Royal Caribbean starts charging for late-night service

by Janice Hough on January 7, 2009

Most seasoned cruisers know that the “all-inclusive” pricing offered by most cruise lines is a bit of a misnomer, with alternative restaurants, soft drinks and fancy coffees, all often being an extra charge. These are in addition to the old standards of extra charges for alcoholic beverages and some activities on board.

Now Royal Caribbean, infamous in 2008 for their “steak” fee, is at it again with a “late night service charge” being added to their room service menu. The charge will apply to any order placed between midnight and 5 a.m.

To be fair, the charge is not substantial, only $3.95, and it is per order, not per item. The cruise line says that $1.50 of this amount will be a staff gratuity. But passengers who might have normally tipped an attendant in cash, may now feel less inclined to do so, which may actually cut tips.

Royal Caribbean’s 24-hour food-court, with a limited menu, will remain free. In addition, for now room service will stay freeduring “regular hours,” i.e. between 5 a.m. and midnight. After all is said and done, however, it’s hard to imagine that if this change slides through without too many complaints, it won’t be expanded. The next step might be a hot food surcharge, a peak time surcharge or who knows?

Clearly Royal Caribbean thinks the revenue from this new fee will offset any loss of passenger goodwill. (Although curiously enough, for a company that loves to send out press releases, this change was quietly slipped into their website with no fanfare.)

One of the biggest appeals of cruising has always been the ability to relax, not think about money for a few days and get away from the real world. As the nickel and diming grows into bigger and bigger bucks, how long until passengers mutiny and flee in droves to land-based vacations?

Print Friendly

Tagged as: late night service charge, room service charge, Royal Caribbean Cruise Line

  • http://www.singleparenttravel.net John F

    Hey if you can’t handle no eats for 5 hours in the middle of the night—come on. I think this is reasonable and I hate the nickel and diming.

  • http://snoozemanscruiseblog.blogspot.com/ Snoozeman

    I have no problem with this at all.

    Hopefully this will keep teens & pre-teens from those wasteful room service orders that are are known to make during those hours.

  • The man who notices things

    Go look at comments from others about the cruise surcharges and ala carte pricing that you can expect, most were pretty humorous, and there were all sorts of fancy thoughts about possible sources of revenue. But NO ONE ever thought they’d go to charging for late night room service.

    As to the comment for teens ordering late – I’m curious – how much is their fare for the separate discounted because they are teens? Are they not entitled to the same service as adults? You pay your money you are entitled to the same service as anyone else- and now – everyone else is jammed on the service -

    Gee – where is the fuel surcharge discount now ? Yeah,right.

  • Carlo

    If I thought it would stop here, I would agree with JohnF and say this is reasonable. But I don’t think it will stop here. I think they are testing the waters, just like with the infamous “steak fee.” They want to know how strenuously people will object to it and how quickly the objections die down to determine whether the fee stays or not, and then later, whether they can expand it to other things, other hours.

  • Frank

    ROOM SERVICE?….WHAT’S ROOM SERVICE!!!

    Ohh, yeah, that phone number you can call when you’re HUNGRY.

    ………..forgot about it after my 21 PERCENT paycut.

  • Skip

    The limits of surcharges are bound only by the imagination of the cruise line executives. The question is, will the other cruise lines follow suit?

    I would tip a fiver to the room service attendant but I’m not the norm. You’re right, though, this does remove incentive since passengers will now eschew tipping altogether after being nickel & dimed repeatedly. The cruising I’ll take from here on in will likely be sailing or other smaller ships. We are done with Carnival, RCI, Norwegian, HA, Celebrity, etc.

    Janice, did you mean “between midnight and 5 am”?

  • http://leftcoastsportsbabe.com Janice Hough

    Hi Skip, I edited to make it clearer. The surcharge applies during midnight and 5am, for now, between 5am and midnight room service is still free. But I am with you and Carlo, I just can’t see them not expanding this if they don’t have a revolt.

    Re the issue of kids wasting food, if that were the issue there are other ways around it, like requiring an adult to order or verify an order during certain hours. Although I have also seen a lot of adults waste food at night, especially on the late night buffets..

  • Pingback: why god hates me » Royal Caribbean To Levy Late-Night Room Service Charge [Royal Caribbean]

  • Kaye

    Nothing is free on a cruise, you pay for it in the fare. It drives me crazy to read that certain venues or food is “free”.

    The surcharge doesn’t bother me at all, I’m always asleep then anyway. Since it does include a gratuity and most people tips $3-5 for a delivered meal on a ship, what is the really big deal anyway???

    I also get weary of the term “nickel and diming”, it’s all a choice people make to spend any money whatsoever on a cruise ship. That you can add up all your drinks onto one tab is perhaps different from another type of vacation, where you may pay cash and not see the total staring you in the face at the end of the trip.

    Just like the steak charge, it is a choice, people can either pay it and enjoy or eat something else. No one is forcing them to spend one more dime than they choose to.

    RCI gets the bad press because, who knows. I’ve cruised on 7 different lines and they are all pretty much the same with extra charges that I incur.

  • Tom

    Whilst I am convinced that this is purely a revenue-raising ploy by RCI, I hope it leads to less of those pizzas with one bite taken out of them and trays of hardly-touched food you see along the corridors some mornings. The waste is shameful. Perhaps RCI have identified that much of this waste originates during these hours when people come back after a few drinks with the munchies and order way too much, or just fall asleep before they can eat it. Personally, I am unlikely to be affected, as we don’t use room service all that much. In future though, when I do, I won’t be giving the usual cash tip (at least $2) to the waiter, as RCI are telling me that they are now including this in the charge. Come on cruise lines, cut out the compulsory ‘gratuities.’ Pay your wait staff a proper wage and then they wouldn’t have to be subsidised by us.

  • Chels

    Does nobody here order late night room service? I love it. After a night out drinking it’s nice to curl up with your love and vegge out a bit. It’s one of the perks that I was sure to take advantage of and something that made it feel like a true vacation.

    I’d have no problem with the extra fee EXCEPT for the fact that Royal Caribbean nickels and dimes their customers way too much. We loved the cruise and had an amazing time. But the customer service was awful. “tip, tip, tip” It’s not like we weren’t cool with tipping. We’re good tippers. But we didn’t want to hear it five times a day, every day. It really lowers the experience. Now with policies like this, it just adds to that feeling.

    We’re looking at booking another vacation for the spring. We were originally going to do another cruise, but solely because of that experience we’re now looking into all-inclusive land options.

Previous post:

Next post: