We Hate These 11 Vacation Upcharges! Do Everything You Can to Avoid Paying Them

On cruises and at all-inclusive resorts, meals are typically built into the price of the trip. But if you have your eye on an upgraded cut of steak, lobster tail, foie gras, or other premium menu selections, it might cost you extra. Even more egregious are restaurants tagged as “specialty dining” that aren’t part of your package, leading to FOMO if you want to experience a five-course tasting menu or sushi dinner—a policy that’s especially irritating if other options are limited. Do your research before booking to see how many (and which) restos are included, making sure you have enough variety during the length of your stay.

There’s been an uptick lately in spa “hydrotherapy circuits,” which often amount to no more than glorified pools and hot tubs with jets and different temperatures. Call us underwhelmed. These trendy yet overhyped facilities always incur an average fee of $50 or $75—sometimes even if you book a pricey massage or facial. Besides the fact that they’re just way overpriced for the experience, they tend to get boring very quickly. And attendants instructing you to jump under a freezing cold rain shower or plunge pool or stay in the stifling sauna for an allotted amount of time might make the experience downright uncomfortable.

Hotel rooms are often stocked with water bottles adorned with tags inviting guests to enjoy the refreshment—for upwards of $7, $8, or even $10 a pop. Why must a basic need like hydration be so spendy, especially since you might be using the water to fill your coffee machine for your morning java? When it comes down to it, the tap water might be perfectly fine (and even better than bottled in places like Iceland or Switzerland). We hope more hotels follow the trend of daily glass bottles of filtered water in rooms or refillable stations on every floor—and providing a reusable bottle during your stay to cut down on single-use plastics.

Enough already with the towel cards. No guest should need to trade a piece of plastic for a basic pool or beach amenity, nor be made to fear a fine for not returning their scratchy, stained, worn beach towels at the end of the day. Ditto for losing your bracelet room key at an all-inclusive resort, which might have been attached too loosely at check-in and easily slipped off in the pool or when you were bodysurfing. Both of these charges are a total racket.

This mandatory fee can add an extra $25 or $50 to your nightly room charge. While the reservation agent or front desk attendant will rattle off all the amenities the resort fee covers, they’re often ones that you should be getting anyway, like beach chairs, use of the fitness center, wi-fi, and bike rentals. The kicker is that you pay this fee whether or not you use the perks, and most likely you won’t be allowed to opt-out. Some booking sites don’t list this add-on when you’re comparing properties and you’ll only see it at check-out, so read the fine print and decide if the extra coin per night is worth it.

We get it: you want to stay in touch, post photos, or stream a movie in between endless meals, lounging on the pool deck, and onboard diversions. Cruise lines know it too, charging around $10 per day for wi-fi access. While Royal Caribbean’s Zoom wins awards for its speed and reliability, wi-fi on other cruise lines is often painfully slow, especially during the evenings when many passengers are back in their staterooms. And if you have to get work done, keep in mind that VPN access may be blocked. Avoid paying these exorbitant fees by purchasing a package where it is bundled in with other services like beverages and excursions. Or if you have a good data plan, set your devices to airplane mode until you’re at port and then get your fix.

Of course renting a cabana or a daybed should come with an extra charge, considering you often get a food and beverage credit, replenished water,  towels, and a butler to attend to your every need. But sometimes the price for exclusivity is over the top. When the chairs are the same run-of-the-mill seating as the rest of the pool deck and you’re basically paying $250 for shade and a fancy fruit platter, you might want to reconsider.

Resorts might have a packed daily calendar of activities, from crafts by the pool in the morning to wine tasting at happy hour to evening trivia. But wellness seekers may be more interested in fitness offerings than a mixology class or chef demo. While aqua aerobics in the main pool may be a freebie, that beachfront morning yoga or HIIT class you saw listed in the app or on the resort channel of your television might set you back $30 each time. We understand paying for individualized sessions of personal training, but anything else should be a guest amenity.

More hotels are outfitting their rooms with high-quality coffee makers like Nespresso or Keurig. But still commonplace—and way less exciting to wake up to—are outdated, small drip coffee pots with pods filled with weak grounds. If you can’t make a decent cup of joe in your room (with filtered water that’s included, obviously), you shouldn’t have to pay $5 to buy a cup at the cafe downstairs. The norm should be lobby stations thoughtfully set up with coffee, cream (including a non-dairy option), sweeteners, and a curated selection of tea bags.

The fine print at most resorts states that non-motorized beach equipment like SUP, kayaks, floats, snorkel gear, and Hobie Cats are free for guests to use, while Jet Skis, underwater scooters, and the like are not. And that policy totally makes sense. But every once in a while, you’ll come across a property where you have to pay to rent items in the former category, which is pretty greedy since they’re low-maintenance and already set out on the sand anyway.

On cruises, gratuities of up to $20 per person per day may be added to your sailing. Likewise, at non-all-inclusive resorts, restaurants might tack on an automatic gratuity of 20% or more onto your dining bill, no matter the size of your party. We know you want staff to be adequately compensated, but these add-ons presume that the service you received was up to snuff. Shouldn’t guests be the judge of that?