It’s up to you to determine your personal budget for spending at ports and additional tipping for excursions and cruise staff. You can spend as little or as much as you want at each destination, but it’s a good idea to plan ahead so you don’t spend more than you planned. We typically use cash in ports to help us stay within budget. When the cash is gone, it’s gone.
To figure out how much cash to bring, we select a dollar amount and multiple it by the number of ports we’ll be visiting, then we add additional for various tips and travel incidentals. The amount you choose is a personal choice and fully dependent on your financial situation at the time of your cruise. We’ve been on cruises where funds were tight and we spent very little in port (sometimes nothing) and other times we’ve had a little more wiggle room and purchased souvenirs or local art for ourselves and friends/family back home. Either way, your budget might include line items for the following:
Embarkation/Debarkation Porters – average is $2 per bag – Sometimes we use porters when we arrive in port and/or when we get off the ship – and sometimes we don’t. There’s really no rhyme or reason to it other than being dependent on how tired we are or how convenient they are in the moment. It’s always nice to plan for it either way, just in case. If we do use a porter, we always tip. The embarkation porters are making sure your luggage actually makes it on the ship, after all. And depending on your home port, sometimes a debarkation porter can get you through Customs lines faster. If we don’t use a porter, then it’s just extra cash we have on hand in case we need it.
Port Days – Plan to spend cash in port for food, drink, entertainment, souvenirs, etc. This amount varies wildly depending on the destination and your financial situation at the time. It could be anywhere from $20-$200 per port or more. If we’re feeling really fancy or find something really unique that we really love, we have been known to splurge a little. We love to bring home original local art – and we know others who love to shop for jewelry or gemstones on shore. We also use this cash for any local transportation, refreshments or maybe a couple of loungers & an umbrella for kicking back on a beach with protection from the sun. Any cash we have leftover from one port, we roll over to the next.
Excursion Tips – average is $10 per guide for a half day outing and $15-20 per guide for a full day outing. These locals work hard to make sure you enjoy your time in their country/on their island and their wages are usually far less than our minimum wage in the U.S. – and in some cases, they only work for tips. So if you have a great local guide, be sure to tip them for their efforts. Everyone appreciates a tip, but some of them depend on tips to make a living.
Tender Tips – average is $2 per trip – What’s a “tender”, you ask? Some destinations have ecological protections for their reefs, which are an important part of the underwater eco-system and play a huge role in the health of the beach and marine life in the area. Reefs offer protection from storms & beach erosion, recreational opportunities (like snorkeling & diving), and can be a source of food and medicine. So, in cases where a port has a protected reef, the ship won’t dock, but instead anchor just off shore, behind the reef. In these cases, a smaller boat (called a “tender”) will bring you to and from the ship. Tenders are not owned & managed by the cruise lines, but by locals from the destination country, which is why you may opt to tip.
Ship Tips – You’ll likely want to tip anyone who delivers room service to your cabin, as well as your stateroom steward, your dining crew if you have set time dining (as opposed to your time dining), and potentially your favorite bartender of barista – if you found one. These amounts vary significantly depending on who you ask. And yes, the cruise staff does share in the tips you pay when you book your cruise, but we like to directly reward good service and “above and beyond” services. This, of course, is a personal preference and entirely optional. For room service, we usually tip $2-3 per delivery. For stewards, we usually tip $10 per day at the end of the cruise. For dining crew, we usually tip $7-10 per day on the last day. For bartenders & baristas, it depends on how great they were, how often they remembered our regular orders, and how pleasant they were to interact with, but $7-10 per day is fairly typical for us.
JUST FOR FUN
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We bring thank you cards and write notes inside for our stateroom steward/team, dining crew, favorite bartender/barista, etc. and include their tip inside. If you have a set dining time, take it with you to dinner the last night for your dining crew, give it to your favorite bartender the last night, and leave it behind in your stateroom for your room steward team on debarkation day or the night before. It’s a more pleasant and discreet way to distribute tips and adds a personal touch.
PRO TIP:
We always pick up extra bank envelopes and separate our cash out by use case. We’ve found this to be the easiest way to make sure we have enough for each destination and some left over for tips and other random incidentals.
We always carry the current port’s envelope AND the one for the next port with us when we get off the ship. This way, if we find something really extraordinary that’s a little over that port’s budget, we have the cash on hand and can plan to spend less in the next port. We also like to have the piece of mind knowing we have a little extra cash in the off chance we get stuck in a port and the ship has to leave without us. This is a very unlikely scenario, but it’s always better to be safe than sorry. We keep them in separate bags so if one bag gets lost or stolen, we still have cash. That has never happened either, but there’s a first time for everything.
If you were really good and didn’t spend all of your cash from any particular envelope, just roll it into the next one. It’s always a good feeling to have some cash in your pocket when you step off the ship. You can be proud of yourself for not only sticking to your budget but coming in under! Celebrate by treating yourself to IHOP or Buc-ees on the way home!
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