‘I Prefer To Tip In Cash’: Cruise Passenger Cancels His Automatic Gratuities. Here’s Why

The war over tipping has mostly been fought at counters. The iPad spun around, the 20% default button, the guilt engineered into a checkout screen—but David Zhu took the fight to sea. 

In a TikTok posted to his account, @unczhu, Zhu walks up to a cruise ship's guest services desk with exactly one item on the agenda: getting the automatic daily gratuities pulled off his onboard account. Then he shows the envelope of cash he says he plans to hand out instead. 

He never says which line he's sailing, which ship, or what was in the envelope. However, a Google Image search suggests he is on an MSC Cruises ship.

Guest Services, We Have A Problem

His caption lays the whole thing out in one sentence. “Going to Guest service on a cruise to remove the automatic gratuities because I prefer to tip individual hospitality workers in cash,” it reads. 

No build-up, no three-part storytime, no “you guys are not going to believe this”—just a man announcing an errand. 

And by his account, the errand works. He goes to guest services, the automatic gratuities come off, and the video appears to show him producing the envelope right at the counter, cash packed and ready. Whether any bills change hands at the desk or stay packed for later isn't something the clip settles. 

The Envelope, Please 

The plan for the cash is specific. It goes on the table at the end of the meal, where the staff who actually served him can pick it up directly instead of vanishing into an account somewhere and reappearing as a number on somebody's payslip. 

The logic, as he lays it out: a tip should be a transaction between two people who were both in the room. You can watch cash land in a hand. You can't watch a distribution formula. 

This leaves the one question the video can't answer: Does the envelope do what he thinks it does? 

Cruise Auto Gratuities: What You're Really Canceling

Start with the number. On Royal Caribbean, the automatic daily gratuity hits your account at $18.50 per guest per day, $21.00 in a suite. 

Per guest, not per cabin. The Points Guy points out that a family of four in one room can be staring at more than $70 a day, close to $500 over seven nights. That's why anyone walks up to that desk. 

Here's the part that gets lost: it isn't a tip you hand your steward. It's a pool. Carnival says 100% of your gratuities are distributed to the crew you interact with, plus everyone behind the scenes. Royal Caribbean's version stretches to “others who work to enhance the overall cruise experience.” 

It doesn't cover everybody, either. Cruise Critic reports that a laundry attendant “is usually not compensated with gratuities.” The same reporting explains why the charge exists at all: cruise lines added it in the 1990s because the old cash-at-the-end system meant “even more crew members got stiffed.” 

Sit with that one. The envelope isn't a workaround for the pool. The pool was the workaround for the envelope. 

So, can you just do this? Forbes reports removal is possible on most mainstream lines, though “rarely encouraged.” What no line publishes is where your cash ends up afterward. Pocket or pool, it isn't on the record anywhere. 

‘As a Crew Member, THANK YOU FOR THIS!!!'

Viewers in the comments section were split on whether gratuities—automatic or not—were necessary.

Bama Belle wasn't interested in the logistics. “I would much rather let them automatically take my gratuities. The whole point of being on a cruise is to make vacation easier. No way I'm carrying around a bunch of bills to hand out here & there to only the staff members we see.”

This is a fair point about vacations. Not having to think about it is most of the product. 

Kalï_YorkiPoo says they've been running Zhu's play for a quarter century: “It is a must. Been cruising for 25 years and I absolutely refuse to leave them on there. I tip cash and I am extremely generous. As someone who has worked in the casino business for 25 years going I understand Tips and what it means to the staff. Take the auto gratuities off and tip cash to the ones who directly serve you. Don't balloon the checks of others as your direct staff won't see much of it if anyway. Tip in cash.” 

That's the case for the envelope, argued by somebody who spent a career on the other side of a tip jar. 

Then, omg_thats_wild26 shared a line that hands out the envelopes for you. “Disney also gives you envelopes in your state room so you can tip your team in cash,” they wrote. “They have a break down of how your auto gratuity split I'm very curious on how accurate it is.” 

So, Who's Winning the Tipping War? 

At sea, the scoreboard only moves in one direction. Forbes reports Carnival raised its daily rates again this spring, part of an industry drift that has pushed most mainstream lines into the high teens per person, per day. 

The more interesting move is happening at the edges. A growing list of lines, Virgin Voyages and Oceania among them, now folds gratuities into the fare and charges nothing daily at all—no line item, no desk visit, no envelope. The tip didn't get more voluntary. It just stopped being a decision. 

Critics, in Forbes's telling, see the automatic charge as a mandatory fee that hides the real price of a cruise. The lines counter that it's how everyone who worked your trip gets paid, whether or not anyone remembers an envelope. 

AllHipHop contacted MSC Cruises via press email. This story will be updated if they respond. Zhu declined to comment via TikTok direct message.

Sabine Joseph reported, verified, and edited this story and is responsible for its accuracy. An AI drafting tool was used to assemble the initial structure.

@unczhu Going to Guest service on a cruise to remove the automatic gratuities because I prefer to tip individual hospitality workers in cash. #cruise #cruisetips #cruisetok #cruiselife ♬ original sound – €