Paying Cash Gratuities Directly to Staff?

[madat]

27 minutes ago, RD64 said:

Why is there at least one tipping thread per week -if not daily?

 

One reason might be that for many of us, tipping is not part of our culture the way it is in the U.S.  I find the whole tipping conversation to be perplexing and given the number of threads about it, I'm clearly not the only one.

[RD64]

1 minute ago, madat said:

 

One reason might be that for many of us, tipping is not part of our culture the way it is in the U.S.  I find the whole tipping conversation to be perplexing and given the number of threads about it, I'm clearly not the only one.

Granted - but - everyone knows what the set amount as designated by the cruise line is. If you choose to tip more or less that is a personal choice that does not need to be validated by anyone. These repetitive posts get the same responses - those for and those against plus those who claim to tip an outrageous amount to anyone and everyone they meet. You need to decide for yourself.

[markeb]

2 minutes ago, madat said:

 

One reason might be that for many of us, tipping is not part of our culture the way it is in the U.S.  I find the whole tipping conversation to be perplexing and given the number of threads about it, I'm clearly not the only one.

There is that. Kind of like sitting in a bar in Sydney on Google trying to figure out whether a tip is expected…

 

And I think a lot of us would argue the CC discussion is its own unique culture!

[Guppy99]

5 hours ago, funship freddy said:

I started cruising long before the cruise lines came up with auto tips. In the “old” system envelopes were left in your cabin toward the end of the cruise. An envelope for your waiter,  your assistant waiter, room steward, assistant room steward and the dining room maitre’d. There weren’t envelopes for every crew member. Then (and now) I tipped our steward during the cruise and also at “envelope time”. I have always given bartenders and pool servers cash tips at the time of service.

I far prefer the old system. The cruise lines now have control of our money and there is no way for us to know how much of this actually makes it to the intended party(s). Additionally, they diverted our tip pool to staff that previously were paid by a portion of your cruise fare. When you consider the many increases recently, it is a LOT of money. They raise the “crew appreciation” amount, they are reducing the service. (Once a day cabin service…..)

I do understand that cruising is a for profit enterprise but the continual nickel and dime changes are making me think hard after 50+ cruises. Just my personal thoughts.

Then stay at home or migrate to a cruise line that is completely all included. But then...you're likely to complain that there are services you never take advantage of and why should you pay for them..

[NutsAboutGolf]

20 minutes ago, madat said:

 

One reason might be that for many of us, tipping is not part of our culture the way it is in the U.S.  I find the whole tipping conversation to be perplexing and given the number of threads about it, I'm clearly not the only one.

 

It's the most debated topic, next is rule enforcement.  Speaking of culture, sometimes we really have it bad as in many foreign locations, as an American you are expected to tip even when tourists from other countries aren't

[NutsAboutGolf]

Just a quick FYI...If you remove the autotips to give cash to your waiter and/or room attendant, you are literally robbing Peter to pay Paul.  Many behind the scene workers like the chefs rely on those tips

[Loracpin2]

5 hours ago, SLOTheta said:

I keep the auto gratuity on our account. I also give additional tips to everyone who serve us, a few dollars per day for our room steward, $1 per drink at the casino and bar, a few dollars for breakfast or lunch service, $5+ for dinner in Blu. We gave $20 for our specialty dinner.

 

I like to directly support the people who serve us during our trip, the auto gratuity is the bare minimum for us. 
 

The extra $100+ per trip in additional tips won’t be too hard on my bank account, but I know every bit for the staff on this ship helps their families back home. 

We also keep the auto gratuity on the account. Then at the end of the cruise, we give additional cash tips directly to waiter, ass't waiter, room steward and ass't room steward to ensure they immediately have cash in their possession. 

[shanebbb]

6 hours ago, funship freddy said:

given bartenders and pool servers cash tips at the time of service.

I far prefer the old system. The cruise lines now have control of our money

Completely agree with Freddy.  Also, I usually give some additional to the 5 key people but feel uncomfortable that they might not know that my cash is “over and above”, therefore a bad tipper.

 

This thread has been very helpful!

[Mike07]

1 hour ago, cruisestitch said:

Aw shucks, I’m blushing.  Thanks.😊

 

 

I'm curious though... why are the gratuities such a black box of where the money is going other than generically, "To the crew and all the behind the scenes crew that assist you with you stay but please know you can upward or downward or even completely remove the gratuities if you so desire"

 

I'm sure all of us have had beyond excellent service from some staff and less than ideal service from others... but they equally share the gratuities?

 

I guess I"m not sure why cruise lines don't just completely eliminate gratuities and raise the fare prices accordingly.

