Tipping the Butler

[Katiedid]

We have the butler upgrade on HMC (they now have the service in all the cabanas) But we do not have a clue what to tip.

 

There will be 4 people.

 

any help would be appreciated.....katie

[jhannah]

Tipping is a personal thing, so it's hard to say. However, here's my take. Under the "old" system, $3.50 per day per person was suggested for your cabin steward and your dining room steward. I would say that if the butler performs admirably then that would certainly be in line. Round it up to $15 ... more if his service was above and beyond.

[Katiedid]

thanks, but I'm confused. Are you talking about a butler in the room for a week? which I do not have, or the one day butler on HMC which we do have.

 

katie

[walnut99]

Katiedid,

 

I believe that Jhannah is suggesting that the tip for your room steward for one day is 3.50 per person. If you tip the butler the same for this one day it would be 3.50 x 4 people for a total of 14.00, which he suggests rounding to 15.00 total.

 

John

[Katiedid]

Thanks John,

 

I was not not sure if we were expected to tip 20%.

 

katie

[jhannah]

That's correct. I was just using a ballpark tip figure for a cabin steward to suggest that this amount could also apply to the cabana butler on HMC. HAL ships do not have stateroom butlers.

[walnut99]

Katie,

 

Without attempting to start a debate, I would tip a butler somewhere between to 15.00 and the 20%. A day of dedicated service would warrant a nice tip. Granted the cost of the cabana and of the butler is high, however that is between the passenger and HAL. The typical excellent service should be rewarded.

 

I know tipping is personal but I worked my way through school as a bartender and I know that the tips are more important than the hourly wage.

 

John

[Katiedid]

John,

 

I agree, I was thinking about $40 or $50. I just wanted to make sure we were in the ball park with what others had tipped.

 

katie

[Randyk47]

We have a cabana reserved for our upcoming visit to HMC on the Volendam but didn't go with the butler option. Mentioned it to my DW and she "stroked out" at the thought of that much more on top of what we already spent on the cabana and there's just the two of us. I'm still not convinced but can't do much about it now as we're just a couple of days away from the cruise and HAL has shut down the web selection of shore excursions for our cruise. Maybe it's totally out of my hands now as I don't know if I could go to the concierge in the Neptune Lounge and get the butler added or not. Even if I could I too am struggling a bit with the additional cost....it's not like we need the help. Is the butler really worth the extra? I mean, there's the little devil in me that says "It's your vacation...go for it! She'll understand." :rolleyes:

[Katiedid]

Randyk47,

 

We felt the same way, go for it.

 

Perhaps since there are just the two of you someone would like to go in half. There are plenty that probably wanted a cabana that could not get one and would go in half on the butler also.

I have seen a couple posts requesting to share a cabana but can not recall which cruise they were on.

 

I believe the butler can be booked in the neptune at the last minute, or you could call shore excursions and book. 800-425 9376.

 

If you do make sure and let me know about it when you return.

 

 

katie

[Randyk47]

Katie - It could very well turn out we meet another couple on the ship who want to share the cabana. Nice thing about this particular itinerary is that HMC comes at the end. That gives us plenty of time to make new friends. :) I'll report back on how it turns out if we wind up sharing.

[FlorenceItaly]

I want to wish you and dw a Bon Voyage! Have a wonderful cruise, and I look forward to your review upon your return.

 

Marie

[Randyk47]

Marie - Absolutely will report back in. Thanks for the kind thoughts. :)

[Randyk47]

OK.....I chickened out and didn't get the butler at HMC. We need share the cabana with our tablemates from the dining room but didn't split the cost....we simply invited them to join us. Seemed fair as they brought quite a bit of wine onto the ship and very kindly shared it with us. (That sounds bad but it really worked out well as we bought wine for the table the 3 nights they didn't bring one of their bottles.) As for the cabana....we had the light blue one which is almost right in the middle of the beach area. We found it to be very convenient and would rent the same one the next visit to HMC. We got off the ship at 8:45 AM and stayed until 2:30 PM. A glorious day weather wise and even though the cabana had good shade we got a little burnt from our time in the water....and we already had pretty good tans!

[FoxyTerrier]

We've never done a cabana, but we did meet a very nice CC couple last year who invited us over to their cabana. It was so nice of them as we had a place to put our things while sailing and jet skiing. I'm pretty sure they did not have a butler, but I do remember waitstaff coming around and asking if anyone needed anything.

 

I have a couple of questions.

What exactly do you get w/ the butler service?

Is there one butler per cabana, or do several butlers several cabanas?

 

To me $15 doesn't quite seem enough.

