Gratuities going up..

[JimmyVWine]

Why don't they do whatever they do on land, sure don't tip busses there, do you?.

Of course you do. When you add 20% to your bill on land, lots of people share in that. Bussers. Maitre'd. Wine steward. Bread/water servers. And when you auto-tip on the ship the same thing happens.

[GUT2407]

Of course you do. When you add 20% to your bill on land, lots of people share in that. Bussers. Maitre'd. Wine steward. Bread/water servers. And when you auto-tip on the ship the same thing happens.

 

And if you give the waiter cash on land he shares, why not at sea.

[krrgolf]

Possibly, but, at the same rate? I bet is LESS, jmo. Imo, if it were the same or more, what is the advantage for them to remove the tips? JMO.

 

 

Marie

 

No Marie, not in our case but what we do is reward the over and above expectation of service as explained in my earlier post. At least I know where the gratuity is going and that it is appreciated and not just a wage subsidy. If we all keep auto paying the cruise lines will continue to pay sub level wages.

[pablo222]

And Tom ... the "behind the scene" international workers sign their 6 month contracts with a fixed pay rate ... this is preset ... doesn't change depending on how many passengers were on each sailing, how many opted in/out of mandatory gratuities ... etc. My close friend spent one year working in the kids club ... her pay rate NEVER changed.

 

You're aware there are different jobs on ships, right?

 

Some jobs participate in the 'Fleet Gratutity Pool'.

Some do not.

 

Jobs like Cruise Staff, Youth Counselor, Dancers sign a contract

for a specific number of months at a specific rate of pay.

 

Jobs like waiters sign a contract for a specific number of months

with a small base wage, and participation in the 'Fleet Gratuitity Pool'.

[pablo222]

Its a misconception about Australia. No tips are factored into the price of anything.

 

I was referring to Princess Cruises originating in Australia.

Tips included in the price.

 

BTW, do you know an australian who used to post here as 'Karateman'?

[Corfe Mixture]

We normally pay auto gratuities and supplement this with personal tips and whilst I accept that the level of gratuities will increase with inflation, and the first rise did not impact our personal tipping behaviour, two not insignificant rises within twelve months will simply have the effect of causing us to reflect on the need for personal tipping.

 

So, in our case, the people who will potentially lose out will be our cabin steward and other staff with whom we regularly have direct contact during our cruise which makes it a very difficult call for us.

 

We approve of the principle of auto-tipping as it enables us to show our appreciation for the staff who work behind the scenes to make our cruise enjoyable. However, if it gets to the point where I start to think about the size my total gratuities bill and this reflects on our level of personal tipping, I might just ask if I can determine my level of contribution to the central fund as an alternative to removing auto-tips and relying solely on personal tipping.

 

It will be interesting to see what they say when I ask if I can elect to set my level of contribution to the central fund. Can't believe for one minute that they will say it is a binary choice between 100% of recommended or 0% of recommended

[JimmyVWine]

And if you give the waiter cash on land he shares, why not at sea.

We've been around and around on this, and never seem to be able to nail the Jello to the wall. See this thread, particularly posts #24, 25 and 34. It is not at all clear that if you tip directly and in cash that all of the people who share in the auto-tip pool will get a cut of the cash tip.

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2314688

Edited September 20, 2016 by JimmyVWine

[shredie]

I was referring to Princess Cruises originating in Australia.

Tips included in the price.

BTW, do you know an australian who used to post here as 'Karateman'?

 

We did a cruise from NZ to Aus this year, and it seemed weird not to get the gratuities bill at the end. Not that I'm complaining, but it's just a regular part of a cruise for us.

 

BTW: tee hee. :D

[Pierlesscruisers]

We tip our dinner servers and room stewards with cash.

 

And those employees are supposed to turn in those cash tips. Then at the end of the cruise, the on-board record of the person(s) giving those directly-paid tips are checked to see if the auto-tips have been turned off or left on. If they have turned the auto-tips off, then the directly paid tips are put directly into the tip pool. If they have been left on, they directly paid tips are returned to the employee. I found this out when I was asked by a junior waiter for my stateroom number. I told him but asked why he needed it and that was the explanation I was given. He then wrote the stateroom number on the envelope I had given him. Do all of them do this? I have no idea, but I suspect that he didn't ask for that information just for the heck of it.

