PrincessTrisha
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Dec 10, 2004
- Messages
- 4,037
The policy has been in effect on the Magic for nearly a year already, there hasn't been a change for that ship at all. The fact that you are expected to tip hasn't changed. You also are able to go to GS and reduce the gratuity if the service you receive isn't acceptable.
If it's been in effect for the past year on the Magic, why didn't DCL add it to their website? Why aren't they sending out emails or at minimum putting it somewhere in your cruise contract (like other cruise lines do). Again, seems a little underhanded to tell me once on board - "BTW, even though it says on the DCL website, we recommend the following gratuity, we're going to go ahead and just charge you that amount". Oh, and if you want to change it, please feel free to spend part of your vacation lined up at our Guest Services desk so that you can explain why.
I'm not sure what you mean by this. The policy states the customer can pay when booking, pay when making the final payment OR not pay at all and the tips will be charged to the onboard account (and a letter will be in the stateroom that explains the charges). I don't see anything back handed about that. Nothing that I have seen implys that people have to prepay them at all. They can wait until they board the ship and then they will be applied to the account the first day.
Quote from the OP:
Clients can add pre-paid gratuities at the time of booking or when processing final payment. If the pre-paid gratuities have not been added prior to boarding, your Clients will receive a letter upon check-in explaining the automatic charge to their onboard account. Your Clients still have the option to modify or add additional gratuity amounts, or pay in cash, by stopping by the Guest Services Desk onboard.
As a reminder, a 15% gratuity is automatically added to any bar, beverage, wine and deck-service receipt.
I like to prepay mine anyway, so no worries there. But if I want to use my OBCs to pay the tip, then I just don't prepay them and let DCL charge them to my account the first day (and since OBCs are applied to the balance first, I won't need to do a thing).
What's backhanded is that DCL is just charging them to my on board account without telling me ahead of time about the policy. If DCL wants the service charge then they need to be upfront about charging it to your account. Other cruise lines are at least upfront about expectations and when / how these charges will be levied - when I book Carnival, it's in my cruise contract, online where I view my cruise manager, and in the general information on their website.