I'm Doug Parker, and this is your Sunday morning news brief for October 21st, 2018.

For the first time in over two years, Carnival is hiking gratuities.

Effective December 1st, stateroom gruities will increase from 1295 to 1399 per person per day.

Suites will also increase to 1599 per person per day.

The gratuity breakdown is listed as follows.

Housekeeping team gets 435 of that.

The dining team gets 689, and alternate services get 275.

If you're booked on a cruise after the increase, you can pay the current rate if you prepay

your gratuities before December 1st.

Princess Cruises is changing traditional dining times, making them up to an hour earlier on some

sailings.

Guests were notified by email of the change, and it was met with some pushback.

Some of the guests had dining times in the 4 o'clock hour.

Princess said these changes were made based on preferences and trends we saw on our ships

and to more accurately reflect the actual dining times on board. The Minister of Tourism in the

Bahamas says the island will no longer be paying incentives to the cruise lines. In the past,

the government paid up to $12 million a year to the lines to secure their business. He said the

island needs to concentrate less on getting people to the lines to secure their business. He said the island needs to concentrate

less on getting people there and more on improving their experience. Virgin Voyages announced

earlier this week that their first ship will have a tattoo parlor on board. The venue,

Squid Ink, will have a resident artist and provide tattoos and body piercings on all

sailings. Their first ship, Scarlet Lady, will be delivered in 2020.

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