If you have booked your cruise before November 11, 2023, you can prepay the gratuities at the current rates and basically save $2/person/day. Suites increase from $18.50 to $20.50 per day/person.Standard Cabins (Junior Suites and below) increase from $16.00 to $18.00 per day/person.
So now, from November 11, 2023, the automatic daily gratuity charges will change as follows: Yes, in the restaurants and other “on deck” contact points, guest interactions are higher with each individual passenger but for that you already pay a very high price with the cruise fare itself.
The gratuities are charged per person, not per cabin, which means a cabin occupied by a solo passenger creates the same amount of work for the cabin steward as a couple. I’m not an avid Royal Caribbean customer, although I do have Diamond status with them by virtue of the company-wide status alignment policy between Royal Crown & Anchor Club and Celebrity Captains Club, but my take on this is the same I have with Celebrity. Here is the email Royal Caribbean just sent to customers with existing bookings:
