When people book cruises, most of them know that more charges are coming.
All the major cruise lines have gotten better about advertising prices including taxes and fees, but other charges still pop up. Both Royal Caribbean and Carnival Cruise Line, for example, collect a per-person-per-day gratuity that’s not included in the original price.
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Technically, these tips are not mandatory and cruisers can remove them, but most don’t and simply pay them. (They are, it should be noted, extremely important additions to the pay that cruise staff receive.)
In other cases added costs are optional as well. You fully get to choose whether you want to buy a drink package, upgraded dining, shore excursions, or anything else. Once you’re on board nobody makes you buy beverages and ice cream, play in the arcade, or do anything else that can add to your bill.
But both Carnival Cruise Line and Royal Caribbean charge their passengers one particular hidden fee in a certain scenario. Carnival passengers are mixed about whether the charge is fair or not.
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Image source: Carnival Cruise Line.
Carnival and Royal Caribbean charge for unreturned towels
Both Royal Caribbean and Carnival charge passengers for towels they check out and do not return. All towels for use at the pool or off the ship at the cruise line’s private islands or a port must be checked out using your cabin number and room key.
If you don’t return that same towel, you’re charged $22 at Carnival and $25 at Royal Caribbean). You incur this charge whether you left the towel at the pool or beach, stole it, or simply opted not to check it back in.
Some room attendants have been known to check towels back in on behalf of customers, but they don’t always do this. Sometimes you can leave pool towels on the floor of your cabin and still get charged.
This is done to prevent theft and give passengers the incentive not to abandon wet towels. And some passengers support this policy.
Many Carnival passengers recently commented on the topic in response to a post from Carnival Brand Ambassador John Heald.
“I don’t want to pay for someone else’s ‘lost’ towels,” Amy Klein Winters wrote. “Everything has a price tag, and if they need to be replaced, the cost is passed along to consumers.”
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Randi Wood agreed. “I think it’s good they charge for lost towels. Responsibility!” Wood posted.
Others think the cruise line basically has to charge.
“Imagine how many would disappear if they didn’t charge,” Michelle Stutts Johnson shared.
Peggy Hooks Baird echoed that sentiment.
“Exactly — if they didn’t charge, then some would think ‘FREE souvenir,’ which is stealing,” she wrote.
Some Carnival passengers push back over towel fees
Both Carnival and Royal Caribbean use generic, solid-colored towels. They’re not exactly souvenirs because there’s nothing marking them as being from the cruise line.
Still, they do go missing, but many Carnival passengers think some parts of the policy need to change.
Janine Calfo thinks the cruise line’s private islands should be exceptions.
“How does one leave towels at the beach and think it’s not their fault? Who’s fault is it? On a different note, if the beach is company-owned and they will be recovering the towels, I don’t think there should be a charge,” she wrote.
That creates another problem, according to Dave Teifel.
“That’s assuming that the person truly left it at the company-owned beach and didn’t stash it in their luggage to take home. No way to know for sure,” he posted.
Annie Roach echoed that thought.
“The problem with that is if the number of towels recovered vs missing from the staterooms doesn’t match up, how would they know who to charge?” she shared.
Some passengers think Carnival is not treating passengers well when it comes to towels.
“There are other lines that just hand you a towel when you get off and take it back from you when you get back on the ship,” wrote Gail Kapusnick.
“They also just have towels laying around at stations by the pool. Somehow they don’t seem to have the issue with people stealing towels that Carnival does. I just got off Celebrity, and they had gorgeous thick towels laying around everywhere. I was even almost tempted. But I guess their passengers don’t steal the towels.”
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Ann Cannon Bellamy says the towel charges are an issue the cruise line needs to address.
“I have had my room steward take my towels and then not replace only to be charged more than once,” he says. “I guard my towels. I carry them back to my room wet from beaches because I have also been charged after putting them in the bin when getting back onboard. The towels are a problem.”
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