cruziJenn

Totally agree. Some may want to settle up their accounts. Some may be questioning or disputing a charge. Some may be looking to lower or remove tips. Some may be there for another reason. Unless one can overhear what each guest says to the GS staff, there's no way of knowing, only guesses.

 

I'm usually no where near GS on the last night, so I wouldn't have a clue what the long line is about.

DH once had to go to GS to straighten out a declined card. It was declined because it was being used so far away from home. The GS person called the card company and then let DH speak to them and he got it cleared up. But the GS area was a little noisy and I could barely understand what DH was saying on the phone and I was standing right beside him, and the next person in line was waiting several feet away.......

Where are you cruising to? If to the Caribbean or Mexico then yes the passport card is the only thing that you'll need for her.

Seems we have a lot of Polyannas on here with tunnel vision. “It did not happen TO ME so therefore it is a lie”. They say “seeing is believing” but some of you are pretty fanatical about that. :)

No matter. Who cares what you believe. It’s not a big deal (like chair hogs or something). Actually, I have never seen a chair hog so they do not exist. :'):')

Have a nice day.

The OP asked for "Thoughts?" and a lot of "thoughts" have been offered.

Don't they sell that art in the nightclub during the day?

Not every day and certainly not the first day....not that I have ever seen anyway...

EXACTLY! I would have expressed my concerns to leadership. You can't fix what you don't know is broken. I speak as a manager. I thank people for bringing up issues. Now, are they always telling the truth? No. Is there ever a contextual issue or misunderstanding? Yes.

 

I've never had a Carnival employee "beg" for tips. If the OP had that happen, it really should have been reported so they could correct it.

That has been my #1 point as well, and thank you for stating it so clearly and concisely.

Patrick,

 

It has been been a few years since I was on the Breeze but if I recall correctly, there is a night club on board. The only time the ship officially uses it is at night.

 

I am sure if you request the use of it during the day for a Meet and Greet, they will be willing to assign it to you.

 

Several years ago, I organized a M& G on snother ship and had contacted someone at Carnival to arrange all this ahead of time. An events co ordinator contacted me on board and everything went smoothly

YES nightclub, don't remember about Breeze but on Magic there is a big one on deck 5 beside the Red Frog pub, between there and the piano bar. LOTS of space, and during the day it was always open/empty except once or twice when a special function was going on.

(add) and on deck 4 I think there are 2 other clubs for different age groups, and if you can get one of those it may be a little more quiet and less busy than on deck 5.

I was somewhat in doubt. If you play I hope you win.

Thank you, same to you, and I did win a nice LITTLE bundle on Magic a few weeks ago, first time ever playing. But it wasn't nearly enough to make me want to tip the cashier who only took about 30 secs to run my card and count out my money.

Historically in America casino cage tellers are frequently tipped by big winners. It's not usually as much as what is tipped to the dealer but a gesture of thanks is often given. See? The more we talk about tipping the more we learn. :)

Well thank you but I already knew that casino winners can be very generous lol.....

I took my first Carnival Cruise without dive-in movies two months ago. While it is still a fantastic vacation, I will purposely only book ships with dive-in movies. It is that good

If they would just make the popcorn last a little longer :rolleyes:;)

"Originally posted bycruziJenn

So you're not old enough to know that everyone that you listed there gets paid at least minimum wage or much higher and don't have to depend on tips as supplements to their below minimum income?"

What makes you think there is a minimum wage at sea?

I wasn't talking about 'at sea' there and I don't recall ever seeing any bank tellers or insurance sales people on cruise ships. Casino cage crew yes but I'm not going to even try to guess how much they get paid. I don't really care and they're nowhere on my list of considerations for tips.

Oh, and some of us are just tight arsed bastards.

Lol ;p but you know that a huge number of us Americans love you Aussies anyway :rolleyes:

And I think that a lot of us would also prefer a much more simple 'system'....

I highly doubt I would have taken even half of my cruises taken if it wasn't for the dive-in movies. I don't like the shows and used to get bored in the evenings. With the movies, I can lay out under the stars and catch a new movie every evening. When we first started cruising we would take about 1 cruise every 2-3 years. Now we take 2-3 cruises every year and I always look for a ship that has a big screen on it.

