Mainstream Cruise Line
Royal Caribbean Gratuities
The daily gratuity rate, the bar service charge, and how to prepay or adjust tips on a Royal Caribbean cruise in 2026, verified against the official policy.
Quick answer
Royal Caribbean adds $18.50 per guest per day in automatic gratuities, rising to $21 in suites. You can prepay them before you sail, and adjust or remove them at guest services on board.
Daily gratuity rate
Standard stateroom
$18.50 per guest / day
Suite
$21 per guest / day
Royal Caribbean adds an automatic daily gratuity to each guest's SeaPass account: $18.50 per guest per day for standard staterooms (interior, oceanview, and balcony) and $21.00 per guest per day for suites. The pooled amount covers dining, bar, culinary, stateroom, and hotel crew. Beverage, specialty dining, room service, and mini-bar purchases carry a separate 18% gratuity, and spa and salon purchases carry 20%.
Bar service charge
18% on drinks
Royal Caribbean adds 18% automatically to bar and beverage purchases, on top of the daily gratuity.
Prepaying and adjusting
- Can prepay before sailing
- Yes
- Can adjust or remove on board
- Yes
If you do not prepay at booking, the daily gratuity is applied automatically each day. You may adjust it at Guest Relations any time before the morning of disembarkation. The daily gratuity does not cover beverages, dining upcharges, or spa, which carry their own service charges. Some promotional fares include prepaid gratuities as a perk.
Frequently asked questions
How much are gratuities on a Royal Caribbean cruise?
Can I remove or adjust gratuities on Royal Caribbean?
Can I prepay gratuities on Royal Caribbean?
Does Royal Caribbean add a gratuity to drinks?
More on Royal Caribbean
Gratuities on other cruise lines
Travel data researcher and publisher
Caden Sorenson runs Travel Vient, an independent travel research site built on a verified database of airline baggage rules, airport connection times, cruise line policies, and eSIM plans. He built the verification pipeline behind it: each record is read from the company or government page that publishes it (connection times: OAG data via ExpertFlyer), stored with that source link and the sentence it came from, and re-checked on a schedule. He is a senior staff engineer with 15+ years building software, a Computer Science graduate of Utah State University, and based in Logan, Utah.
Figures link to the source they were read from and show the date last checked; some cite a travel publication or aggregator rather than the company.
Sources
Facts, costs, and travel details in this guide were verified against the following sources. See our research methodology for how we vet and update data.
- Royal Caribbean: Onboard service gratuity expense accessed 2026-10-02
If a figure looks wrong, email hello@vient.org, see how we handle corrections, or browse past fixes in our public changelog.
Cruise lines change gratuity rates without notice. Confirm with the line before you sail.