News Disney Cruise Line Raises Pre-Paid Gratuity Recommendations for 2025 Sailings

[wdwmagic]

Disney Cruise Line Raises Pre-Paid Gratuity Recommendations for 2025 Sailings

Disney Cruise Line Raises Pre-Paid Gratuity Recommendations for 2025 Sailings

www.wdwmagic.com

 

[Tom P.]

What if someone is old fashioned and still likes to base the amount of the gratuity on how good the service actually was?

 

[jme]

What if someone is old fashioned and still likes to base the amount of the gratuity on how good the service actually was?

As has been the case for some time now, you go to Guest Services and tell them any adjustments you'd like to make to the gratuities that are auto-billed to each stateroom. You can raise, lower, or remove (although, you really shouldn't) them as you see fit.

 

[DisneyDreamer08]

That’s funny, I just added prepaid gratuities yesterday for our 2026 cruise.

 

[Wendy Pleakley]

What if someone is old fashioned and still likes to base the amount of the gratuity on how good the service actually was?

It's recommended, not mandatory.

Honestly though, if one tipped a typical 15-20% on meal value like the real world, in addition to the other tips, $16 is well below what those "real world" costs of tipping would be.

Tips are a standard cruise expense, and unless the service is egregiously bad I would never remove them.

It would be better to tip extra for great service where applicable.

 

[HauntedPirate]

Is this effective immediately? I’m not going to be pleased if this is how I find out and not from DCL.

 

[Ayla]

Is this effective immediately? I’m not going to be pleased if this is how I find out and not from DCL.

It sounds like yes, it is effective immediately.

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

What if someone is old fashioned and still likes to base the amount of the gratuity on how good the service actually was?

You have to manually select to prepay gratuities, the default is not to prepay them and pay them yourself, if you choose, at the end of your cruise.

We’ve done 4 DCL cruises and have always selected to prepay tips but we always end up tipping hundreds more (on top of the prepaid tips) at the end because the CMs are that good.

 

[vikescaper]

I personally don’t have any issues with this. Granted, I’ve only been on one Disney Cruise but the entire staff was amazing and I ended up tipping more than we had prepaid.

 

[Ayla]

You have to manually select to prepay gratuities, the default is not to prepay them and pay them yourself, if you choose, at the end of your cruise.

We’ve done 4 DCL cruises and have always selected to prepay tips but we always end up tipping hundreds more (on top of the prepaid tips) at the end because the CMs are that good.

If you don't pre-pay them, they are automatically charged to your onboard account at the end of the cruise.

 

[HauntedPirate]

If you don't pre-pay them, they are automatically charged to your onboard account at the end of the cruise.

My last cruise (4 nights) our tips were charged to the onboard account on night 2/day 3.

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

If you don't pre-pay them, they are automatically charged to your onboard account at the end of the cruise.

Thanks for the correction, we always pre-pay so I didn’t realize it was a mandatory charge.

 

[Ayla]

Thanks for the correction, we always pre-pay so I didn’t realize it was a mandatory charge.

Technically, it isn't mandatory. You can go to Guest Services and have the amount changed or removed altogether.

 

[cjkeating]

Something has to go seriously wrong if you don't think any of the positions that are covered by these tips doesn't deserve it. And I'm British.

 

[Ayla]

Something has to go seriously wrong if you don't think any of the positions that are covered by these tips doesn't deserve it. And I'm British.

Or you are a seriously horrible human. We went on a river cruise last summer and tipped an additional $400 above our pre-paid gratuities...and they deserved every single dime (and then some!).

 

[TheGenXer]

Something has to go seriously wrong if you don't think any of the positions that are covered by these tips doesn't deserve it. And I'm British.

Like with all things I’m sure there are exceptions. And I would absolutely remove the tip if service was poor.

 

[jme]

Like with all things I’m sure there are exceptions. And I would absolutely remove the tip if service was poor.

I think I'd find myself at guest services filing a complaint if service was so poor I felt I needed to remove a tip.

In fact, once I had a particularly bad experience at Palo, and I did file a complaint and we ended up having our meal comped. I still left a tip though

 

[HauntedPirate]

So this change was effective immediately and there was no communication from DCL around it. Bad show, but that stopped mattering to them years ago.

 

[Phonedave]

I have done this myself. I made extensive complaints about my room once on a DCL cruise. It was not the fault of anybody on the ship. I still tipped generously. They all did their best to do what they could.

 

[cjkeating]

So this change was effective immediately and there was no communication from DCL around it. Bad show, but that stopped mattering to them years ago.

I am not aware of notice being given in the past.