Same with us, it's never an absolute factor but on our last several Carnival cruises we have really enjoyed at least 1 or 2 Dive In movies every cruise and mostly don't really care for the shows....and so do a lot of other people because we (now) know that to get any good seating at all for a movie we have to grab a spot way ahead of the start time.

(add) and it isn't just for the movie itself, it's the atmosphere of watching a good movie under the stars on the top of a cruise ship.

Your assumption of my age could not be more WRONG. I am of the age to remember when a 10% tip was generous, you rarely if ever saw tip jars on counters, and suggested tips were not printed on your bills at restaurants. And I will never agree with the posts here that I have to tip every worker on the ship. It is not my responsibility to supplement the entire staffs income. To me, a tip is given as an appreciation for good service. The better the service, the bigger the tip. And please read my first post in the thread. I did not say I would not tip.

What about the major point that I was making that your comparing bank tellers and insurance salespeople etc to waiters is totally wrong? Of course I agree with you 100% that [extra] tipping is an expected response to above average service but that post that I responded to was not fair to an industry that depends on tips as part of 'base pay'....and if I ever tried to tip one of the tellers at my credit union they might just call the crazy wagon on me :rolleyes:

Even if one is not old enough to understand the payment system that encouraged and incubated the tip system, one can in this day and age, read the historical context that gave rise to tipping proliferation.

 

Ramona

They certainly can if they actually want to.

Some people will complain about absolutely anything.

Between this thread and the "Carnival lines" thread going on, there's a lot of bashing going on. Both of which are proven disingenuous.

 

Makes me wonder what the motive behind them is. Why do people have so much hate in their hearts for things that don't matter. If you don't like Carnival, there are dozens of other cruise lines that would love to have you. No sense in lying about your experience to make others justify your decision.

This.

I receive service from a bank teller, convenience store clerk, high school secretary, HR person at work, my insurance agent and the lady behind the counter at the post office. I don't go throwing dollars bills at them every time I interact with them...or never for that matter. If you do, you are a better person than me. Sometimes it is as simple as people just doing their job.

So you're not old enough to know that everyone that you listed there gets paid at least minimum wage or much higher and don't have to depend on tips as supplements to their below minimum income?

I love all the Carnival apologists and cheerleaders on here. I don’t doubt this happened one bit. They have been getting more and more pushy for years and it’s extremely unfortunate because it puts me in a very uncomfortable place.

"more and more pushy"....I have no idea what you're talking about. It is not being apologist it is stating facts and personal perceptions and experiences. But if Carnival makes you so "very uncomfortable" there are so many other ways to spend your vacation money....just like we do, cruising is absolutely not the only way that we vacation at least every 3 or 4 months and Carnival is not the only Cruise line that we use or think about using. Now to go full out there are probably just as many Carnival bashers here as there are supposedly cheerleaders or whatever.

On the way out, the dining room staff kept saying “please help us, you are feeding our families.”

I know they work hard and everything but I think this crossed a line. It was very uncomfortable and honestly, felt like people begging on the street to the point that I don’t think Carnival is an option anymore as it wasn’t just them.

...it has really gotten out of control and I don’t see how anyone could think it is ok for dining staff to yes, beg, for more tips to feed their families as people are leaving. Thoughts?

This thread got "out of control" because of how we were all set up by the first post, that's what we read first and everyone knows about first impressions. But IF begging for tips onboard the ships really has gotten out of control then the cruise lines really need to take some kind of meaningful action to get it back under control. I totally disagree that it has gotten out of control but I'm just saying. How else would anyone expect us to respond?

I don't know if contracts between cruise lines and excursion vendors in port countries include a "do not beg for tips" clause (apparently not!! lol) but as for the ship itself they most certainly should be able to and are expected to require their own employees to follow certain protocols about how to relate to guests that pay a lot of money for the PLEASURES of cruising and expect just a minimum of annoyances. The ship environment is one thing and the otherworld ports are another thing. One is a floating pleasure paradise and the other is where people live. (Even Royal's Labadee 'private island' is the country of Haiti and so we should expect that things are different there...and I use Labadee as as example because the 'begging' for our money is as extreme there as anywhere that I can think of. But that's Haiti not Royal or Carnival.)

