tips question

[staceycs]

We leave on Sunday. ...yay! For this trip what do you tip for excursions? We are doing orca Enterprise, island wings and ocean rafting. After the cruise we are staying in Vancouver for a few days and have booked a 5 hour fishing charter. Do I tip the deck hand and Captain. How much. What if we don't catch any fish. What if we catch a bunch?

[PNW Traveler]

We leave on Sunday. ...yay! For this trip what do you tip for excursions? We are doing orca Enterprise, island wings and ocean rafting. After the cruise we are staying in Vancouver for a few days and have booked a 5 hour fishing charter. Do I tip the deck hand and Captain. How much. What if we don't catch any fish. What if we catch a bunch?

 

We tip the deck hand as well as the captain. The deck hands are most appreciative. We tip if we catch fish or don't catch fish, more generously if the skipper has made a special effort. Generally we tip a good 10% + on all excursions. Some will only tip a token amount, but the tours make their money for the year during the short summer season.

[agabbymama]

I don't do expensive tours, so not really familiar with the amount to tip for them. The most costly tour I've EVER done was in the Med for 100 EUR and we tipped the driver 10 EUR (10%). On our Alaska cruisetour, the most expensive excursion we booked was only $50 and we didn't tip at all as it was a drive to Husky Homestead and no real tour guide. On the cruisetour, HAL recommended the daily amounts for the driver and the tour guide, which we followed.

 

Only you can determine what the trip was and the value of the driver/guide.

[Hard-habit-to-break]

Living in Australia we don't tip, so I don't know who/when. I have been doing research but have a couple of questions:

 

We are doing a Tracy Arm tour, Bering Sea Crab Tour and Chilkoot Tours to Emerald Lake. I assume we tip someone on all 3 tours? Does it matter who it is - ie there are alot of people on the Bering Sea Crab Tour, do we just tip someone as we leave the boat?

 

What about the bus driver for Mendenhall? Do we tip them? When I have seen other people tip it seems like it is for everything or is there a point that you don't actually tip?

 

I realise that you tip taxi drivers, waiters, bellmen, housekeeping etc etc, just a bit unsure on tours.

 

We are also doing HOHO in Vancouver and Seattle, do we tip anyone there?

 

Just trying to work out $$$ before we leave on Friday.

 

Thanks,

Kirrarne

[peety3]

We are doing a Tracy Arm tour, Bering Sea Crab Tour and Chilkoot Tours to Emerald Lake. I assume we tip someone on all 3 tours? Does it matter who it is - ie there are alot of people on the Bering Sea Crab Tour, do we just tip someone as we leave the boat?

We did the Tracy Arm tour, and the captain made an announcement near the end that tips were welcome and would be split evenly amongst the crew. I suspect many of the larger crews do something like this.

 

I did a floatplane trip for a bear watch. Although it was run "through" ProMech Air, I suspect ProMech subcontracts with the tour guides in Neets Bay for the bear watch portion, so therefore I made it a point to tip the pilot as I felt he was particular helpful and flexible in storing my big camera/lens in the back for the flight while allowing me to sit with pretty much all of my other photo gear, maximizing my ability to shoot from my seat.

[Doandroidzdream]

You should never feel that gratuities are expected, but it is customary to leave a tip in recognition of exceptional service in restaurants, taxis and for excursion guides and drivers. It is always up to you to determine the amount.