Can you opt out of tipping on P&O cruises?

Who wouldn’t want to opt-out of tipping on cruises? Instead of transparent pricing, cruise lines have taken to using mandatory gratuities or service charges to disguise the true cost of the cruise while leaving some first-time cruisers with an expensive onboard surprise. Traditional tipping arrangements included an auto gratuity covering your cabin steward, culinary staff, and other cruise members. These weren’t tips for great service or even good service, they were a fee that had nothing to do with the quality of service received by the cruise passengers.

P&O long had a ‘discretionary daily service charge’ on board that was actually an automatic service charge. Thankfully, P&O listened to feedback from their customers and cruise critics! In a customer-friendly move, P&O stopped requiring tipping on P&O cruise ships as of May 2019. As P&O said at the time, the decision to end mandatory tipping was made to make life simpler for their cruise passengers.

So how much are tips on P&O cruises now?

P&O tips are now zero. You don’t have to opt out because there are no more automatic P&O cruise gratuities to pay.

Should I still give tips on board P&O cruise ships?

No, you don’t need to give tips to crew members unless you want to tip individual crew members for specific reasons. Unlike the old P&O gratuity system, it’s now truly discretionary tip system.