Tipping on Oceania

[nigelc]

5 minutes ago, jackdeb said:

Obviously have touched a nerve with UK cruisers about tipping, it is a good thing they have their famous sense of humour to see them through this crisis.

 

Nothing to do with tipping, just not keen on key board warriors and their promoting shooting or keelhauling people who have a different view to them. This forum is about cruising and readers/posters should not be subjected to such nonsense. You call it humour, I call it bad taste.  

[robbie21]

Although it has been often repeated it appears to have been missed by some of our non American fellow travelers - in American culture and practice tips are expected and are a significant and even major portion of basic income for service staff.  When you reduce or eliminate the "automatic" tips on your bill you are effectively reducing base pay.  Luxury lines that "include" tips are simple paying their staff a higher base salary to make up for this.  One should consider the automatic tips simply as part of the cost of the cruise; a not very hidden cost. Whether this is rational or reasonable is beside the point. It is what it is.

 

Most of this thread consists of comments about rewarding exceptional service with additional tips.  This is entirely a personal choice, but as the comments indicate, a common practice.  Those individuals who contend that poor service justifies reducing or eliminating the "automatic" tips are penalizing/hurting the many service staff members they never encounter; the cooks, laundry workers, dishwashers, etc. That is simply unfair.   Should you encounter poor service you should report that individual to supervisors or comment on the mid and end of cruise surveys.  If  you are unhappy with the entire experience vote with your feet and go elsewhere.  But please do not penalize the vast majority of hard working crew tha is trying their best to please you.

 

Robbie

[nigelc]

11 minutes ago, robbie21 said:

Although it has been often repeated it appears to have been missed by some of our non American fellow travelers - in American culture and practice tips are expected …..

 

This is often repeated but is certainly not missed by us non-American travellers. However, while it is American culture, it certainly is not every countries culture. When I am in the USA, I do feel that I should follow the "norm", but with the greatest respect, we non American travellers do not always take kindly to be told that we need to tip because it is American culture when outside the USA - in simple terms, you cannot force the world to be American. Indeed, we must remember that it is not in the majority of the crews countries culture either. As I have said in the "thread", I am happy to tip for good/excellent service and would not remove them for even ok service. However, I would not reward poor service, and while I am happy to raise issues regarding poor service with management, they tend to take more of an interest once you start reducing the gratuities.

[robbie21]

Nigelc - it appears that you do not "get it".  When you are on Oceania (and many other cruise lines) you are effectively in "American culture".  Oceania is an American owned company and caters to a majority of American passengers.  By your own admission you follow the norm when you are physically in the US.  Just because the ship is physically elsewhere does not mean that the American norms and practices (and wage policies) are not followed.  I don't know how tips are handled on Cunard, never been there, but should I someday cruise with them I will certainly determine what is the cultural norm and comply with it

 

I fully understand that tipping practices vary. My Australian friends always remind me not to tip like an American when I am there and I respect their position and comply.  Same in Europe.  I do have to note that service staff in other western countries are generally paid a significantly higher base pay than are Americans.  As previously stated, the more or less mandatory tips make up the difference.  One can argue that this is neither fair or "right" but it is the norm.

 

Please do not be an officious jerk and reduce income for all service staff for the omissions of a few.  Reward exceptional service with your personal tips (additional) or mention in reviews and punish poor service by reporting it.  And, if it is your position that the overall service experience was below standard you can certainly say so on this board and elsewhere but do not take it out on the junior service staff.  If the overall experience is poor it is the result of bad management and poor supervisors and they are unaffected by your withholding of tips/income of their lowly subordinates.

