Tips, sometimes called gratuities, may be the single most controversial thing on cruise ships.
Most cruise lines have two types of tipping. First, there are the daily included gratuities.
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These are added to your bill each day and are split between various workers. The cruise lines don’t tell you exactly how those tips get split, but they do assure you that every dollar you pay goes to an employee.
In most cases, passengers can remove the daily gratuities. Sometimes they do that if they are not happy with certain aspects of service.
That’s generally considered pretty unfair, because some of those tips go to behind-the-scenes workers who did nothing wrong. You may not love your waiter or your room steward, but the guy cleaning your dishes or washing your sheets and towels still deserves to be tipped.
The second type of tip is the more traditional one. That’s when you hand someone money after receiving good service.
It has always been somewhat unclear what happens to those tips and whether they go into a pool or somehow get shared.
Carnival Cruise Line Brand Ambassador John Heald took a break from answering questions about his cruise line’s loyalty program, and shared some insight as to where your tips go.
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Image source: John Heald/Facebook
 Carnival rep explains who gets your tipsÂ
A passenger recently shared an actual tipping dilemma with Heald on his Facebook page.
Hello John. I have a question about gratuities. We always prepay our gratuities. We also always have ‘your time’ dining. We like to give EXTRA gratuities to our dining staff (and our cabin attendants and bar staff and many others we feel deserve the extra recognition).
My question is, since our dining servers change with each meal (versus having the same wait staff on early or late dining), and since we often eat breakfast or brunch in the dining room, is it appropriate to leave the additional cash tip for the waiter on the table at the end of each meal? Or is there a more appropriate way to show our extra appreciation for the service they’ve provided?
In his answer, Heald shared some information that many cruisers have had questions about.Â
“Thank you for being so gracious and kind to the crew. In answer to your question, if you are on ‘your time’ dining, the prepaid gratuities are split between all of the waiters who work at ‘your time’ dining,” he wrote.Â
The brand ambassador also shared what happens with any extra tips made directly to service staff members.Â
“Any extra you give any crew member in cash is kept entirely by them 100%,” he added.
Heald was also gracious and made it clear that tips are not required and are appreciated.Â
“Thank you, I hope that helps explain and at the end of the day, you have to decide who to give an extra gratuity to and whoever it is, I know how appreciative they are. Thank you for your generosity, and if I can ever do anything for you, please let me know,” he posted.
Most Carnival passengers add extra tips
In a separate post, Heald asked his followers if they ever tip people outside of those workers you normally associate with getting tips.Â
“I would like to ask if outside of the people that the gratuity automatically goes to, your cabin attendant, dining room, staff, and those that serve on Lido and behind the scenes there, have you ever tipped another crew member?” he wrote.
Heald made it clear that this was not a requirement.Â
“Now I’m not suggesting that you have to. I’m just interested, as indeed I’m sure others [are], if you have perhaps tipped the maitre d, perhaps a wonderful charismatic staff member who your children took a real shine to? Perhaps somebody that impressed you and was always so polite and fun with you?” he added.
Many Carnival passengers shared that they have.Â
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“I consider the auto gratuities part of the cruise fare. I then tip the folks that go above and beyond,” Rachel Harrington wrote.
Shawn Caccia shared a list of people he and his wife tip.
“We do it all the time. My wife often tips the bathroom attendants at whatever bar/club area bathroom that she favors, and I always tip the young men who clean up in the smoking area. Not to mention the coffee shop people and the pizza makers. They all work very hard and contribute to our fun,” he posted.
Sirrom Anna shared another hard-working group that some people tip as well as some other tipping scenarios.
“We’ve tipped Camp Ocean staff big because they were so great with my kids. There was a trip that we didn’t even see our room steward other than the first day, so we didn’t tip him. Bartenders got an extra tip, so we don’t have to wait the 5 min. between a drink. Barista got tipped as well, and suddenly we didn’t have to wait 5 min. between buying a coffee and Gatorade,” he wrote.Â
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