 

As a thank you we sent out new found friends a evening at the pinnacle grill.

[ndavis7515]

We were on the Zuiderdam last October. We had a cabana and it was the second to last one, all the way down the beach. We did get the butler service which turned out to be a terrible mistake. We were told the night before that the butler would be at our cabin at 9am to take us ashore because we had priority tendering. He never showed. At 9:30am we went to the purser's desk. The told us to go ashore and ask at the info desk when we got on HMC. The info people told us that the butler already brought a group to "our" cabana. She got someone to take us to our cabana and they told the butler he made a mistake. The group he brought had the terra cotta cabana, not the yellow and they did not get a butler. They moved their things over and the butler started to go with them. Wil (he was our waiter the night before in the Pinnacle) told the butler he was supposed to stay with us. It finally got straightened out. Then they started to serve us. You don't get any options except for the main course and the dessert to choose from (and that's only 2). The food was very upscale and we thought that it was a waste and should have just eaten at the bbq. The butler and his assistant had to walk all the way back to buildings to get our food which I thought deserved some attention. All in all we gave him $20.00.

 

For our inconvenience HAL gave us a bottle of champagne at dinner that night. There were 6 of us (2 were children). We paid the additional money for the extra 2 people for the butler service. I was not at all happy with HAL's response to our misadventure.

 

I talked with the Hotel Director at our CC Q&A meeting later in the week and he apologized but nothing more was done for us.

[twinkletoes4445]

I've learned so much in a short time (here)...

 

We're planning on reserving a cabana for our cruise, but I didn't realize you needed to reserve your butler. I thought he just came with the deal, and you tipped him at the end.

 

I like the idea of having a butler...so I'll reserve one. I'd also planned on tipping around $40-$50, depending on how things go. I think having someone at your disposal all day, is really nice.

 

However, I as much as I love the idea of doing this, I am starting to have a bit of reservations about all this. Not the cruise...we're excited. But we booked the SA suite for all the perks. I love the idea of priority boarding, and the Neptune Lounge sounds wonderful. But in my real world, I don't get priority anything!!! So I suppose I'll just go along and enjoy my week... :)

 

I know we get priority tendering. I'm wondering how that's going to go over with the other passengers when we scoot past them (if there's a line), and get on the tender. We're not the type of people who like to attract attention to ourselves. But I do want to get out to the cabana early, because I've read a couple of times where there was a mix-up with the cabanas, and one time, the person who arrived late was just out of luck (HAL double-booked it).

[peaches from georgia]

We're planning on reserving a cabana for our cruise, but I didn't realize you needed to reserve your butler. I thought he just came with the deal, and you tipped him at the end.

 

I like the idea of having a butler...so I'll reserve one.

I can't remember the exact amount, but there is a large cost associated with having a butler, over and above the cost of the cabana itself. It is NOT just a matter of 'reserving' a butler. Seems to me the cost of cabana with butler comes to over $400 for the day. Someone on CC will know.

[twinkletoes4445]

I can't remember the exact amount, but there is a large cost associated with having a butler, over and above the cost of the cabana itself. It is NOT just a matter of 'reserving' a butler. Seems to me the cost of cabana with butler comes to over $400 for the day. Someone on CC will know.

 

Thanks...I'll probably reserve one, but it is nice to know all the details. I'm turing 50, and this is my birthday cruise. I have three kids, and between ice skating, baseball, softball, scouts, dance, college, and a host of other things...I have been at the bottom of the list for too long! It's now the "Year of Me." lol :)

[arzz]

We had the sky blue cabana on our Christmas cruise -- no butler service -- and we were summarily ignored the whole day -- a couple of times someone flew through to drop some fruit or something at us -- but there was no offer of service for drinks or anything else

 

The comfort of the location and the shade were extremely nice -- I did, however, get heavily bitten by mosquitos. If I had known I would have worn repellant. If I was a sun worshipper rather than a sun hider it would also have been super.

 

The barbeque lunch was nothing special --

 

All in all we had a nice day but not one that I would repeat -- I will go back to either not going to in to HMC, or just going in for a swim and then back to the ship on future cruises.

[grannynurse]

Twinkletoes,

Hi,

We never scooted past the other pax in the tender line. We were told by the concierge what time to be at the gangway (about 20 minutes earlier than stated time for pax) and we were about 5 people back in the line. I'm assuming all were suite pax as there were not many people down there at that time.

I've never heard anyone say that they jumped the line just because they were in suites. Maybe I'm wrong about this but I'd feel just as uncomfortable with this as you seem to.

Peolpe do tend to get off early at HMC as it is not a full day on shore.

 

We did not get butler service and didn't miss it. We had a marvelous "Cabana guy" and the service was really great. Be sure to fill out the card for what you want stocked in the cabana, what kind of drinks, esp bottled water. How many snack trays, any extra chairs or loungers, ash trays, etc. Or have the concierge do it for you.

 

We did have some problems with people who thought we had "grabbed" the cabana because they didn't know it was an extra charge. Some folks tried to take our water toys from the porch and wanted to park their chairs in our roped off area. We had to tell them that we had paid for the privilege.

Some were rude, but most understood.

Lunch was on our own but since we were in the turquoise cabana nothing was very far away. We were driven to and from the cabana in a "golf" cart after reporting in at the service desk on the island. Be sure to tell them when to pick you up.

We loved HMC and our cabana, go for it!!!

GN

[twinkletoes4445]

grannynurse...

 

A "cabana guy" would be just dandy. So this is someone who works all the cabana's? That would be fine with me. I wonder what the butler would do while he's standing around all day? Where would he go? I'd hate to see him out in the sun...I know this is silly, but I was thinking about what in the world the butler does while he's not busy with us...and we will have minimal needs.

 

The card that I would need to fill out prior to our day on HMC...will that be in our cabin, or do I need to get it from the concierge sometime prior to the HMC day?

 

I do feel better about tendering off...and it makes sense that they would have everyone who wants to depart early meet at a specific time.

 

I knew I'd read where some people had problems with fellow passengers. I can see where people might not understand what the deal is, and as always, the vast majority of people will be gracious, and few will be stinkers! That's true with about everything...

 

Part of the reason we chose HAL was because of the perks. However, as much as I love to be pampered from time-to-time, I don't want it to be in-your-face to others. That's not at all why we chose the suite. The list is long...but that's not one of the reasons.

 

Thanks for all your help...I added a lot of your comments to my "cruise" file.

[grannynurse]

Twinkletoes,

There are at least 4 "Cabana guys" (I didn't want to call them boys) divided out among the cabanas. I don't think they do the clam shells too. Ours was a waiter from the ocean bar whom we had already made friends with.

 

We chose our cabana by color as you will, the tourquoise and light blue are down the hill from the restrooms and the lunch buffet and on the other end, away from the kids' water park. Wear sandals or tennis shoes as the sand is so fluffy it's hard to navigate.

 

The yellow, orange, and terra cotta (newest) are the farthest out. If you do a search on this board you can probably find a map layout of the colors. I think Ziggy posted one about 2 years ago.

 

The request card was delivered to our room about 2 days before HMC. This is something I should have done with the concierge as I forgot a few things (like water and an extra lounger).

 

Speaking of our concierge, (Zaandam) she arranged 2 lovely wine parties for us. Boy what a spread. We only supplied the pate' and wine which we had gotten in St. Martin. Invitations, full table service, wine buckets and coolers, hot and cold hors d'ouerves, breads, crackers, fruit, chicken wings. We tipped the servers and the concierge but were not charged for anything for the 10 of us. Of course if they had provided the alcohol we would have been charged for it.

The late afternoon hors d'ourves delivered to your room on request is also a great suite perk. We often got cheese trays and apples but had had them before when we were in an "A" veranda cabin.

 

We didn't plan a party on Maasdam last summer but I hope we will have a similar experience on the Westerdam.

 

HMC is the best private island we've seen, and I'm not a fan of the Caribbean.

We like cool weather cruising, especially the transatlantics.

GN

[twinkletoes4445]

grannynurse...

 

I like "cabana guys." It does seem funny to call them boys... :)

 

Wow, the parties sound wonderful! I'm really looking forward to this.

 

I found Ziggy's map about a week ago...and it did help me visualize where things are located. I'm going to shoot for the turquoise, light blue or pink cabana (if possible). For some reason I always have a hard time walking on the sand. I don't know if I am just klutzy or what, but I need to wear shoes of some sort. I'll make sure and bring some along with me when we are on HMC.

 

MY TA said she thought the mini-fridge in the room would be filled, and we could consume everything that is in it at no charge. If we require refills of anything, they will charge us. Do you know remember how this worked?

 

We've never done a transatlantic, but would love to. That would mean my hubby would have to be out of the office a little longer...so I'll have to work on that. :)

 

That part is waiting...tap...tap...tap.

[sail7seas]

If you are referring to the mini-bar in your Suite, you will be charged for any items you consume. You will find it fully stocked but it is not complimentary. There is a price list card in your Suite.

 

If you are referring to the cooler/mini-frig in your cabana at HMC, all items there are included in the price you paid for use of the cabana.

 

You are sure to have a great time at HMC.

Enjoy.