How much cash for additional tips?

I don’t want you to get the wrong idea from all of these posts about tipping on a cruise, particularly if you are a first-time cruiser. Carnival adds a daily gratuity to your bill and those gratuities cover not only your steward and servers but lots of people behind the scenes that you never see. There is absolutely NO need to tip a single person on a cruise beyond the assessed daily gratuity.

 

If tipping is how you want to spend your money—fine, it’s your choice. But it’s not necessary and I imagine there are plenty of people like me who choose to let the daily gratuity take care of their tipping but don’t want to say so on CC.

I truly depends on the service you receive. We always give $5 to the porters and $20 to our room steward on the first day. Room service staff don't receive any of the CCL imposed tips, so I tip them as we go. If we receive great service we give additional tips to our wait staff and our room steward at the end of our cruise. It some times provides a benefit too. One of are cruises arrive about 5hrs late and asked guest to leave their staterooms, our steward told us we didn't have to leave.

 

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Don't forget your Uber/Lyft driver should you use their service in getting to/from your your port.

Here's what we did for our 7-day cruise:

 

MDR waiter - $20 (he was exceptional)

Room steward - $25 (she did well but we didn't ask a lot of her)

Private van drivers - $40 ea for the day (both very good)

Zip line guides - $20 for the two of us (good but not great)

Porters - $5 for 4 bags at embarkation (handled own bags after debarkation)

Maybe another $20 along the way

 

I agree with letting the auto-gratuities handle most of it (like the few times we went to the bars) but we felt the MDR waiter and steward deserved a little extra. Don't stress too much over it.

$150 for a week of additional tips should do it if you are unsure (rather have too much with me than be short), but as others have said, it is your choice.

 

We base our choices on what we do normally on a land vacation or in restaurants on any given day, door men, porters if we need them for travel, housekeeping, taxi or Uber drivers, bartenders or any other service we feel inclined to supplement. It is how we normally roll in life so for us, it is a no brainier on a cruise...

I usually take $100 in ones and $100 in fives.

Sometimes I use less, sometimes more.

How much cash would you bring for a 7 day cruise for additional tipping? And who would you tip and how much. Like I know the bag porters are $2 a bag, etc. This is our first cruise. We don't want to break our bank over tipping but we also don't want to be cheap. We know the folks on the ship work hard. We have two kids who will be in kids club. Should we tip them extra too?

It's all up to you.

I have no idea about tipping in kids club but the auto gratuities are sufficient unless you feel like being generous. Anything extra like the bar staff and spa will add on a tip automatically. How much cash I bring mostly depends on what we plan on doing in port. Many times you’ll pay excursions in cash plus I usually tip $5 pp for a half day tour and $10 pp for a full day tour (group tours, would tip more for a private tour). Plus you’ll want cash for souvenir shopping.

 

 

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How much cash would you bring for a 7 day cruise for additional tipping? And who would you tip and how much. Like I know the bag porters are $2 a bag, etc. This is our first cruise. We don't want to break our bank over tipping but we also don't want to be cheap. We know the folks on the ship work hard. We have two kids who will be in kids club. Should we tip them extra too?

 

I don’t bring extra for tips. I prepay all tips in ship. Porters don’t get tipped- they are longshoreman. Very seldom do people go above and beyond. It’s ludicrous to tip more to a bartender already getting 18%

Please tip the kids camp workers. They are not covered in the pre paid gratuities. (Not everyone as kids...) So, please tip them. We take $10 per child in camp, in $1s, the last night. They split it out between them. You could take more. I would not take less, especially if you use the service each day. We carry our own bags, 1 per person. We do prepaid gratuities. We tip $2 per room service order. We also tip taxi drivers, excursion operations, etc.

I usually take $100 in ones and $100 in fives.

Sometimes I use less, sometimes more.

This is exactly what we do. Going to the bank tomorrow for our cruise next week. It’s one of the happiest signs that a cruise is near!

For those who tip extra to the bartenders and coffee shop.....do you just add the “extra” tip to the receipt that you sign (which already includes gratuity) or do you hand them cash on top of the auto gratuity?

I don’t bring extra for tips. I prepay all tips in ship. Porters don’t get tipped- they are longshoreman. Very seldom do people go above and beyond. It’s ludicrous to tip more to a bartender already getting 18%

On the Sunshine, o tipped bartenders an extra dollar each round when I had Cheers. No matter what bar i went to, I got immediate service. A few times there was a huge line at the other end off the bar. One bartender I frequented saw me out off the corner of his eye and came right to me. You can be cheap and stand in line watching while I get served all you want!!!!

 

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Most of the answers seem about right. But now from someone who has driven tour busses for over 20 years. I always give the driver more then the guide. And I always hand the driver his tip directly. You would be surprised at the number of tour guides who stiff the drivers.

 

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On the Sunshine, o tipped bartenders an extra dollar each round when I had Cheers. No matter what bar i went to, I got immediate service. A few times there was a huge line at the other end off the bar. One bartender I frequented saw me out off the corner of his eye and came right to me. You can be cheap and stand in line watching while I get served all you want!!!!

 

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We also do this and have gotten the same prompt attention. On our last NCL cruise, a pool waiter would frequently go out of his way to proactively drop new drinks off before we had even finished our old ones. He remembered our names all week and was essentially our personal pool waiter. All for what probably amounted to less than $50 for the week.