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Gratuities


Missymssy
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There are a couple of possible benefits:

  • Avoiding a foreign transaction fee.
  • Being able to spread on board expenses over a couple of billing cycles
  • If you pay your bill in cash, less cash to have to worry about
  • For river cruises, where the on board currency is not dollars, you might save a couple of bucks on the exchange rate (or then again, you might not). No, this isn't being cheap, the crew will still get the same amount regardless of what you pay out of pocket.
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I love not having to worry about it.   I love not having to worry about having enough cash at the end of our cruise or not having to stand in a long line at customer service at the end of our cruise to add it to our account.  If we want to add more we still can.  If we want to slip a favorite person or a few extra we can still do that, too.

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1 hour ago, SeesAtSea said:

Peregrina651,

 

Do you mind a private email? A silly question I’m embarrassed to ask publicly! SeesAtSea

 

Always happy to help. My e-mail is in my signature file for anyone who wants to use it. Just remember to take out the spaces.

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But the gratuity gets automatically added on, at least on Ocean. Then we give extra to our cabin stewards and other folks. Plus you can use the onboard credit that you got from your TA to help towards the gratuities.

Edited by stretchcruz
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Firstly, unless we have received outstanding service, we do not tip.  

Secondly when we have booked a cruise which states that gratuities are included we don't tip.

 

End of story - it's not a matter of finances, it's just how we are.

I really don't get this 'compulsion' to show-off with tipping.  We were on one particular cruise (not a VO) cruise, and the competition to tip more than others became really vulgar; in the end it all got rather offensive.

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On 2/3/2019 at 3:55 AM, Parsley Cruises said:

Firstly, unless we have received outstanding service, we do not tip.  

Secondly when we have booked a cruise which states that gratuities are included we don't tip.

 

End of story - it's not a matter of finances, it's just how we are.

I really don't get this 'compulsion' to show-off with tipping.  We were on one particular cruise (not a VO) cruise, and the competition to tip more than others became really vulgar; in the end it all got rather offensive.

Amazing.  I have never once known onboard how much any other cruise guest did or did not tip.
On Viking Ocean tipping is behind the scenes and not visible to others, avoiding the scene described.

 

Edited by philw1776
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Lol, wow. I certainly didn't mean to start another tip/don't tip discussion! I AM tipping, I just asked if there was a benefit to do so early (prepay). I must have remembered reading that for those outide US. In any case, I apologise! 

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5 hours ago, Missymssy said:

Lol, wow. I certainly didn't mean to start another tip/don't tip discussion! I AM tipping, I just asked if there was a benefit to do so early (prepay). I must have remembered reading that for those outide US. In any case, I apologise! 

 

Oddly, these kinds of conversations tend to sprout wings of their own--but that's not your fault. You asked a legitimate question and hopefully it has been answered.

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We don't pre-pay gratuities.

 

Peregrina's list made me think. One possible disadvantage to pre-paying would be if you had to leave the ship early due to illness or injury. Then you have paid gratuities for days you were not onboard. Unlikely but a possibility.

We DID pre--pay the drink package, only because DH thinks it is so inexpensive that he is afraid they will raise the price-lol.

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4 hours ago, broker1217 said:

We don't pre-pay gratuities.

 

Peregrina's list made me think. One possible disadvantage to pre-paying would be if you had to leave the ship early due to illness or injury. Then you have paid gratuities for days you were not onboard. Unlikely but a possibility.

We DID pre--pay the drink package, only because DH thinks it is so inexpensive that he is afraid they will raise the price-lol.

 

Would that not be recoverable under one's trip insurance? Along with other expenses for trip interruption?  Depending on your policy that is.

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10 hours ago, Peregrina651 said:

 

Would that not be recoverable under one's trip insurance? Along with other expenses for trip interruption?  Depending on your policy that is.

 

You are, of course, correct! Our insurance is most often via our credit card and they cover 100% of everything.

They even covered our pre-booked airport parking when we had to cancel a trip.

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On 2/3/2019 at 1:55 AM, Parsley Cruises said:

Firstly, unless we have received outstanding service, we do not tip.  

Secondly when we have booked a cruise which states that gratuities are included we don't tip.

 

End of story - it's not a matter of finances, it's just how we are.

I really don't get this 'compulsion' to show-off with tipping.  We were on one particular cruise (not a VO) cruise, and the competition to tip more than others became really vulgar; in the end it all got rather offensive.