And the thing about this whole question of begging or demanding tips or any other less than pleasant behavior is that probably for every one needy person that has a job with a cruise line there are 5 or 10 other just as needy people that would absolutely love to have that job. And so who are we doing a favor by not responding appropriately and to the right people about unwelcome behavior? I am not trying to be cruel or over reactive or unreasonable but if there really is a problem with "one waiter" but especially if there was a larger trend developing.....a 'movement' of some kind among MDR or other staff on one ship or many ships?....then absolutely yes that kind of problem should be brought DIRECTLY to the cruise lines attention because they are the only ones that could do anything about it.

And my last point before I shut up for good on this subject....isn't the idea of promotion or salary bump and so on based on merit? And shouldn't that be a comparative measure of both positives and negatives? If one waiter's relative value to Carnival is measured only by a blank sheet or (WORSE) by only 5 star survey ratings or mentions that are so often encouraged....who is that being fair to?

Sorry for running on and on, I just think that fair is fair and you either perform properly in your job or you don't...and if you don't, well then....and if only one person is somehow doing a bad job, a whole company or industry should not get the rap for it. And probably I have said so much here just because I remember how much we ENJOYED our MDR experience on our April cruise on Magic....THANK YOU CHRISTIAN FROM ROMANIA!!....lol in case Carnival really is reading this thread...and that was exactly the opposite of the criticism that I have read here.

Yes, a waiter. I'm not mentioning the ship because reps from the lines read these boards and I am not at all remotely interested in getting anyone "in trouble" or fired from a job I'm sure they need, no matter how small that possibility is.

 

I think pre-paid grats have, oddly enough, probably resulted in a reduction in earnings for tip dependent employees and this was his way of letting us know....maybe.

If reps read this board then you SHOULD name the ship so that it could at least be dealt with in a communication to all of the MDR staff on that ship. If this really is happening anywhere and if Carnival cares anything at all about their customers happiness and peace of mind then I'm certain that they would want to address it. I am very sure that no cruise line wants its high dollar cruise environment to deteriorate into something that resembles a second or third world country. Having this happen in ports is one thing and we expect it to some degree, but on the ship from cruise line employees?? Not just no but......

Sure it does. They asked for tips because either the OP did not tip or did not tip well enough to the dinning staffs liking.

Maybe I have been living in some kind of cruise bubble for the past several years but even when we have not tipped MDR wait staff or room stewards (no we don't always tip extra) we have absolutely never been asked directly by any ship staff to tip. That includes Magic just 7 weeks ago, tho we did tip our waiter beginning on the second night and our room steward on day 4 or 5. But anyone that tries to beg or guilt trip me for an extra cash tip may end up losing even their share of the autograts if I could do that. I hope someone that would do that is reading this.

As much as I love dance music I didn't know about this either so thanks for the info (will look for it from now on) and can imagine that is probably almost as much fun to watch as it is to headphone :D

Scooter would be MUCH better for her and I believe they are usually narrower than a wheelchair. As for elevators I have defo seen people back them in (but if they can be backed in then they can also be backed out) and usually people are going to be very accommodating or maybe even helpful. Yes there are always jerks and whiners but that is on THEM not you.

But with all of the people that will be trying to find places to sit with their baggage I agree with LCTXcruiser that outside may be a better bet. There is more space on deck 5 than anywhere else that i can think of...besides the casino....is that a possibility?

(Add) I just realized that you will probably want to have the m&g after the cabins open up so that could make it a lot easier.

Ocean plaza is L shaped, one part is directly between the 2 outdoor lanai areas and then it wraps around. Or if you could get the piano bar opened up that would hold as many people as the red frog pub or maybe more....or if they won't open that for you there is some space just in front of the piano bar but I don't remember if it's big enough for even half that many people.