SEATTLE, June 14 (Our Washington Times) — Holland America Line’s own booking and onboard FAQ pages now show an automatic daily “Crew Appreciation” charge of $18 per guest for non-suite staterooms and $20 per guest for suites, a built-in cost Washington travelers need to count before comparing cruise fares.
According to Holland America’s official FAQs, the charge is a daily gratuity that is automatically added to a guest’s onboard account. In its onboard FAQ, the company says Crew Appreciation is meant “to recognize the many Holland America Line team members who make your cruise feel effortless.” The same FAQ says the money is pooled to support workers across the ship, including employees guests see every day and others “working quietly in the background.”
The posted rates are per person, not per room. That means two guests in a non-suite would see $36 a day added to their onboard account, while two guests in a suite would see $40 a day. Over a seven-day sailing, that comes to $252 for two non-suite guests and $280 for two suite guests, based on the rates listed on Holland America’s FAQ pages reviewed for this article.
Holland America’s booking FAQ says the rates are subject to change. Fox News, citing company policy, reported that the current $18 and $20 rates took effect June 1 and that guests may adjust the daily gratuity amount while onboard. In the same report, a Holland America spokesperson said “100% goes directly to our shipboard team” and described the charge as “in line with the cruise industry competitive standards.”
The company’s current FAQ pages reviewed for this article do not list prior Crew Appreciation rates. But a February cruise tipping guide published by The Points Guy, which summarized cruise-line gratuity policies then in effect, listed Holland America at $17 per person per day for most cabins and $19 for suites. Compared with Holland America’s current posted rates, that would amount to a $1 per person, per day increase in each cabin category.
That same February guide said automatic gratuity charges at some cruise lines can reach $25 per person, per day. On that measure, Holland America’s current $20 suite charge is below the high end of published daily automatic gratuity levels, but it remains a fixed per-person cost that can materially change the total price of a cruise.
The records reviewed for this article do not include a Washington regulator, court filing or port authority action tied to Holland America’s policy. They do show that the line’s current customer-facing FAQs list an automatic daily crew charge of $18 to $20 per person, that the fee is added to onboard accounts, and that Holland America says the money is distributed across shipboard roles.