[Mike07]

double post

Edited February 4, 2023 by Mike07

[Mike07]

1 hour ago, RD64 said:

Why is there at least one tipping thread per week -if not daily?

 

 

Because the way the cruise lines have implemented it has made it a dang, and optional, black box.

[Pinboy]

1 hour ago, RD64 said:

Why is there at least one tipping thread per week -if not daily?

Easy--- Because Everyone already knows who the Captain will be on their upcoming cruise in 2025.

 

[cruisestitch]

12 minutes ago, Mike07 said:

 

 

I'm curious though... why are the gratuities such a black box of where the money is going other than generically, "To the crew and all the behind the scenes crew that assist you with you stay but please know you can upward or downward or even completely remove the gratuities if you so desire"

 

I'm sure all of us have had beyond excellent service from some staff and less than ideal service from others... but they equally share the gratuities?

 

I guess I"m not sure why cruise lines don't just completely eliminate gratuities and raise the fare prices accordingly.

I know at least one cruise line tried it some time ago and it really didn’t work very well. But I am guessing that part of the reason they don’t simply increase wages (and prices) is that then the taxable wage increases.

 

 

[markeb]

42 minutes ago, Mike07 said:

 

 

I'm curious though... why are the gratuities such a black box of where the money is going other than generically, "To the crew and all the behind the scenes crew that assist you with you stay but please know you can upward or downward or even completely remove the gratuities if you so desire"

 

I'm sure all of us have had beyond excellent service from some staff and less than ideal service from others... but they equally share the gratuities?

 

I guess I"m not sure why cruise lines don't just completely eliminate gratuities and raise the fare prices accordingly.

 

Why do you think the cruise line is more of a black box than your local restaurant? Restaurants all have their own policies that are part of their own largely proprietary business model. I'm assuming you're in the US. There are reams of regulations and best practices on gratuities. Other than your little home town mom and pop with one server (and maybe not even there), there's a black box on gratuities. Most of them are pooled. If they're not, the server you gave a $20 tip on a $100 bill is probably giving $8 to the bar for your $40 bar tab, $4-5 to the folks bussing the tables, another $1-2 to someone I'm not thinking of, and "keeping" about $5 for themselves, minus withholding, FICA, Medicare, etc. And in the US, servers couldn't be compelled to share gratuities in a pool with the back of house staff until very recently.  In some mid-range (maybe even high end) restaurants servers were making far more than cooks due to gratuities.

 

I won't pretend to understand the tax laws of all the countries that cruise workers come from, but there certainly seems to be a tax advantage to the employee for some of their compensation to be gratuity versus wages. That's one reason not to just roll everything directly into the fare (can probably be worked around).

 

And arguably Celebrity DID attempt to eliminate gratuities and roll them into the fare. Along with the most common extra charge items people complain about. It was called Always Included (I think that's still the term). At least on Cruise Critic, it created a near revolt. So now apparently they're "nickel and diming" everyone not in the Retreat, and people are complaining about that.

 

Suggestions?

[jelayne]

3 hours ago, Mike07 said:

 

 

I'm curious though... why are the gratuities such a black box of where the money is going other than generically, "To the crew and all the behind the scenes crew that assist you with you stay but please know you can upward or downward or even completely remove the gratuities if you so desire"

 

I'm sure all of us have had beyond excellent service from some staff and less than ideal service from others... but they equally share the gratuities?

 

I guess I"m not sure why cruise lines don't just completely eliminate gratuities and raise the fare prices accordingly.

No they don’t equally share the gratuity.  If you leave the auto gratuities in place and give your cabin attendant / waiter an additional $40 or 50 they get to keep that.  However if you remove auto gratuities and give the cabin attendant/ waiter  $40 or $50 then they are obligated to put those $ into the pool, so not only are those doing that stiffing their cabin attendant they are also short changing those behind the scenes. 

[the penguins]

7 hours ago, Mike07 said:

 

 

Not sure how you "know" that, as the automatic gratuities seem to be a giant black hole of information from all of the cruise lines about how they are divided up.

Not true for Celebrity (and I suspect for Royal) you can get a list from Guest Relations) that makes it pretty clear exactly how the system works. 

[the penguins]

7 hours ago, RD64 said:

Why is there at least one tipping thread per week -if not daily?

Because new people join our wonderful "cruise community" all the time. 