How interesting.  I've never been on one single cruise where how much one tips becomes a topic of conversation let alone vulgar and offensive.  Just out of curiosity,  does your paperwork recommend tipping since you are from the UK?  It's so hard for some of us to fathom not tipping.

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7 hours ago, broker1217 said:

 

You are, of course, correct! Our insurance is most often via our credit card and they cover 100% of everything.

They even covered our pre-booked airport parking when we had to cancel a trip.

 

No, actually I was asking. I wasn't sure. All those little details on the various policies are so confusing.

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47 minutes ago, jiminyC_fan said:

Just out of curiosity,  does your paperwork recommend tipping since you are from the UK?  It's so hard for some of us to fathom not tipping.

In the UK gratuities are included in the price.  The tipping culture in the UK is so very different to that in the USA. From reading many posts tipping in the USA seems almost mandatory whenever a service is received, very different in the UK.

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47 minutes ago, Hockeyump said:

In the UK gratuities are included in the price.  The tipping culture in the UK is so very different to that in the USA. From reading many posts tipping in the USA seems almost mandatory whenever a service is received, very different in the UK.

Thank you for your answer.

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We sail in 2 weeks and pre-paid tips last month. I prefer to have as many expenses as possible covered prior to any trip I take.  Since these are automatically added anyway, and I cannot imagine service onboard would be so poor we would ask to have them removed, we chose to get it out of the way and will tip extra should we experience extraordinary service onboard.

 

We do the same for our river cruises that don't include tipping.  On our river cruises (AMA, Uniworld, Amadeus are our favorites of the 6 lines we have traveled with) the service is generally exceptional and there are always staff we tip extra.

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18 hours ago, Hockeyump said:

In the UK gratuities are included in the price.  The tipping culture in the UK is so very different to that in the USA. From reading many posts tipping in the USA seems almost mandatory whenever a service is received, very different in the UK.

FYI People in the US tip because service workers here, in many cases, live off their tips. There is no universal heath care and the minimum wage is lower if you receive more then $30 a month in tips ($2.30/hr vs. $7.25/hr). It's a sad state of affairs. Basically employers expect YOU to pay the majority of the salary of THEIR employees.

Edited by OneSixtyToOne
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On 2/3/2019 at 2:55 AM, Parsley Cruises said:

Firstly, unless we have received outstanding service, we do not tip.  

Secondly when we have booked a cruise which states that gratuities are included we don't tip.

 

End of story - it's not a matter of finances, it's just how we are.

I really don't get this 'compulsion' to show-off with tipping.  We were on one particular cruise (not a VO) cruise, and the competition to tip more than others became really vulgar; in the end it all got rather offensive.

 

It's a UK / US culture thing.  The US service people are severely underpaid and their living wage depends on tipping, thus they strive to get that 25% instead of the "standard" of 15%.  I will likely pre-pay the tipping just because I bet knowing me, I would be likely to spend more than that in individual tips.

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On 2/6/2019 at 11:53 AM, OneSixtyToOne said:

FYI People in the US tip because service workers here, in many cases, live off their tips. There is no universal heath care and the minimum wage is lower if you receive more then $30 a month in tips ($2.30/hr vs. $7.25/hr). It's a sad state of affairs. Basically employers expect YOU to pay the majority of the salary of THEIR employees.

 

I get what you are saying but if you think about it, whether we leave a tip or the menus prices are sufficient for the owner to pay his employees a living wage, paying guests are the only source income for the business hence, we do pay the salary of the employees--along with the cost of the food and all the administrative expenses of the business.

 

There have been some restaurants that have tried a no tipping policy and the customers complained so much that they had to return to the old tipping policy.

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17 hours ago, Peregrina651 said:

 

I get what you are saying but if you think about it, whether we leave a tip or the menus prices are sufficient for the owner to pay his employees a living wage, paying guests are the only source income for the business hence, we do pay the salary of the employees--along with the cost of the food and all the administrative expenses of the business.

 

There have been some restaurants that have tried a no tipping policy and the customers complained so much that they had to return to the old tipping policy.

 

Which restaurants are you thinking about that went to no tips? 

 

Here is one article about restaurants that tried no tipping.

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/thetakeout.com/restaurants-reverse-no-tipping-gratuity-plan-1829439338/amp

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