 

These are a TOTAL scam. The gratuities do NOT go to the employees ... ask anyone who has worked on a ship.

 

My close friend spent one year working in the kids club ... her pay rate NEVER changed. She was always so appreciative for the cash tips from parents. If you find an American worker on board that trusts you ... they will probably share this with you as well. However, they would be fired if they were heard sharing this.

 

 

And Tom ... the "behind the scene" international workers sign their 6 month contracts with a fixed pay rate ... this is preset ... doesn't change depending on how many passengers were on each sailing, how many opted in/out of mandatory gratuities ... etc.

 

And some of those workers may or may not be a part of the "tip pool", something neither you nor I would have any knowledge of. For that matter, people who work ashore in a field where tipping is common (e.g. waiters/waitresses, etc.) also work for a "fixed pay rate" which is preset and doesn't change depending on how many customers are served each and every day, still receive tips, so the base salary has absolutely nothing to do with the matter.

 

As to your friend, I would suspect that working in a "kids club" might be a job where tips are handled a bit differently. Since the vast majority of cruisers on most of the cruise lines travel without smaller children (outside of the Disney line, at least) it would make no sense, at least to my way of thinking, that they would participate in a large, general, tip pool. After all, why should most people tip for a service that they never receive? Everybody on the ship receives services of room stewards and wait staff, so it would make sense that those people's contributions to a tip pool would be distributed to those employees.

 

Tom

[caribill]

 

As to your friend, I would suspect that working in a "kids club" might be a job where tips are handled a bit differently. Since the vast majority of cruisers on most of the cruise lines travel without smaller children (outside of the Disney line, at least) it would make no sense, at least to my way of thinking, that they would participate in a large, general, tip pool. After all, why should most people tip for a service that they never receive?

 

 

Correct. The kids club workers are not included in the tipping pool.

[RDC1]

These are a TOTAL scam. The gratuities do NOT go to the employees ... ask anyone who has worked on a ship. We ALWAYS go to the front desk, insist that we are going to tip directly, and they are removed. We tip our dinner servers and room stewards with cash. We do not tip the bartender since every drink already has an 18% gratuity that they do receive. You must ask that the gratuity is removed prior to the last day. They will give you a sob story, try to talk you out of it, but will remove it if you insist.

 

Actually the gratuities do go to employees. Here is why you can tell. The major cruise lines all list their stock on US stock exchanges. That means that they must follow US accounting rules, even though they are not US companies.

 

Under US accounting rules optional gratuities (which the daily ones are since the passengers have the option to change or remove them) are not considered to be income nor expense to the cruise line as long as they are distributed in their entirety to employees.

 

Now if they were made not to be optional then they would be considered to be revenue and the payments to employees to be expenses, At that point a cruise line might retain some of the money, but under the current system it all must flow.

 

Now if they were retaining some of the gratuity money it would need to be reflected in the companies income. It would be considered to be material and would need to be noted in the companies 10q and 10k filings with the SEC. Especially since it would be an unusual financial practice.

 

So since they are allowing the gratuities to be removed or changed and since they 10q and 10k filings do not reflect and comments about gratuities being included in corporate income, one can be fairly comfortable that the money is in fact being distributed to employees.

[RDC1]

The problem with your theory is princess in places like australia,

where tips are not optional, but included in the price.

 

Princess simply needs to include a few other countries in this plan.

 

Princess has a unit incorporated in Australia, (also in the UK and in Japan). As a result they do have some flexibility to do things a bit different in those areas.

 

All of the cruises where tips are included are done though one of those units and not directly with the main corporate office.

[WupperAV]

Have any of you written to Princess for a formal explanation or to complain? I don't care how much they raise them. I tip according to service rendered and will take away from people I think did not earn it. It's easy.:eek:

[monas queen]

These are not "gratuities", or "tips", which in my dictionary are "presents of money for service given". They are charges imposed by the company for service. They make up a large part of the service staffs' wages, which I consider to be an abomination, particularly as we live in a society that has laws about minimum wages.

