Your time dining and tips.

[Kitt Grey]

A tipping question I have not seen here. I usually leave my tips alone my sail and sign card and may tip above if I feel it is warrented.

 

This will be my first time using YTD and am wondering how the tips are split if I do not use the dining room for supper. I understand with assigned dining the normal wait staff I have get the tips but with YTD there is no assigned waiters.

 

Now before I get flamed I am still planning to leave the tips as set but I am curious as to how this works.

[rocketmom09]

The first evening we were seated, we weren't too fond of our waitress. So the next night, we asked to be seated on the other side of the restaurant. We had an excellent waiter that night and after that, we asked for him every night. On the last evening, my husband gave him a tip. Having prepaid our tips, this tip was well deserved because he certainly made our dining experience fun and he was very attentive and remembered us each evening (our likes and dislikes).

 

So if you find a waiter you like, you can request that waiter each time.

[Kitt Grey]

I understand I can ask for a specific waiter but my question is what happens to the tip the nights I choose to not use the dining room at all. I am hoping to go to the steakhouse one night and my choose to either use toom service or the buffet another night.

[uppitycats]

I understand I can ask for a specific waiter but my question is what happens to the tip the nights I choose to not use the dining room at all. I am hoping to go to the steakhouse one night and my choose to either use toom service or the buffet another night.

 

 

Whenever you eat anywhere on the ship -- the buffet, room service, one of the smaller eating venues, the specialty restaurants -- someone "plates" your food, cleans up the buffet stations, restocks the food in the buffet, serves you dinner in the steakhouse --

 

and those folks are part of the tipping pool. And if you eat breakfast and/or lunch somewhere on the ship -- MDR, buffet, etc. -- someone is serving you, cleaning up before you come, restocking the buffet, etc.

 

Those "someones" are the people in the tip pool -- the waiters, assistant waiters, etc. They don't just wait around until you show up at dinner and rush out to serve just you. They're working at various food distribution places throughout the ship, and are earning every penny of the couple of dollars a day they get when the auto-tip is divided up among them.

 

When you go to the steakhouse you may see the same waiters that served you..or the table next to you..last night. When you go to the buffet, you may see your waiter serving up food on the buffet line. And so on.

 

So no one is getting cheated out of their tip, nor is anyone making "more" because of the autotip. That's why it works so well -- your autotip is properly divided up among all the folks..including room stewards, etc., that make your cruise pleasurable.

 

And as someone said, if you find a particular waiter that you particularly like..you can always tip extra that night.

[cullensmom]

I'm interested in the answer to this also. We've cruised 10 nights so far, but only gone to the MDR once (BAD experience and I've been avoiding a repeat). I haven't adjusted my tips, but wondered if others did.

 

Next cruise I'm going to try the MDR again...

[ChefSusan]

I assume that if you go to the Seaview Buffet for dinner instead of the dining room, your tips for that (those) night(s) would go into the tip pool for those who work up there. I know that if you go to the Steakhouse, that is an entirely separate entity - the cover charge ($30/person) supposedly includes tip, but we always leave a couple extra dollars for our service team up there.

 

Hope this answers your question. If not, then contact your TA or Carnival in order to get a straight answer.

[ChefSusan]

When you go to the steakhouse you may see the same waiters that served you..or the table next to you..last night. When you go to the buffet, you may see your waiter serving up food on the buffet line. And so on.

The servers who work in The Steakhouse are not the same people who work in the MDR. They are the creme de la creme of servers on the ship - most servers in the MDR would give their left arm to be part of the team up there.

 

The tips for the servers in the Steakhouse are supposedly included in the $30/person fee, but we always leave an extra $10 per person. Some may agree with this, some may say that we're out of our minds to do this. We have never gotten a bad meal there, nor have we ever run into a rude/slow/sloppy service team.

[navybaby1113]

I'm pretty sure what they do is take the tips for the wait staff from everyone and put it all into a big pool. Then, they divide that pool to all the wait staff. So, your tip doesn't go directly to the individual wait staff that serves you. It goes into the pool with everyone else and then it gets divided up. So it doesn't matter where you eat, everyone will still get a tip.

[uppitycats]

The servers who work in The Steakhouse are not the same people who work in the MDR. They are the creme de la creme of servers on the ship - most servers in the MDR would give their left arm to be part of the team up there.

 

The tips for the servers in the Steakhouse are supposedly included in the $30/person fee, but we always leave an extra $10 per person. Some may agree with this, some may say that we're out of our minds to do this. We have never gotten a bad meal there, nor have we ever run into a rude/slow/sloppy service team.

 

Both times that we have eaten at the Steakhouse we indeed have seen many of the same people who work in the MDR. So I'm speaking from my experience. Yours may differ.

[zqvol]

A tipping question I have not seen here. I usually leave my tips alone my sail and sign card and may tip above if I feel it is warrented.

 

This will be my first time using YTD and am wondering how the tips are split if I do not use the dining room for supper. I understand with assigned dining the normal wait staff I have get the tips but with YTD there is no assigned waiters.

 

Now before I get flamed I am still planning to leave the tips as set but I am curious as to how this works.

 

Very interesting question that I have never seen asked. I will speculate and suggest that the dining rooms tips that are not assigned to a particular wait team because you do not go to the dining room on a given night are pooled and divided among the Lido deck wait staff, on the assumption that you ate on the Lido deck that night.

 

I could be very wrong on this but logic says that something like that occurs.

[zqvol]

I'm pretty sure what they do is take the tips for the wait staff from everyone and put it all into a big pool. Then, they divide that pool to all the wait staff. So, your tip doesn't go directly to the individual wait staff that serves you. It goes into the pool with everyone else and then it gets divided up. So it doesn't matter where you eat, everyone will still get a tip.

 

This is not a correct assumption. The wait team that serves you gets your tips. They are not pooled, unless they are working on the Lido deck, MDR staff does not pool tips.

[patrice1]

With non-Your Time Dining, we tip at the end of the week. With YTD, we tip $3-5 at the end of each dinner and it works out to be the same as if we were in scheduled dining.

[papillon cruiser]

I may know the answer to this. We were on the Dream for YTD and asked that question. I was told that they take your room number (which they do) and assign the tips to the wait staff where you are seated. I asked about the night we went to the steakhouse and she told me that the tips for that night go into a pool. I am not sure if she knew for sure but that is the answer I got.:D

 

By the way the DREAM was FANTASTIC>WONDERFUL> AND THE BEST CRUISE EVER!!!!!

 

I thought the food was the best I ever had and was told that the TOP chef for carnival was on board.

 

ALso after 2 nights of disappointing WMCC, my waiter told me when I order it to let them know how I want it. (melting, THICK <icky>, soupy, or what ever), That did work!!!!

[Kurbanfan]

Carnival makes tipping so easy.......passengers make it so hard......

Leave it on the auto tip and don't worry about it and enjoy your cruise......

[Kitt Grey]

Thanks for the input. I am always curious about how things work and know the staff works hard for the money.

[DryCreek]

Carnival makes tipping so easy.......passengers make it so hard......

Leave it on the auto tip and don't worry about it and enjoy your cruise......

 

Yup, why make it so difficult?

 

If this arrangement wasn't fair, then Carnival would probably have a hard time staffing all of their positions.