Just to be clear, with foreign flagged ships, such as Royal Caribbean, federal law requires that cruises either are "round-trip" (i.e., from Baltimore returning to Baltimore); begin or end at a foreign port (i.e., Vancouver, Ensenada, Barbados, etc.); or visit a distant foreign port sometime during the cruise (Aruba, Curacao, Vanatu, etc.)

With regard to the tipping issue, folks have summed up the reality, above: They're paid what they're paid; the jobs are highly-sought-after; so we can presume that they view it as an attractive deal for them as employees. As long as you fund the tips as recommended by the cruise line, you can feel comfortable that you've done well by them. If you want to give them more, feel free to do so, though. However, leave the automatic tips intact; on some cruise lines removing the automatic tips complicates things for the crew, in terms of whether they can keep what you give them directly.