British tourist shares the strange 'tipping rule' she came across on a Disney cruise

The tipping culture in the U.S. has often surprised and sometimes shocked people from other parts of the world. One such incident happened with a UK traveller, who goes by Emma (Emma Cruises) on YouTube. The Birt shared the experience of a Disney Cruise where she learned how gratuities work in the U.S. She showed her viewers a strange “tipping rule” that she had never seen before, and it sparked a fierce debate with people calling on canceling tips.

In the caption of her YouTube video, Emma who creates content around cruises and shares her various journeys wrote, “I've cruised with most of the mainstream cruise lines but I've never had anything like this in my cabin before."

Emma explained that she recently returned from her first Disney Cruise, one of the biggest Cruise Liners in the U.S. She shared how U.S cruises have a rule around ‘automatic gratuities’, that are designed to prevent customers from tipping the staff directly by charging the customers automatically with their bill.

So, instead of guests constantly giving cash to staff, the tips “automatically come off your car”, Emma said. She further explained that the cost of gratuities is added to cruise fare for most cruise lines in the UK and there is usually nothing more to it.

However, on the Disney cruise, Emma came across a very strange rule which she had never seen before.

Emma explained that the Disney Cruise also had Automatic Gratuities, so she was assured that she was paying tips for the staff. However, one fine day when she returned to her room, Emma saw some strange envelopes laid out for her.

The letters said “‘You’ve paid your automatic gratuities’,” Emma added and it then added some odd instructions as well. When she opened the envelopes, Emma found that they had pieces of paper that contained the names of various staff and the amount she had automatically tipped them.

The strange part was, that the letter instructed Emma to give each of those envelopes to the respective staff to let them know how much tips they received. Emma did not know what to do with those envelopes and said, she thought the whole point of the automatic gratuities was avoiding the “awkward thing of handing over cash”. Thus, the entire thing was strange to her as she had never experienced this before. Emma’s YouTube video which has over 398,000 views, triggered an avalanche of comments.

Several consumers from the U.S. who are already fatigued from tipping amid high costs shared their frustrations. One user named James Hardison said that as Americans they are used to tipping but the exercise of handing over envelopes to each staff is unnecessary, and weird and could be an attempt to take more money from passengers.

Another American viewer @epicureandbard, who had worked as a tipped employee said, “Honestly, The US should abandon the tip and just pay people a living wage.” The viewer added that as he knows the industry, tips are just an excuse for the employer to pay the staff less money. Another viewer named Phil, added to this by saying the envelopes could be “Disney’s Corporate way of reminding staff of their tips being part of their wages.”

Editor's note: This article was originally published on March 29, 2024. It has since been updated.