[jean87510]

8 hours ago, NutsAboutGolf said:

 

It's the most debated topic, next is rule enforcement.  Speaking of culture, sometimes we really have it bad as in many foreign locations, as an American you are expected to tip even when tourists from other countries aren't

Yes that is very true.  Have noticed this attitude in Europe and the Caribbean.  Certain customers are targeted.  We don't fall for it.  My favorite tipping is the porters at the cruise port when embarking.  Once in NOLA, my husband put the bags himself out of our Uber directly on the baggage rack.  The porter actually said to him, hey buddy, no tip?  My husband said are you serious?  But we did stand there for a bit to watch our bags actually move on.  We personally feel it's ridiculous to tip the porters when we do our own bags just because we are afraid we may not get them.  Recently in St. Thomas on a land post cruise vacation, we had a shuttle driver who just sat in the shuttle while we brought our bags on.  He sat as we took them off.  And had a tip jar out.  I have my own opinions about the gratuity questions.  I don't think it is anyone's business what you tip, if you tip.  I see a lot of questions from people who yes are confused.  Then they get answers from people who walk on with 100s of ones that they hand out like Robert Deniro did in Goodfellas.  My answer is if you want to walk around tossing ones to the ice cream person, go for it.  If you just want to tip a little more to your room steward, that's fine.  If you don't want to do the auto-gratuity, that's fine too.  It's your vacation and no one else's business.

[marieps]

16 hours ago, prmssk said:

In my opinion (at least for what I’m looking for), cruising is still a good value for a vacation. When I get to the point where I no longer see that value, then it will be time to explore new vacation options. 

We don't look it at just as a good value.  Cruising is our vacation of choice.   We have done three A.I. vacations in recent years but it always comes back to cruising.

[marieps]

4 hours ago, the penguins said:

Because new people join our wonderful "cruise community" all the time. 

Geoff,

I think it's a very good sign when new or even seasoned cruisers join CC and ask questions that have been previously answered.   Frankly, I think the search function here is clunky, and I like the fact so many cruise veterans are here to share their experience, even if it's over and over again.

[davekathy]

20 hours ago, funship freddy said:

The cruise lines now have control of our money and there is no way for us to know how much of this actually makes it to the intended party(s).

I could care less. That's between Celebrity and their employees. 

[davekathy]

20 hours ago, funship freddy said:

In the “old” system envelopes were left in your cabin toward the end of the cruise. An envelope for your waiter,  your assistant waiter, room steward, assistant room steward and the dining room maitre’d.

Glad those days are over. We prefer the current system. 

[the penguins]

3 hours ago, marieps said:

Geoff,

I think it's a very good sign when new or even seasoned cruisers join CC and ask questions that have been previously answered.   Frankly, I think the search function here is clunky, and I like the fact so many cruise veterans are here to share their experience, even if it's over and over again.

I totally agree and if the search function wasn’t clunky look at the fun we would miss.

[Pinboy]

5 hours ago, jean87510 said:

We personally feel it's ridiculous to tip the porters when we do our own bags just because we are afraid we may not get them. 

Agree--- ( sort of )

However, a wimp ,like me, will hand over a couple of bucks as an insurance (?? ) that our bags get onto the ship.

LOL--- Using your analogy , Isn't it true that in most restaurants all the Servers do is punch in an order, check their cell phone for emails,  and when notified, carry the plate to your table ?

( I'm not thinking of Servers who actually know the menu , how a dish is prepared, and serve it ).

 

[the penguins]

14 hours ago, markeb said:

 

Why do you think the cruise line is more of a black box than your local restaurant? Restaurants all have their own policies that are part of their own largely proprietary business model. I'm assuming you're in the US. There are reams of regulations and best practices on gratuities. Other than your little home town mom and pop with one server (and maybe not even there), there's a black box on gratuities. Most of them are pooled. If they're not, the server you gave a $20 tip on a $100 bill is probably giving $8 to the bar for your $40 bar tab, $4-5 to the folks bussing the tables, another $1-2 to someone I'm not thinking of, and "keeping" about $5 for themselves, minus withholding, FICA, Medicare, etc. And in the US, servers couldn't be compelled to share gratuities in a pool with the back of house staff until very recently.  In some mid-range (maybe even high end) restaurants servers were making far more than cooks due to gratuities.

 

I won't pretend to understand the tax laws of all the countries that cruise workers come from, but there certainly seems to be a tax advantage to the employee for some of their compensation to be gratuity versus wages. That's one reason not to just roll everything directly into the fare (can probably be worked around).

 

And arguably Celebrity DID attempt to eliminate gratuities and roll them into the fare. Along with the most common extra charge items people complain about. It was called Always Included (I think that's still the term). At least on Cruise Critic, it created a near revolt. So now apparently they're "nickel and diming" everyone not in the Retreat, and people are complaining about that.

 

Suggestions?

Book Celebrity in Australia/New Zealand and "no tips are required" of course the prices are increased so it makes no practical difference.

Of the main line cruise lines P and O in the UK increased prices and then announced that tips were no longer required. 

Again it makes no practical difference.