 

Robbie

[nigelc]

You are right, I do not get it - but with respect, I do not think you do either. While you might think you are in "American Culture" you are not - just look at the flag the ship is flying. Indeed, I have been on numerous cruises where there are more non Americans but you guys still want to carry on as if you are in the USA - that's fine, do as you wish but please do not dictate what others must do. We are not being cheap but merely expect something for our tips. If I book and pay for 5 star service then that's what I expect as the norm - better than that and I am happy to tip. However, the real issue is that staff should be paid a fair wage but while American travellers feel the need to tip no matter what, and often on top of the set gratuities, this will never happen. Take one of the previous posters who had the drinks package (which incudes gratuities) but still tips each server 18% - not because of the good service, but because its the custom. As I said before, it might be your culture but it is not everyone's - and sorry, tips are never mandatory. Think about it, what you are saying is that if the service is extremely poor, you still are going to give a tip - from an English view (well mine anyway) that's crazy.

 

 

 

 

[keithm]

2 hours ago, robbie21 said:

Nigelc - it appears that you do not "get it".  When you are on Oceania (and many other cruise lines) you are effectively in "American culture".  Oceania is an American owned company and caters to a majority of American passengers.  By your own admission you follow the norm when you are physically in the US.  Just because the ship is physically elsewhere does not mean that the American norms and practices (and wage policies) are not followed.  I don't know how tips are handled on Cunard, never been there, but should I someday cruise with them I will certainly determine what is the cultural norm and comply with it

 

I fully understand that tipping practices vary. My Australian friends always remind me not to tip like an American when I am there and I respect their position and comply.  Same in Europe.  I do have to note that service staff in other western countries are generally paid a significantly higher base pay than are Americans.  As previously stated, the more or less mandatory tips make up the difference.  One can argue that this is neither fair or "right" but it is the norm.

 

Please do not be an officious jerk and reduce income for all service staff for the omissions of a few.  Reward exceptional service with your personal tips (additional) or mention in reviews and punish poor service by reporting it.  And, if it is your position that the overall service experience was below standard you can certainly say so on this board and elsewhere but do not take it out on the junior service staff.  If the overall experience is poor it is the result of bad management and poor supervisors and they are unaffected by your withholding of tips/income of their lowly subordinates.

 

Robbie

Cunard pays pretty much the same as the other lines.

[keithm]

5 hours ago, jackdeb said:

Obviously have touched a nerve with UK cruisers about tipping, it is a good thing they have their famous sense of humour to see them through this crisis.

Not sure I'm seeing their humor. Now your humor I get!

[robbie21]

nigelc - basically we have a definition issue.  In America and in American run businesses (like Oceania, etc.) recommended gratuities are not tips.  Sounds silly but that's the way it is.  "Recommended" gratuities are part of the base salary.  This silly system allows the cruise line to advertise fares that are lower than they would be if they did as you say they should and "paid a fair wage".  But they don't.  There are also tax advantages for the cruise line under American law. On a 10 day cruise Oceania R ships generates roughly $100,000 in gratuities which are not taxable income to the cruise line.  If they raised wages and raised fares to compensate they would pay a considerable corporate income tax.  I know this is not entirely logical but that's the way it is.

 

FYI - base server salary in American fine restaruants is often $3+5.00 per hour which is well below the legal minimum wage. With tips they might net $40 or maybe a lot more per hour.  That income is taxable at their individual rate which is usually lower than the corporate rate. And, of course, cash tips are often not reported 😊.  Generally servers are not at all unhappy with this system.

 

So, as I said previously pay the full fare including the gratuities and reward or penalize individual performance as previously recommended.  In this crazy business recommended gratuities are part of the fare. And please do not penalize those in the tip pool that did not even see you.

 

As you note, some of my countrymen tip reflexively.  Some of your countrymen reflexively fail to tip even though custom dictates that they do.  Many travelers from all countries, perhaps most, do as I do and conform to the cultural norms of the country/area we are traveling too.

 

Robbie

[Mura]

About 5 years ago our Danish friend who was visiting us took us to dinner at a local restaurant (Brooklyn Heights, NY) and didn't leave a tip ... because it wasn't her custom at home.  We were talking and she just forgot.  She knew the custom here was different from Denmark.

 

The manager came chasing after us after we left and Sisse was absolutely mortified that she'd forgotten.  She knew the customs both at home and in the U.S., but had been distracted.