 

The cruise companies should pay their staff at least a living wage, and if that means that they have to charge a more realistic up front fare, then so be it. At least we would all know better where we stand that way.

 

We used to cruise with companies that expected passengers to pay set amounts direct to cabin stewards and waiters. One of those companies decided to impose a charge onto the on-board account instead, and immediately afterwards, we noticed a very marked deterioration in their standards of service. Having seen people making similar comments, this does not appear to be co-incidence.

 

We no longer go with that company, or any other that expects you to pay additional service charges. We look for "gratuities included", and know that we will not then be hassled by the company or the service staff.

 

There is always the option of making a gift to a staff member who has given exceptional service, but even better than that is to praise them in person to their line manager, and/or to name them in the end of cruise questionnaire. One waiter, who we had praised direct to his Maitre D, thought that we were responsible for him getting an extension to his contract, that he had really wanted - worth far more to him than a tip. He has been our best friend ever since! We have also seen people that we have praised get promotions. It's lovely to see them progress. I think we are all (staff and passengers) much more relaxed than in the "tips are extra" regime.

 

Time for the companies to "see the light", and stop ripping off both their staff and their passengers.

[Pierlesscruisers]

These are not "gratuities", or "tips", which in my dictionary are "presents of money for service given". They are charges imposed by the company for service. They make up a large part of the service staffs' wages, which I consider to be an abomination, particularly as we live in a society that has laws about minimum wages.

 

The cruise companies should pay their staff at least a living wage, and if that means that they have to charge a more realistic up front fare, then so be it. At least we would all know better where we stand that way.

 

We used to cruise with companies that expected passengers to pay set amounts direct to cabin stewards and waiters. One of those companies decided to impose a charge onto the on-board account instead, and immediately afterwards, we noticed a very marked deterioration in their standards of service. Having seen people making similar comments, this does not appear to be co-incidence.

 

We no longer go with that company, or any other that expects you to pay additional service charges. We look for "gratuities included", and know that we will not then be hassled by the company or the service staff.

 

There is always the option of making a gift to a staff member who has given exceptional service, but even better than that is to praise them in person to their line manager, and/or to name them in the end of cruise questionnaire. One waiter, who we had praised direct to his Maitre D, thought that we were responsible for him getting an extension to his contract, that he had really wanted - worth far more to him than a tip. He has been our best friend ever since! We have also seen people that we have praised get promotions. It's lovely to see them progress. I think we are all (staff and passengers) much more relaxed than in the "tips are extra" regime.

 

Time for the companies to "see the light", and stop ripping off both their staff and their passengers.

 

Based on what you said in your 3rd paragraph, I guess that you don't cruise with Princess any more since they have the daily gratuities fee.

 

Tom

[pablo222]

Princess has a unit incorporated in Australia, (also in the UK and in Japan). As a result they do have some flexibility to do things a bit different in those areas.

 

All of the cruises where tips are included are done though one of those units and not directly with the main corporate office.

 

I'm sure that if princess wished to include tips in the cruise fare,

Princess or Carnival could come up with some registration-state-of -convenience to handle it without any tax consequences.

 

The company handling the casinos is registered in Panama. Maybe

they could handle tips.

[TracieABD]

We've been around and around on this, and never seem to be able to nail the Jello to the wall. See this thread, particularly posts #24, 25 and 34. It is not at all clear that if you tip directly and in cash that all of the people who share in the auto-tip pool will get a cut of the cash tip.

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2314688

 

Truly!

[cruiselover57]

Here is my question:

 

Our next cruise is April 2017, we will have $1100 OBC. If we prepay gratuities is there a way that we can use our OBC for that? If not, we would be better off waiting to pay on board with OBC.

 

Does anyone have the answer to this, would sure appreciate the input.

 

You're better of paying once you're on board and using your OBC. If you pay now, it will go directly to your credit card (that's what I've heard anyway). That's a good size OBC too and I'm sure it's non-refundable right?

