Originally Posted by
Gogie
In my experience there has never been a "requirement" to pay gratuities. The cruiselines generally will suggest what is appropriate in their view and will even automatically charge the gratuities to your onboard account, but you always have the option to have the charge removed from your account and pay whatever you think is fair.
While that's true the caution is that some lines, Holland America for sure, monitor the removal or reduction of automatic service charges. If you remove or reduce the charge on Holland America they inform the impacted service staff and any out of hand cash tips are required to be turned in. There's a lot of debate on how they manage this but the supposed threat to the staff is being fired for failure to turn in cash tips. Again, this us only for cash tips received from passengers who have removed or reduced the automatic service charge.