 

So the waiter got his tip!  It wasn't a matter of "inferior service", it was just she forgot where she was for the moment.

 

Mura

 

[keithm]

15 minutes ago, Mura said:

About 5 years ago our Danish friend who was visiting us took us to dinner at a local restaurant (Brooklyn Heights, NY) and didn't leave a tip ... because it wasn't her custom at home.  We were talking and she just forgot.  She knew the custom here was different from Denmark.

 

The manager came chasing after us after we left and Sisse was absolutely mortified that she'd forgotten.  She knew the customs both at home and in the U.S., but had been distracted.

 

So the waiter got his tip!  It wasn't a matter of "inferior service", it was just she forgot where she was for the moment.

 

Mura

 

A few years back my spouse & I were in a restaurant in Chinatown in Boston. Just as a patron was leaving, the cook & waiter came running out of the kitchen(the cook wielding  a meat clever)There was a real altercation with words & the patron put money down on his table & quickly left. My spouse who's Chinese basically said the patron was from Japan(where tipping is considered an insult)was not leaving any tip & the staff at the restaurant persuaded him to reconsider. My spouse when he first came here from Singapore didn't tip much either. My chewing him out many times  finally seemed to work. Personally, I think we should have gone to that rest. 25 years ago. It would have saved me a lot of arguing! 

Edited April 22, 2019 by keithm
additions

[Free and Easy]

Woow.......clearly this hits the nerves of some of our fellow Cruisers! As I said right upfront when I raised the question, I do know this can be a controversial (and emotional!!!) subject.......My personal take from all the exchanges is that yes perhaps we should always pay the Gratuity irrespective as there are indeed a lot of staff who work behind-the-scene and a lot who are good even if we may have received not so good service from a few, and it is unfair to penalise all for a perhaps just a handful bad minority. Beyound that, may be we just leave it to individuals and one just follows what you heart tells you :).

[pinotlover]

Oceania staff is paid by individual contracts with that staff member. Their pay is set forth by that contract. Their individual pay does not change, per that contract, if someone either eliminated their gratuities or doubled them at the front desk. Their pay isn’t altered whether there are 800 or 1280 aboard ( for an O ship). Do you believe that the compensation of that server in The Terrace buffet line gets paid differently depending upon total passengers aboard and/ or how many contrive to the gratuities pool??? The only extra money the staff sees is what you hand them in an envelope!

 

Oceania does, as many companies do, award staff with recognition and occasionally bonus for exceptional work. None of this has anything to do with the gratuity paid at the front desk. The payment of gratuities, by those that do in fact pay them since many of us get PPG, is just another income stream for Oceania.

 

Fairly narrow minded to believe that Oceania can run a cruise ship , with a vast array of international staff, the way a restaurant in Omaha or even NYC with a few employees does! 

Edited April 22, 2019 by pinotlover

[robbie21]

1 hour ago, pinotlover said:

Fairly narrow minded to believe that Oceania can run a cruise ship , with a vast array of international staff, the way a restaurant in Omaha or even NYC with a few employees does! 

 

After reading pinotlovers comments above I did a web search on the question, "Do cruise ship staff actually receive automatic gratuities?".  Multiple sources including several cruise critic articles, USA Today, various travel blogs, etc. indicate that they do indeed receive the gratuities.  Further, it is reported that salaries (contracts) are set so low that gratuities can amount to as much as 95% of income.  If interested you can do your own web research.

 

So, it appears that the cruise industry does, in fact, operate exactly like a restaurant in Omaha or NYC.

 

I also picked up the notion that cruisers from countries that do not have a tipping culture should think of the gratuities as "Service Charges".  Service charges are fairly common in my experience in restaurants in Europe and they are not optional.