Edited September 21, 2016 by cruiselover57

[TracieABD]

We've been around and around on this, and never seem to be able to nail the Jello to the wall. See this thread, particularly posts #24, 25 and 34. It is not at all clear that if you tip directly and in cash that all of the people who share in the auto-tip pool will get a cut of the cash tip.

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2314688

 

You're better of paying once you're on board and using your OBC. If you pay now, it will go directly to your credit card (that's what I've heard anyway). That's a good size OBC too and I'm sure it's non-refundable right?

 

With that much OBC- I agree. I would wait to pay until I am onboard.

[April_2000]

Very interesting article here:

 

http://www.cruiselawnews.com/2016/05/articles/fraud/carnival-hikes-prepaid-gratuities-but-will-passengers-secretly-remove-tips/

[GUT2407]

I'm sure that if princess wished to include tips in the cruise fare,

Princess or Carnival could come up with some registration-state-of -convenience to handle it without any tax consequences.

 

The company handling the casinos is registered in Panama. Maybe

they could handle tips.

 

And they manage it nicely in Australia.

[April_2000]

And another article here, with comments from crew members:

 

http://www.cruiselawnews.com/2013/02/articles/social-media-1/screw-the-crew-video-banned-by-royal-caribbean-youtube/

Edited September 21, 2016 by April_2000

[GUT2407]

And another article here, with comments from crew members:

 

http://www.cruiselawnews.com/2013/02/articles/social-media-1/screw-the-crew-video-banned-by-royal-caribbean-youtube/

 

Cruiselawnews, isn't really known as being unbiased about the cruise industry I hate to say.

[Aus Traveller]

Princess has a unit incorporated in Australia, (also in the UK and in Japan). As a result they do have some flexibility to do things a bit different in those areas.

 

All of the cruises where tips are included are done though one of those units and not directly with the main corporate office.

Princess cruises is NOT incorporated in Australia. It is a foreign company, part of Carnival Corportion & plc (since 2003). Please see the detail quoted below:

 

Princess Cruises is a cruise line based in Santa Clarita, California, in the United States and incorporated in Bermuda. Previously a subsidiary of P&O Princess Cruises, the company is now one of ten cruise ship brands owned by the world's largest cruise ship operator the American/British Carnival Corporation & plc and accounts for approximately 19% share of its revenue. It is part of Holland America Group, which controls the three Carnival brands based on the West Coast of the United States.

 

Although Princess Cruises is not incorporated in Australia, Carnival runs each of its cruiselines separately. The head office for Princess ships in Australia is in Santa Clarita, California, just as it is for Princess ships world-wide. Crew are moved freely from one Princess ship to another - they are not employed by an Australian company and limited to those ships.

 

Originally when Princess based ships in Australia, they had the auto-tipping system that operates in other parts of the world. In 2011 they announced that as Australians are not comfortable with tipping, the system would be changed. Auto-tipping was removed (1st May 2011), although passengers can tip if they wish to. Obviously, stewards & waiters etc who are part of the tipping pool elsewhere in the world are paid a higher rate of pay to compensate for the money they would otherwise receive from the tipping pool.

 

Incidentally, service is as good on the Australian-based ships as elsewhere.

Edited September 21, 2016 by Aus Traveller

[GUT2407]

Actually the gratuities do go to employees. Here is why you can tell. The major cruise lines all list their stock on US stock exchanges. That means that they must follow US accounting rules, even though they are not US companies.

 

Under US accounting rules optional gratuities (which the daily ones are since the passengers have the option to change or remove them) are not considered to be income nor expense to the cruise line as long as they are distributed in their entirety to employees.

 

Now if they were made not to be optional then they would be considered to be revenue and the payments to employees to be expenses, At that point a cruise line might retain some of the money, but under the current system it all must flow.

 

Now if they were retaining some of the gratuity money it would need to be reflected in the companies income. It would be considered to be material and would need to be noted in the companies 10q and 10k filings with the SEC. Especially since it would be an unusual financial practice.

 

So since they are allowing the gratuities to be removed or changed and since they 10q and 10k filings do not reflect and comments about gratuities being included in corporate income, one can be fairly comfortable that the money is in fact being distributed to employees.

 

 

Funny that they manage it in other parts of the world, even though they are still registered with the US stock exchange.