SEATTLE, June 14 (Our Washington Times) — For Washington travelers pricing out a cruise, Holland America Line’s own FAQ pages now show an automatic “Crew Appreciation” charge of $18 per guest, per day for non-suite staterooms and $20 per guest, per day for suites. Because the charge is listed per guest, a couple in a suite on a seven-day sailing would have $280 added to its onboard account at the posted rate, before other onboard purchases.
Holland America describes Crew Appreciation as “a daily gratuity automatically added to your onboard account,” according to the company’s onboard FAQ. In that same FAQ, the company says the charge is meant “to recognize the many Holland America Line team members who make your cruise feel effortless.”
The company’s records also explain where the money goes. Holland America says Crew Appreciation “appears as a daily charge on your onboard account,” and that it is pooled to support team members across the ship, including workers guests see and workers “working quietly in the background.”
A separate Holland America booking FAQ lists the same current rates — $18 a day for non-suite cabins and $20 a day for suites — and says the rates are subject to change.
What the company’s public FAQ pages do not clearly show, at least in the records reviewed for this story, is when the higher rates began or what the earlier rates were. Fox News reported, citing Holland America materials, that the new rates took effect June 1 and represented a $1 per person, per day increase from prior levels of $17 for most cabins and $19 for suites. An onboard Holland America FAQ snippet in the reporting materials was marked last updated June 9, and a booking FAQ snippet was marked last updated June 14; both displayed the higher rates.
That matters for travelers comparing total trip cost, because the charge is automatic unless changed under the line’s policy. Fox News reported that guests may adjust the daily gratuity amount while onboard. That detail did not appear in the official Holland America FAQ snippets reviewed for this article.
Holland America’s public explanation frames the charge as support for the full shipboard team, not only front-of-house staff. A Holland America spokesperson told Fox News that “100% goes directly to our shipboard team” and said the fee is “in line with the cruise industry competitive standards.”
The reporting materials reviewed for this story do not include a primary industrywide table that would allow a full line-by-line comparison of automatic cruise gratuities. But a February travel-industry gratuity comparison included in those materials said some cruise lines charge as much as $25 per person per day in automatic tips. On that limited comparison, Holland America’s current $20 suite rate is below the highest figure cited, though the source material did not provide a complete industry dataset.
Some travel-industry reports included in the brief also said Holland America raised automatic service charges on some onboard purchases, such as bar, spa and specialty dining transactions, from 18% to 20%. The official Holland America FAQ snippets reviewed for this story did not independently confirm that separate change, so this article does not present it as established company policy from the line’s own records.
For now, the clearest documented finding is the one Holland America posts on its own FAQ pages: the line is automatically adding $18 per day for non-suite guests and $20 per day for suite guests as Crew Appreciation, and the company says those rates can change. The materials reviewed for this article did not include Washington-specific complaint data, a state consumer-protection inquiry or action by a local port or tourism agency tied to those charges.
