Gratuities are included in every Explora Journeys fare. There is no daily service charge on your onboard account, no automatic percentage added to your bar tab or your dinner, and no envelope waiting in the suite on the last night. The fare you paid already covers the crew. You can hand a Host your empty glass, say thank you, and walk off without doing tipping math. That is the whole policy in one paragraph, and it is genuinely how it works.
I run hospitality for a living, so the tipping moment is something I watch for. On Explora I it never came. Not at the bar, not at dinner, not on the final morning. Below is how the included-gratuities policy actually plays out day to day, how it compares to what mainstream lines add to your bill, and the one place where tipping still applies.
Are gratuities really included, or is that marketing?
Really included. “Onboard gratuities” sits on Explora’s own list of what every fare covers, in the same column as unlimited drinks, ship-wide Wi-Fi, and eight of the nine restaurants. It is not a suite-tier perk or a promotion. It is the standard fare structure.
What that means in practice: nothing is added to your folio for service. No daily per-person charge. No 18 or 20 percent slipped onto a cocktail or a spa treatment. No “would you like to add gratuity” prompt on a receipt, because there is no receipt to sign at the included venues. When I checked my account at the end of a sailing, the only lines on it were the few flat-price extras I had chosen, and not one of them carried a service charge.
Are you supposed to tip extra anyway?
No, and the line does not encourage it. The model is built so that you do not have to think about it, which is most of the point for the hotel-luxury traveler who came aboard to stop managing logistics. Crew are paid through the fare, not through your daily decisions about who to hand cash.
Can you still tip extra? Yes. It is allowed and it is entirely discretionary. Some guests press a small personal tip on a Host who looked after them all week, and that is fine. But it is a gesture, not an obligation, and nobody is standing there waiting for it. If you tip nothing the whole voyage, you will not feel a single cold shoulder for it. I have watched the difference between “tipping is permitted” and “tipping is expected” on a lot of ships, and Explora sits firmly on the permitted side.
How is this different from a mainstream cruise?
This is where the included model earns its keep. On most big-ship lines, the headline fare is only the start, and the gratuities arrive as a separate daily charge plus percentages on nearly everything you buy onboard.
The 2026 numbers, for scale. Royal Caribbean adds 18.50 dollars per person per day for standard staterooms and 21 dollars for their top cabins, then 18 percent on top of every drink, beverage package, and specialty meal. Celebrity runs 18 to 23 dollars per person per day depending on your cabin, plus 18 percent on specialty dining and 20 percent on bars and spa. Across the wider market the daily figure sits roughly in the 16 to 25 dollar range per person, before the percentages.
Run that out. A couple on a seven-night mainstream sailing can owe 250 to 350 dollars in daily gratuities alone, and that is before the percentage adds on drinks and the spa. On Explora the same week adds nothing to your bill. The fare absorbs all of it. That is not a small line item dressed up as a feature. It is a real difference in what you owe at the end of the trip.
Is there a catch at the spa or the specialty restaurants?
No service charge, which surprised me, because the spa and specialty dining are exactly where mainstream lines apply their steepest add-ons. Explora does not. There is no automatic gratuity percentage on a spa treatment and none on its upcharge venues.
What does cost extra is a short list of flat-price experiences, and the price is the price with nothing added. The Anthology tasting menu carries a per-person charge. The wine bar pours rare bottles by the glass at a set price. A few of the more involved spa rituals are extra in the lower suite tiers. Those are menu prices, the same way ordering a bottle off a restaurant’s reserve list is a menu price. None of them adds a gratuity line on top, and everything else, the eight included restaurants, the thermal spa area, the daily-stocked minibar, comes with no service charge at all. The full ledger of what is in the fare and what sits outside it is on the inclusions page (/inclusions/).
So when do you tip on Explora at all?
Ashore. That is the one place real tipping still applies, and it catches people who assumed “all-inclusive” reached past the gangway.
Local guides and drivers on a shore excursion are third-party, not Explora crew, so the included-gratuities policy does not cover them. You tip them the way you would on any independent day out: by local custom, usually a few euros up to about twenty depending on how long the tour ran and how good it was. The practical move is to carry small bills in port. On my own sailings, the only cash that left my pocket all week went to a driver and a guide on land, never to anyone aboard the ship. If you are weighing whether to book Explora’s tours or arrange your own, the shore-excursions guide (/journal/explora-shore-excursions-guide/) walks through both.
The short version
Onboard, you do not tip on Explora, and you are not expected to. Gratuities are in the fare, nothing is added daily, nothing is added as a percentage, and there is no envelope. Carry small bills for guides and drivers ashore, and that is the entirety of the tipping you will do on the trip. If you want the rest of the all-inclusive picture, the cost breakdown (/journal/explora-journeys-real-cost/) shows where the fare goes, the inclusions page (/inclusions/) lists what the fare covers in full, and the worth-it verdict (/journal/is-explora-journeys-worth-it/) is the honest read on the whole thing.
Questions people ask
Are gratuities included on Explora Journeys? Yes. Gratuities are built into every Explora Journeys fare. There is no daily service charge added to your onboard account, no automatic percentage on bar tabs or dining, and no envelope on the final night. Onboard gratuities are listed as a standard inclusion on Explora’s own fare, the same as drinks, Wi-Fi, and most dining.
Do you have to tip on Explora Journeys? No. Tipping is not expected, and the line does not encourage it, because crew gratuities are already in the fare. You can say thank you and walk away without reaching for your wallet. Some guests still hand a Host a small personal tip for service that stood out, which is allowed and entirely optional, but nobody is waiting for it and you will not feel a gap if you tip nothing.
Is there a daily service charge on Explora Journeys? No. Unlike mainstream cruise lines that add roughly 16 to 25 dollars per person per day to your bill, Explora adds nothing daily. There is no per-day service fee on your folio and no automatic gratuity percentage on drinks, specialty dining, or the spa. The fare you paid is the fare, with crew gratuities already inside it.
How does Explora tipping compare to Royal Caribbean or Celebrity? On Royal Caribbean in 2026 the daily gratuity is 18.50 dollars per person for standard staterooms and 21 dollars for their top cabins, plus 18 percent on drinks and specialty dining. Celebrity runs 18 to 23 dollars per person per day depending on cabin, plus 18 percent on specialty dining and 20 percent on bars and spa. Explora folds all of that into the upfront fare, so a week aboard adds zero to your bill on top of what you paid.
Should you tip shore excursion guides on Explora? That is the one place cash tipping still applies. Local guides and drivers on shore are third-party, not Explora crew, so the included-gratuities policy does not reach them. Tip them the way you would on any trip ashore, by local custom, usually a few euros to twenty depending on the length and quality of the tour. Carry small bills in port for that reason.
Is there an exception for the spa or specialty restaurants? No service charge, no. Explora does not add an automatic gratuity percentage to the spa or to its upcharge venues, which is different from mainstream lines that tack 18 to 20 percent onto spa and specialty dining. A few experiences carry a flat price, like the Anthology tasting menu or the wine bar by the glass, but that is a menu price, not a gratuity, and nothing is added on top of it.
— Justin