines that build gratuities into the fare, the decision was made before you booked.
Should you tip extra?
You don't have to. The daily gratuity is designed to cover the crew members who traditionally lived on tips — your steward, your waiters, the dining team. Paying it means you've already done your part.
Even so, plenty of guests still hand a little extra to someone who made the trip better — a steward who remembered something, a bartender who looked after them all week. That's a tip the way it was always meant to work — optional and personal. A note saying why tends to go further than the money.
Should you prepay your gratuities?
Usually it changes nothing but the timing — on almost every line it's the same money either way.
Most lines let you pay the daily gratuity upfront at booking instead of onboard.
Virgin Voyages is the exception in the table above. There prepaying is genuinely cheaper, $20 a night against $22, which turns the trade-off below from a formality into a real decision.
• Prepay to hold today's rate ahead of an increase and keep the charge off your onboard account. The catch: once you've sailed, prepaid gratuities are generally non-refundable.
• Pay onboard to keep the option to adjust it at Guest Services if you need to.
My rule of thumb: budgeting carefully, or booking a line that's about to raise rates? Prepay and lock the number in. Otherwise, paying onboard is perfectly fine.
Do children pay gratuities?
Usually, yes.
Most mainstream lines charge the same daily gratuity for every guest in the stateroom, regardless of age — Royal Caribbean, Princess, Holland America and Disney all bill children the full adult rate, infants included. A few give the youngest a break: Norwegian drops the charge for children under 3, and Carnival and MSC waive it for under-2s. Above those ages, children pay the full adult rate, so budget the daily gratuity for every person on the booking, not just the adults.
What it actually adds up to
$252 for two adults on a 7-night cruise, $504 for a family of four.
The daily gratuity is billed once per guest for each day of the sailing — so a 7-night cruise means seven days of it per person. Here's how that adds up for a family of four, at a typical $18 per person, per day:
Family of four · 7 nights · $18/day
- $18 × 4 guests × 7 nights
= $504 in daily gratuities alone
And that's before a single drink. Add a gratuity-bearing drinks package or a few specialty dinners and the 15–20% on those stacks on top. For two adults on the same sailing, the daily charge alone comes to $252.
The simplest way to think about it
Stop treating the daily gratuity as a tipping decision.
It's a cost of the cruise — as fixed and as predictable as port fees. A couple's daily gratuities run $252 over a week; a family of four, $504 — before the percentages on drinks.
Put it in the budget when you book, and it never becomes something you have to work out at the Guest Services desk on the last night of your vacation.
You have the rate for your line. Put it next to your fare, your nights and your guests, and see where the total actually lands once drinks and Wi-Fi are on the bill too.
Run my cruise numbers →Common questions
Do solo cruisers pay double gratuities?
No. The daily gratuity is charged per guest, not per stateroom — so a solo cruiser pays one person's gratuity, even on a single-occupancy fare. The single supplement raises the fare, not the gratuity. More in what solo cruising really costs.
Do I still pay gratuities if I skip the main dining room?
Yes. The daily charge isn't tied to where you eat — it's pooled across your stateroom steward, the dining teams and behind-the-scenes crew, so it applies whether you stick to the buffet, book specialty restaurants every night, or never set foot in the main dining room. Specialty venues and bar drinks then add their own service charge on top.