Although I have been on one or two sites on the WEB regards this question, do you think it right that we as passengers should subsidize the crews wages? ( We are by no means tight @rses) & I understand the crews get paid approx £7.50 an hour+ board, we are doing a trip in 2013/14 but I would like to hear your opinion on this, we went on The Crown Princess a few years ago & handed the crew person that tended to us £45, we were told that was suitable? was it?
If you look in your cruise manual, you will see that this is standard practice on a cruise - some cruise lines actually take a flat fee off you which they distribute amongs the crew.
It will be from Southampton Mosiac, Boxy, myself, I prefer to hand the tip directly to person, the filipino person that looked after our cabin on the Princess was 100% great.
I don`t know how it works ex UK but when my cousin goes on cruises out of Miami the first thing she does when she settles in is go to the Purser`s office and ask to have the $10 per day per passenger tip fee removed. She states that she`d prefer to tip individually. They`ve never had a problem with that.
I always knock off the automatic gratuities and give cash to who I think deserves it ie cabin steward, waiters, and maybe bar staff if exceptional (they do get 15% added to the bill).
On P&O I always make sure that the automatic blanket gratuity is removed from our bill - then I tip whoever I please if I am happy with the service. We always give the cabin steward £30 at the end of the cruise, which is not in line with the recommendation but quite sufficient for what he or she actually does.