This article is Carnival Tipping Nonsense. it is a cruise news update with articles that I found interesting this week.
I read a lot of articles. When I see ones that are interesting, I save them so I can share them on the blog. These are some of the articles you should read this week.
Carnival Addresses Gratuity Nonsense
Many people have been posting online saying that cruise lines do not actually pay the entire gratuity that guests pay via the daily charges or per-drink tips. This has been a concern for some time. Some people have even been saying that Carnival is using the tips to pay part of the employees base salary. In this article, Carnival addresses some of those issues.
Do you tip above the automatic gratuities?
Who In Their Right Mind Orders 2-3 Entrées for Dinner in Main Dining? I Don’t Get It!
Cruisers are known for over indulging on food and drinks. This article is about that. I remember back in the day on lobster night, servers would assume you wanted at least two lobsters. Sometimes they would even drop one on your plate as soon as you finished the first one without you asking. Now if you want a second you could pay $17 plus 20% and tax… How times have changed.
Prices Increase Dramatically for Specialty Dining on Royal Caribbean
This article focuses on one specialty dinning restaurant on Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas. Unfortunately, the trend on upcharges continues to increase. Princess recently made Gigi’s a per-person fee for pizza for guests not on Princess Plus or Premier. The formal restaurants on specialty dining can cost more then $60 per-person now. That seems to be the norm. Even on Royal Caribbean where you can buy unlimited dining, you can now pay as much as $400 per-person for the unlimited dining package and not be able to make reservations until you are on the ship!
I had the unlimited dining package on Freedom of the Seas. You can read about my experience here.
Holland America Introduces New Arctic Circle Crossing Voyage
It is really awesome when cruise lines offer special voyages where you can see some amazing locations. Holland America just introduced a cruise in the artic circle! That could be pretty cold but I bet the views will be amazing. I am more a warm weather cruise person and enjoy the beach, but there is something to say about getting to see such a unique place on a cruise. Would you book this? The cost is pretty significant though because the cruise is a minimum of 25 days!
Cruise News
From Carnival Tipping Nonsense to an incredible artic circle crossing there were some interesting stories over the past couple days posted by various writers online.
These were some of the articles I found interesting. Did I miss something you feel is worth sharing? Comment below and I will include it on a future news update.