When you book the Cheers beverage package on a Carnival Cruise Line ship, you pay the cost plus an 18% gratuity.
In addition, many passengers will tip an extra dollar or two — sometimes more — for good service.
It’s not a rule, but in general waiters, servers and bartenders remember the people who throw them an extra dollar here and there. If you regularly add extra tips, the always-good service can become spectacular.
That can mean a bartender making your drink before you order it and roaming servers being extra attendant to your needs. It’s not uncommon at the pool deck for the roaming servers to find you with a bottle of water even when you haven’t ordered one.
Many passengers are curious, however, as to how tips and the prepaid-drink-package gratuities are split up among the bartenders and servers. Carnival Brand Ambassador John Heald recently addressed that topic.
Carnival has bars all over its cruise ships.
Image source: Carnival Cruise Lines
Here’s how Carnival Cruise Line bar tips get shared
Heald answered a key question about beverage gratuities as part of his daily post where he answers hundreds of questions.
“How do the gratuities from the pre-paid drink package (Cheers) get distributed to staff? Sometimes I give an extra dollar or two but if I’m just getting a bottle of water I do not, so just curious how those get divvied up and if it’s based off of what is ordered or total dollar amount of order?” asked Dougie Lourkie.
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Heald gave a direct answer, which may surprise some passengers.
“Thank you, if you are served by a bartender, the bartenders will share all of the gratuities together,” he wrote. “If you give cash to a bartender, then he or she will keep it for themselves.”
Basically, the first part is that the prepaid gratuities are pooled. It’s unclear whether that means all bar staff on the ship or only at the bars where you get a drink.
It’s more clear when it comes to roaming bar staff.
“If a bar server or waiter or waitress, serves you, then they keep the entire gratuity,” Heald added.
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That means the roving staff who serve you receive an 18% tip from the gratuities the passenger prepaid.
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