[pinotlover]

Robbie;

 

I’m not arguing your web search, just commenting on what staff has told me about how Oceania does it. Some staff have made comments that the reason Service is so consistently good on Oceania is because they pay the staff better than most lines and O can pick and choose it’s employees better than other lines. If Sales only sold 3/4 capacity of the ship, and your check back home was going to be so cut, staff attitude on that cruise might not be so great. You’d see more of the Carnival service!

[robbie21]

Well, I agree with you that Oceania pays its staff better than, say, Carnival. And although I was unable to find a specific reference to Oceania's policy on distribution of gratuities I am still certain that a significant portion of Oceania's service staff income is from the gratuity pool. It is the way the business works.  Yes, their base pay is set by contract and does not vary as you say. But gratuities are distributed in addition to that contractual amount.

 

I think that if the gratuities were "just another income stream for Oceania" as you stated and if employees were not paid any of the gratuities, as you suggested, well then some smart lawyer would have sued the hell out of them for, at least, false advertising. I suspect the tax collectors would also be interested in getting their cut.

 

I did find that non service staff such as engineers, deck hands, etc. - basically below decks staff are not part of the gratuity pool and are paid per contract.  I understand that some of these categories are members of unions/associations that negotiate their pay scale.

[Classiccruiser777]

To our non-US friends, in the US many service employee’s wages (waiters, doormen, bellhops, bartenders, etc.) are lower than the minimum wage due to the fact that a large percentage of their traditional take home pay is from “tips.” The federal government even calculates how much a person in a service career should be making in case of self underreporting income on federal tax returns.

 

One of the best pieces of advice I read on the Cunard blog was that “It’s your money, it’s your business.”

 

I tip and leave the auto-gratuity in place. I couldn’t imagine working on a cruise ship, any position. I worked for a few years in a US hotel and kitchen where tips were the bulk of my pay. Most of the customers were great but some were unbearable. I earned every penny.

[Hawaiidan]

On 4/22/2019 at 2:44 PM, Classiccruiser777 said:

To our non-US friends, in the US many service employee’s wages (waiters, doormen, bellhops, bartenders, etc.) are lower than the minimum wage due to the fact that a large percentage of their traditional take home pay is from “tips.” The federal government even calculates how much a person in a service career should be making in case of self underreporting income on federal tax returns.

 

One of the best pieces of advice I read on the Cunard blog was that “It’s your money, it’s your business.”

 

I tip and leave the auto-gratuity in place. I couldn’t imagine working on a cruise ship, any position. I worked for a few years in a US hotel and kitchen where tips were the bulk of my pay. Most of the customers were great but some were unbearable. I earned every penny.

It might be too understood  that in the tax codes a person who works in a service industry where tips are usually given, is taxed at a  rate the government feels is or should have been their un-reported tips.    So a guy making $2000 a month   may get taxed on a sum 10 to 15% higher. 

 In essence if you stiff  a service person  he will still get taxed on  what you should have given him.  Rather than adding to his wage   your lack of tip is  adding to his taxes and reducing his overall pay..  

If your truly withholding a reward /tip for rotten service,, and you complained and it was not corrected thats one thing.  

However, there are a lot of people of ours and other western cultures who do so because they are just plain cheap and it is an excuse.

[ropomo]

It should be obvious that there are a wide range of opinions on tipping.  However, the cruise lines have to attract and retain high quality staff which means that the staff must walk away at the end of the day with a wage they think is fair.  To accomplish this they establish a policy of either "included  gratuities" or "suggested gratuities".  Rest assured that the cruise lines can predict, with a fair amount of certainty, what the passenger participation in the gratuity "pool" will be and the cruise to cruise daily "gratuity" does not vary greatly.  I would imagine that the cruise line pretty much knows how deep the "pool" is before the first passenger steps on the ship.  Beyond that, threads like this are merely throwing stones at one another because "you" don't think exactly like "me".  Whether Jane/Jim Doe chooses not to or to tip is merely a ripple in the pond, it's already factored in.

