SEATTLE, June 14 (Our Washington Times) — For Washington travelers pricing out a cruise, Holland America Line now lists an automatic daily “Crew Appreciation” charge of $18 per person for most staterooms and $20 per person for suites, according to the cruise line’s own FAQ pages.
That means the built-in charge adds up quickly. For two people on a seven-night trip, the total is $252 in a non-suite room and $280 in a suite. On a 14-night sailing, it reaches $504 and $560 before any other onboard spending.
Holland America says the charge is not a voluntary line item left to the end of a trip. In an onboard FAQ, the company says, “Crew Appreciation is a daily gratuity automatically added to your onboard account to recognize the many Holland America Line team members who make your cruise feel effortless.”
The same FAQ says the money is pooled across shipboard jobs. “Crew Appreciation appears as a daily charge on your onboard account, and it is pooled to support team members across the ship who contribute to your experience, including roles you see every day, and those working quietly in the background,” the company says.
A separate Holland America booking FAQ reviewed for this story lists the same rates — $18 per guest per day for non-suite staterooms and $20 per guest per day for suites — and says the amounts are subject to change. The onboard FAQ page in the source material was marked updated June 9, and the booking FAQ page was marked updated June 14.
The company FAQ text provided for this story does not include a dated notice showing when the current rates replaced the earlier ones. Fox News reported, citing company materials, that the higher rates took effect June 1. The provided secondary travel coverage reviewed for this story also uniformly described the move as a $1-per-person, per-day increase from $17 to $18 for standard cabins and from $19 to $20 for suites, but those earlier rates and the effective date were not stated in the Holland America FAQ text available here.
Fox News also reported that guests may adjust the daily gratuity amount while onboard. That detail was not included in the Holland America FAQ snippets provided for this story.
Holland America, through a spokesperson quoted by Fox News, said “100% goes directly to our shipboard team” and described the charge as “in line with the cruise industry competitive standards.”
What the company’s public FAQs make clear is the practical cost for passengers: the charge is assessed per guest, per day, not per room, and the suite rate now reaches $20 a day for each person booked. Holland America’s booking FAQ says those Crew Appreciation rates are subject to change.
