Carnival Cruise Lines Automatic Tipping Policy Miami Florida

Dear Auto Tipping,

I have a complaint on here about Carnival too. But I think your comments about auto tipping are unreasonable. Carnival always adds this autotip and it is a fair amount. Honestly, if you don't feel someone deserves $10 per day split between your waiters and cabin stewarts, you probably don't belong on a cruise and might want to look at other forms of vacation. While I'm upset with Carnival myself for other reasons, I have travelled with Carnival several times and this tip is very reasonable and in my experience it should be a starting place for a job well done on a cruise and not something you take away from. These workers stay on these ships for 9 months at a time, waiting on guests like you and me, over and over again all day long without a decent pay. I know from several trips that these people work very hard and go above and beyond the call of duty to make sure the trip is enjoyable.

You also have the option to pre-pay the tip. If you were upset because of the money taken up on your room card - the solution might be to pay the tip in advance. We've done that and it works out well.

I have gone on 2 cruises with Carnival, one in August 2006, and one in April 2009. While I do have issues with Carnival, otherwise I would not be on this site, autotipping is not one of them. On both cruises, I adjusted my autotips according to how often I used the areas the autotips were for. Sometimes I increased, sometimes I decreased. Never did I have a problem working with the guest services department concerning the tips. I also chose to give the people who honestly tried to make my trips worthwhile a little extra out of my own pocket. These people work very hard for the little money that they do make, and I am sure that carnival probably screws them as much as they screw us, so I try to give them the tips they deserve.

Do you have any clue what the operating cost of one cruise ship is? Fuel alone for a 1 week cruise is $500,000. If cruise lines paid full salaries to all the service crew, they would be out of business in a month.

Tipping is part of your cruise, whether you pay in cash, or on your account. If you do not want to tip the people who serve you, stay the hell off cruises.

So you are one of those cheap assholes who thinks that it is OK to go up to a bar, order a ten dollar drink and NOT leave a tip. Not cool at all. If you cannot afford to tip gratuity then you can not afford to go on a vacation. Have a little decency and class considering these employees don't even make minimum wage and rely on their tips. Get over yourself and really 15% that they "force" you to leave is not even that much. A good decent tip these days is 20%. I didn't hear you complain once that you had bad service. That autotip is in play for jerks like you.