[firsttimers68]

As a frequent cruiser and a British one at that, 😉 I do give tips to those staff who have gone above and beyond, wait staff, bartenders, certainly room attendants. I often find there are a few staff who i really click with and they make my cruise that bit more special. I certainly appreciate all the effort they make on my behalf and feel a few extra dollars, euros, pounds, are well worth it. As a previous poster said, I do it quietly and unobtrusively. I'm sure they appreciate it as much as  do their wonderful service. 

[Glenndale]

I often see North American guests claim that they have their gratuities included by their TA

but this is generally not the case in the UK.

Have I got this wrong, maybe someone could enlighten me.

Do most North American TA's comp. the gratuities??

I really hate to see the 'cheap' insults bandied about by some posters, please agree to disagree, no need to resort to insults.

🤗

[bbtondo]

I just booked my first Oceania cruise.  I live in the US.  My TA gave me OBC and $$ as a perk which I can use for gratuities if I like.

[pinotlover]

The answer to PPG is two fold.

 

1. Most often Oceania will offer PPG to clients of a Travel Agency consortium to help sales of particular cruises. That benefit appears to be rotated around consortiums, so one group may have them for one cruise while another group has them for a different cruise. Historically harder to fill cruises may have PPG offered by multiple consortiums. Therefore, even though one’s documents say XYZ provided PPG, it is actually a pass through from Oceania.

 

2. For some passengers a TA may provide PPG as part of their customer’s rebate. This appears to be rarely used lately in that most find it easier to just give OBC and allow the cruiser to use the money as they see if. 

[Hawaiidan]

4 hours ago, Glenndale said:

I often see North American guests claim that they have their gratuities included by their TA

but this is generally not the case in the UK.

Have I got this wrong, maybe someone could enlighten me.

Do most North American TA's comp. the gratuities??

I really hate to see the 'cheap' insults bandied about by some posters, please agree to disagree, no need to resort to insults.

🤗

In the US, and speaking only of my Agent,    he will give me many times gratuities  + a OBC + a cash rebate to show his appreciation for my patronage.       Not all do this   

 Its a business and some people  settle for less, or their agents just plain dont offer things like rebates, discounts or gratuities.     More experienced customers ask for much more of an agent and when they find a excellent one  they form a relationship that can lasts for years. 

   

I am aware that the  agents in UK and Australia are rather tight with handing out benefits as a general rule.   True there can be some good ones  but that, as you said is not the norm.   Each sector of the global market is run differently hence the zone fares

After you sail more than 9 cruises  O will reward you with  gratuities thereafter.if your a US/Can customer.

[LHT28]

6 hours ago, Glenndale said:

I often see North American guests claim that they have their gratuities included by their TA

but this is generally not the case in the UK.

Have I got this wrong, maybe someone could enlighten me.

Do most North American TA's comp. the gratuities??

I really hate to see the 'cheap' insults bandied about by some posters, please agree to disagree, no need to resort to insults.

🤗

Not all agents provide PPG

some top producers get incentives from the cruise line & pass the PPG onto their clients

Then there are  those with Oceania club Gold status& above   that get PPG  from the cruise line as part of the loyalty benefit

I think some of the Gratuity pool goes into the crew  benevolent fund & rewards etc..

I  give extra to the housekeeping staff & sometimes the wait staff if we sit in the same section a lot

Barristas  may also get  an extra tip from us as we are there daily 😉

 

 

 

[sunlover12]

6 hours ago, bbtondo said:

I just booked my first Oceania cruise.  I live in the US.  My TA gave me OBC and $$ as a perk which I can use for gratuities if I like.

That is impressive.   We don't cruise often but we've been on Oceania more than once. I live in the US too and have never had our TA pay for gratuities or given us an OBC. The most we have ever gotten from a travel agent is a bottle of champagne, sometimes not even that.  I guess I don't know the right people.  ☹️  The main reason we use a TA is to ask for help in case something goes wrong. We have always paid gratuities ourselves. Our next Oceania cruise is this summer using the same TA. I'm not expecting anything from them and would be very pleasantly surprised if we got something more than a bottle of champagne.