Cruise ship service staff salaries

Factual Questions
1

The SO and I would like to take an Alaskan cruise sometime. She said they’re pretty reasonably priced. She said though, that tipping would be a considerable expense. She said that over a decade ago she looked into getting a job on a cruise ship, and that the compensation was only room and food. (I’m sure she looked into jobs on Caribbean cruises; not Alaskan ones.) The only cash for people like housekeepers and waiters and such came from tips.

Is this (still) true? If this is the way it worked ten or twelve years ago, has the pay structure been modified such that service staff get an hourly wage?

EDIT: The title should say ‘wages’ instead of ‘salaries’. Too late to change it.

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2

I find this surprising, but have no knowledge at all about the specifics here.

3

Travel agents and many websites can give detailed answers for you, but the staff does get paid, just not so well. This is why on Caribbean routes at least the staff is non-US --they work way cheaper and for longer hours.

From what I read, there is supposedly a gratuity included as a part of your “all-inclusive” fee, though nothing prevents (and a lot encourages) you to tip specific persons who wait on you more on top of that.

The above applies to non-US-homeported vessels. (Caribbean cruises are usually homeported in the Bahamas). IIRC if they are homeported in the US, as they certianly are on Hawaiian cruises, US wage, labor laws, and so on apply. This is why Hawiian island cruises are so much more expensive than Caribbean ones.

I am not sure but would suppose the above rule applies to Alaskan cruises; I guess they’d be based in Anchorage. If not there, then in western Canada, where I would guess something similar applies.

4

This article says they get between $800 and $8000 a month, depending on position.

5

Thanks.

FWIW, I think Princess out of Seattle is the likely line. The other option would be a ferry trip from Bellingham.

6

I am not sure if the OP is more concerned about the welfare of the crew or the cost of gratuities. I can tell you that the cruise websites have many many threads on this thorny subject.

In general it is true that the service crew depend on gratuities to give them a decent salary. There are three ways that this happens. Either people agree to pay the cruise lines ‘automatic gratuity’ (autograt) or they opt out of that and give the crew a tip at the end of the cruise.

Autograts are shared out among all of the service crew, including the washer-uppers, the cooks and the entertainers, but not the officers. Any tips left by people who opt out are added to this pool, a rule that is strictly enforced.

Many people simply add these autograts to the cost of the cruise when weighing up there budget. They usually add about $12/15 per person per day to the overall cost, so they are not insignificant. Opting out and avoiding your cabin staff and the waiters in the restaurant on the last day is not unknown but is generally considered to be Very Bad Form.

Some people opt in, but also tip, especially for service above and beyond. In these circumstances, the crew member is allowed to keep the money.

There is usually a 15% tip added to the cost of drinks at the bar (not voluntary) and staff in the spa and beauty salon will expect (and can keep) individual tips from customers.

7

Irrelevant.

8

Almost right. Gratuities are extra above and beyond your cruise price. What most lines do now is assess a “recommended” tip amount to your credit card. If you say nothing, that amount gets charged to your card at the end of the trip and disbursed to the employees. The passenger has the opportunity and right to change the gratuity amount, or delete it altogether, but it takes a special trip to the service desk to do so.

I am scheduled for a cruise next month, and the documents indicate that the automatic gratuity is $11.50 per day per passenger, totaling $161 for my wife and I. As I said, I can visit the service desk and adjust this up or down. If I recall from the last times I cruised, I left the standard tip alone and then left extra money for our room stewards and maids, who were fabulous.

9

When I was taking my new media class, the teacher was always telling us about how great it is to work as a DJ on a cruise ship. Apparently they make huge amounts of money, and have everything provided for them when they are at sea.

10

So whether a cruise employee keeps a tip to themselves depends on whether the tipper is in the “autograt” system? That sounds like a clunky system, and difficult in practice. How do the employees know whether someone is in the autograt system?

11

A girl my daughter acted with spent some time as a member of a show on a cruise. It was not something she ever wanted to do again. It didn’t pay that well and was limiting. I’m sure headliners get better deals.

12

Not all the performers have a sweet deal. On our Alaskan cruise, we saw one of the dancers from the show the night before working the next day in the ship’s library.

13

My wife and I have taken several cruises and talked to several crewmembers along the way. General staff do get a small hourly wage, but the bulk of their income is from tips. Officers obviously get a better salary. Everyone except maybe a few entertainers are from other countries…most from Indonesia, Jamica and Central America. By American standards their working conditions would be considered pretty harsh. Think 12-16 hour days with no days off for months, however each employee I speak to is extremely happy to have the job as the wages they make can support an extended family and are much better than what they can make back home.

Cruises can be a great deal, but as you are finding out there is a bit more to it than the published fare. Taxes and port fees may not be included. As others mentioned, most tips are automatically added sometimes before the cruise, sometimes after–depends on your lines policy. Give the cruise line a call and they can give you a total with everything included.

Also be prepared to have them try to upsell you EVERYTHING. You certainly don’t need to spend a penny above your fare, but the industry model is to get you on the boat fairly cheap and then profit by selling you stuff onboard. Soda packages, drinks, spa treatments, upgraded dining options, photo packages, shore excursions, casino gaming, room service, laundry, gym classes, etc., etc, etc. are all available at a charge. You can certainly enjoy the vacation without any of that stuff, but if you enjoy a drink or may want to visit a port be prepared to spend a few extra dollars.

