Breakfast for 4 in PH1?

[Wendy The Wanderer]

JimandStan, I think I'm going to hate the answer to this question, coming from Regent. But do you believe that a butler, if you don't have special expectations of him, should be compensated extra, over and above the gratuities you've already paid?

[JimandStan]

JimandStan, I think I'm going to hate the answer to this question, coming from Regent. But do you believe that a butler, if you don't have special expectations of him, should be compensated extra, over and above the gratuities you've already paid?

 

We tip more....a lot more.... but to be honest, we run our Butlers ragged.

 

We entertain often in the room,sometimes with a large guest list and need a great deal of "help" reconnoitering with friends in the Specialty Restaurants.

Those Reservations won't make themselves, and amending them if we would like to dine with friends could work out to be a full time job!

 

We could do most of it ourselves, I suppose, but having the Butler to lean on for such details opens our schedule up to more pleasant diversions.

 

Because of the way that Oceania has designed the onboard experience, we have never taken a cruise where our Butler has not added immeasurably to our vacation, even when we have not started out with "expectations". So, let your conscience be your guide.

 

My guess is that you will end up being very generous, and wishing that you could smuggle your Butler home in your luggage. :rolleyes:

[Wendy The Wanderer]

...So, let your conscience be your guide.

 

My guess is that you will end up being very generous, and wishing that you could smuggle your Butler home in your luggage. :rolleyes:

 

Conscience? Thanks Jim (or Stan), but I doubt it. We've had butlers before and barely used them at all. Yes, I guess we might want him to wrangle some reservationds (since we will have a couple of sets of friends onboard) but that's his job, right? And we might have room service once (we hardly ever do.)

 

Here I thought that pre-paid gratuities meant just that. If it turns out we make use of him a lot, we'll reconsider I guess, but not even sure of that.

[hondorner]

Wendy, on the maiden voyage we hardly ever used the butler -- in fact, he would stop us in the hallway and beg for something to do. But, we were on a port-intensive cruise where we were busy every day, played trivia every day, dined with friends and never had dinner in the suite, had breakfast with friends every day (almost always in the GDR), went to shows every evening and helped Jim hold the Martinis bar steady every late evening. We never even had time for afternoon canapes from the butler.

 

He was so anvious to please, and was so helpful when Jim enterained (we were two suites apart and had the same butler) we still left him something extra, but not up to the amounts mentioned earlier.

 

However, most of the time we have not had a butler, and most of the time we have let the automatic gratuities suffice.

[Mura]

Okay, I will chime in here.

 

On our first few cruises when butlers were available we didn't use them at all. NOT AT ALL.

 

Then I blew out my knee boarding a train for a visit to Girona the day before we boarded Regatta in November 2005, and since I could hardly walk we used the butler a LOT. We were very lucky to have gotten an upsell to an OS which turned out to be necessary given my need for a wheelchair to get around the cabin. We wouldn't have had room in the PH we'd originally booked to get around in a wheelchair. And the Jacuzzi was REALLY a blessing.

 

We had most breakfasts in the room on that trip although this was before you could order dinner in your suite from Polo or Toscana. (And if we could have back then, we didn't know about it!)

 

But we did use the butler a lot on that cruise. And that convinced us to use them ever since, although we haven't used them to the extent that Jim&Stan have done! We thought about parties on the few occasions when we were in a BIG suite, but somehow never did.

 

We've never felt the need to tip in advance (that is above and beyond the recommended amounts) because even when we have used the butler, we felt the recommended gratuity was sufficient. If we were to have an en suite party the way Jim & Stan do, no doubt we'd tip over and above, although not necessarily in advance.

 

No matter how much we have used (or NOT used) a butler, we never had felt that service was lacking because we did not tip in advance.

 

They do a wonderful job. (And Howard has learned to use the butler for shoe shining and the like ...)

 

Mura

[Wendy The Wanderer]

Thanks Mura, and Don. We'll see I guess. If this butler is as useful to us as the butlers we've had on Regent (i.e., not at all), we won't be tipping extra, that's for sure. BTW, we too have found the afternoon canapes too much for us, so we generally cancel them.

[Sail2?]

Thanks for all the feedback, I guess we will also play it by ear and see how much we use the butler.

[ClaudiaF]

Thank you for your answer, we will be on Riviera. As the cruise is port intensive, we thing that it would be easy to have a quick breakfast together in the cabin and then going on excursion.:D

 

It would be faster to just go to the dining room:rolleyes: