I recently booked and paid for a cruise with Cunard to celebrate our 45th wedding anniversary, and I am now surprised to find I am expected to pay about £600 in gratuities, plus a 15% service charge on all drinks served. I have no problem with tipping when I have received good service, but I prefer to make that judgement. Do I have to pay these charges? Chris Kerry, Kings Lynn

Sunday Times travel expert Richard Green responds: Tipping onboard cruise ships has always been controversial. Some cruises leave the issue entirely to your discretion, and encourage you to drop off an envelope to the purser at the end of the cruise, others take off a non-refundable amount as standard, others ban tipping, and Cunard, in common with many of the main cruise lines, has a system of automatically charging a non binding $11-$13 USD (£7.50- £8.80) per passenger per day onto your onboard account.

Cunard says "We introduced this automatic charging system to set clear guidelines and avoid the embarrassment many people had on the last morning with passing on envelopes to the purser, but guest can quite easily have this removed or decreased by making a visit to the Pursers Office at any time during the cruise".

This rather assumes that it isn't embarrasing knocking on the purser's door in order to remove the tip charges though.

If the idea of automatic tipping charges, or handing out envelopes of cash is abhorrent to you, then for next times, cruise lines where there is a ban on gratuities include Seabourn, Silversea and Windstar. However, these are at the very high end cost-wise.

Incidentally, there is a bizarre little cruise tip calculator too, at www.cruisetip.tpkeller.com, where you enter the name of your cruise line, the number of passengers and the length of your cruise, and it estimates the tips total you should budget for.

Times recommends

• The smart guide to travel blogging
• 30 top takes on New York
• Europe's 20 best Christmas markets 2009