14

Performing two shows a cruise and working a light customer service job most days (in between rehearsals etc.) is not exactly a sour deal.

15

This post conflated “home-port” – the port out of which the vessel operates – with “registered” – the place it officially exists for legal and financial purposes.

The country of registration determines what set of tax laws, labor laws, etc, govern the vessel’s operation. Both commercial and passenger vessels are mostly registered under “flags of convenience”, places where regulation is very light.

The choice of home port brings you under jurisdiction of various agencies with regard to safety and sanitation, plus whatever customs & immigration agencies govern shore-side. The shipping line abides by whatever regulations are imposed in order to be able operate out of the port.

All the ships of a particular cruise line will typically be registed with whatever country that line finds most congenial.

Each ship may operate from any home port that the cruise line wants to operate out of. A ship may have multiple home ports during the year – Miami for the Caribbean in the winter and Seattle for Alaska or Barcelona for Europe in the summer, for example.

16

AFAIK there is exactly one US-registered cruise ship, the Pride of Hawaii that makes the full inter-island loop. At one time there were up to three ships on that run, but NCL reduced it to one large ship. Those were the first US-flagged cruise ships since the mid-1970s.

The limitation is that non-US-registered ships cannot touch only at US ports, so Hawaii cruises other than on this one NCL ship (or, formerly, its sisters) have to touch at least one foreign port… meaning they have to sail to or from Vancover, or (the most common workaround) spend two days jaunting down to Fanning Island, a destination of no particular value except that it’s (1) not US and (2) the closest such port to Hawaii.

US labor and marine laws are difficult to meet in the cruise industry, at least, if ticket prices are to be kept low and profits high. Crews also have to be 51% or more US citizens, which proved to be a problem as NCL had to pay competitive wages to get that 51%.

But I will say it was nice spending ten leisurely days seeing most of the islands, without any long dead time to/from or zipping to Gilligan’s Island.

17

It’s not a whole lot different at resorts - the staff makes a decent wage for the country (usually not great by Western standards) and is expected to work REALLY long hours. They are generally happy to have the work and it’s considered a good job by local standards.

18

Just got back from a cruise. Tipping was extensive. Even for my friend who was on a all-you-can-drink-plan ($55/day), he chose to tip on every soda and glass of wine and cocktail and juice delivered to him. Even at $2-3, it adds up. Plus tipping the waitstaff, the casino dealers, the cabin steward. Plus, on shore, there are taxis. Spa tips if you’re into that. It goes on.

We pre-paid, but then paid out at least $100-150 more in tips per person. The workers are poor, from poor countries, working for a soulless corporation that makes them smile and grovel to rich entitled people for 16 hours a day. It’s hard not to tip.

Some gratuities are included on the receipt, so always check first. Sometimes I paid above and beyond, sometimes I didn’t.

Glad to hear that some tips are shared. We gave $20 (and a note to his boss) to a cleaner in the casino who cleaned up a spill for us, but I imagine maintenance staff doesn’t get a lot of direct tips.

I was surprised this time around that there were a lot of older workers. Not just young kids starting out, but people doing this as a career. I wonder if that’s due to the worldwide recession or a change to a service economy or an expansion of the cruise industry or something. Who knows.

19

I know a woman who worked in a satellite TV room on a cruise ship. The pay wasn’t that great, but her room and board were provided and she got to see the world for the two years she worked for that company.

I may see her later this evening; if I do, I’ll ask her about this.

She said that most of the crew were from the Philippines, and made a LOT more money doing this than they ever could back home.

20

It wasn’t on a cruise ship, but I recently went on an all-inclusive tour to a resort in the Caribbean. I booked it through a travel agent, who emphatically assured me that everything was included in the (hefty) fee, “meals, drinks and tips”.

I’d never been on such a tour (or gone to travel agent) so I never gave the economics of it much thought.

But in fact, some of the guests had booked the trip on their own, and were paying for drinks, meals and tips as they went.

This meant that the servers had one category of customer who they knew would feel obligated to tip, and another (like me) who assumed their tips had already been paid.

My choice then was to:

  1. Not tip the servers (locals who obviously needed the tip money), or
  2. Tip out of pocket.

I chose the latter, effectively tipping twice (the first probably going into the pockets of the travel agent or resort managers).

Even if every customer at the resort were on an all-inclusive plan - and even if a portion of the money they paid went into a pool that was divided up among the servers (which I seriously doubt), this would undermine the whole (supposed) concept of tipping: to incentivize good service by withholding the tip until the service has been provided. If the tip money is already paid, it’s no different than tacking it on automatically.

Another thing to consider about all-inclusive plans: they set the price based on how much they think the average person will eat and drink. If you eat and drink more than the average person, this can be a good deal. If not, you’ll be subsidizing big eaters and drinkers, and will probably spend more than if you were to pay for meals and drinks (and tips) on your own.

Going through a travel agent was a mistake too. I had ended up with some short-notice vacation time, and didn’t feel like the effort it would take of booking it myself. I had assumed a travel agent might be able to get better deals than a layperson and could pass some of them along to the customer. Far from it: this one tacked on charges, and actually gave me the wrong confirmation number for my return flight, resulting in delaying my check-in until the last minute.

My newly-acquired belief: never go through a travel agent, and never do an all-inclusive tour.