A former Royal Caribbean crew member recently posted a short video explaining, in his view, how the cruise line steals a portion of the tips intended for stateroom attendants.  We posted the video in an article Are Crew Members Receiving the Tips You Pay?  

Recently this cruise line announced that it was switching to a new system where it will automatically take money from its guests’ accounts purportedly for the purpose of being distributed to crew members as tips.  But many crew members have contacted us or posted comments to our blog stating that this is just another scheme to take money from the crew’s pockets.

We posted another article earlier this week addressing the new policy and the issue of tips: Royal Caribbean’s New Tipping Policy: A Money Grab to Increase Profits?  

We also have a active discussion of the issue on our Facebook page. 

But Royal Caribbean does not like its crew members revealing what is happening on its cruise ships. We learned that the cruise line threatened the former crew member and objected to the video. Today YouTube took the video down. Take a look below.

This is how foreign incorporated cruise lines (Royal Caribbean is incorporated in Liberia) view the First Amendment guarantees of free speech.

So this cruise line silenced one critic.  But its hard to hide the truth.  If you are a crew member, leave a comment below and tell us about the new tipping policy.             

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Mtaakkly_qU%3Ffeature%3Dplayer_embedded