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This is Cruise Radio.

Hey, I was going. My name is Doug Parker.

Thank you so much for checking out this episode of Cruise Radio. Very happy to have you here, my friend. The very first official episode of 2023. Welcome aboard. On this show, we'll have a review of Royal Caribbean's Serenade of the Seas, answering some of your listener questions. But first, Cruise News with staff writer Richard Sims. Hey, Richard.

Cruise News with staff writer Richard Sims, happy new year, buddy. And happy New Year to you and all the

listeners as well. Another year, another gratuity hike. I like to describe the way cruise lines handle

their gratuities, the way your mom handled your friends. You know, like your mom would say to you, if all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you? And, you know, and in your head, you're like, well, yeah, I guess I would. But you never say that to your mom. Cruise lines are the same way. Once one raises the rates, you know all the others are going to follow. So in recent weeks, we've seen, you know, we've seen Princess do it.

We saw Norwegian do it.

And so now here comes Carnival.

The price is going up for standard stateroom guests is going up from $14.50 to $16 per guest per day. And for sweets, it's going from $16.50 per guest per day to $18

per guest per day. And, you know, on the service, that doesn't seem like an awful lot. It's like,

you know, a buck 50 a day. But then you say it's a buck 50 per day, or I'm sorry, a buck 50 per day per person per day.

And if you got a family of four shoved in that state room, suddenly you're looking at, you know,

a hundred bucks adding up real quick, real easy. So I've said it before and I'll say it again.

I don't know why they don't just run these things right into the price of your cruise so that we don't know how much we're paying for the gratuities. I mean, we all know there are reasons they don't do that that we don't really talk about, but it would be smart on their part because they wouldn't be bringing attention to the fact that they're constantly doing this. The last time they raised rates was last May. So it hasn't

even been a year since they raised them. Meanwhile, there's also the internet. The internet prices are

going up a little bit as well. The social plan, which basically lets you tweet and tell everybody

what a great time you're having, is going from $10.20 to $12.75 per day. The value program is going from

1445 a day to $17 per day. And the premium package is going from $17 a day to $18.70 per day.

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