Gratuities and tipping

[lvpet]

Being my first cruise in a long time, I have a couple of questions.  I have purchased the princess plus pkg, so crew gratuities and drinks are covered.  Does Princess charge additional gratuity on drinks to my account?  If I have a drink sent to my room, is an additional tip expected?

Thanks.

[MissP22]

No . All drink tips are already included. 

[bjkTX]

1 minute ago, lvpet said:

Being my first cruise in a long time, I have a couple of questions.  I have purchased the princess plus pkg, so crew gratuities and drinks are covered.  Does Princess charge additional gratuity on drinks to my account?  If I have a drink sent to my room, is an additional tip expected?

Thanks.

Tips on drinks are included with the Plus package - no extra needed.  Tipping room service - I always do, but I don't think it's required.

[lvpet]

Thanks for quick responses!  If I have a glass of wine delivered to my room, what would be an appropriate tip?

[JimmyVWine]

2 minutes ago, bjkTX said:

Tips on drinks are included with the Plus package - no extra needed. 

 

With one exception.  The Plus Package includes drinks up to a cost of $15.  You can order drinks that cost more than that and if you do, you will be charged the price difference plus tip.  So if you order a $16 drink, a charge of $1.18 will show up on your portfolio.  A $17 drink would cost you $2.36.  And so on.

[JimmyVWine]

2 minutes ago, lvpet said:

Thanks for quick responses!  If I have a glass of wine delivered to my room, what would be an appropriate tip?

 

An "appropriate" tip would be $0.  You have already paid for it.  $60 per day per person is a sizeable sum.  Any amount over $0 would fall into the category of "generous" as opposed to "appropriate."  When it comes to being "generous", only you can answer that.

[mom says]

51 minutes ago, lvpet said:

Thanks for quick responses!  If I have a glass of wine delivered to my room, what would be an appropriate tip?

Room service tips are at your discretion, and while not expected,  we choose to tip for timely service. A dollar or 2 for morning coffee, or $5 for a full meal. It's completely up to you.

[SiliconCruiser]

We provide an additional token of appreciation to room stewards and wait staff (waiters and junior waiters.)  Also occasionally to MDR hosts/hostesses (not head waiters, or managers.)  We do not tip wait staff in the buffet (since we already do that when they are in the dining rooms.)
On one (and only one) occasion, when we had particularly bad service from most of the crew, I pulled gratuities, (after having tipped those who provided service above and beyond.)

 

[Sprocket]

We tip $2 minimum for drinks delivered to the cabin, we are generally way aft or on our upcoming cruises we will be right at the front.  And we have PP but it is a service we appreciate and enjoy.

[suzyed]

3 minutes ago, Sprocket said:

We tip $2 minimum for drinks delivered to the cabin, we are generally way aft or on our upcoming cruises we will be right at the front.  And we have PP but it is a service we appreciate and enjoy.

We do the same....also for breakfast delivered to our cabin.

[cruzsnooze]

    Does the $110 PP PD I'm paying for Reserve class  a gratuity for elevated service?

[MissP22]

9 hours ago, cruzsnooze said:

    Does the $110 PP PD I'm paying for Reserve class  a gratuity for elevated service?

Everyone gets the same level of service. Extra tip or not.

[disneyochem]

9 hours ago, Sprocket said:

We tip $2 minimum for drinks delivered to the cabin, we are generally way aft or on our upcoming cruises we will be right at the front.  And we have PP but it is a service we appreciate and enjoy.

I tip $2 for my cappuccino delivered to my stateroom at 4:30 am.

[billco]

12 hours ago, lvpet said:

Thanks for quick responses!  If I have a glass of wine delivered to my room, what would be an appropriate tip?

No tip. It does not make sense to me to tip the person who brought the class of wine to my room without tipping the person who poured the glass. (Wouldn't tip anyway, since it is included). Also, if I am sitting in a lounge or bar I wouldn't tip the server who brought me a glass of wine. We just completed 30 days on the Discovery Princess on a B2B2B2B2B in 5 different cabins. We tipped each of our room stewards at the end of the respective cruises. We also tipped our MDR servers and head waiter and two servers we had formed a relationship with over the cruises. I felt the servers were more interested in getting a positive comment on the review.

Edited March 22, 2023 by billco

[HotRoot]

I would tip a dollar drink.  They know who tips.  Your next order will move to the top of the list.

[curious_st]

Even with a drink package, I usually tip extra for drinks.  For room service, I like to tip also.  For a small room service order, I tip a couple of bucks.  For a larger order, I tip $5 or $10.

[PMGS247]

Since the tips from the drink package are set in stone from the outset, and I am someone who gets a lot of mileage out of my package, I occasionally throw in a little more, especially if drinks are delivered to me.

 

The math used to be clearer when the packages were $60/day, they always tacked on the $10.80 in gratuities.  Considering the volume that I used the package, I had to decide whether $10.80 was sufficient in tips for each day.  Now with the package buried in with Plus/Premium it's not quite as black and white and I don't know how much the crew gets exactly from the beverage portion of the package. 

 

I continue to operate under the original $10.80 assumption and add occasional tips or not depending on how much I'm using the package that day/sailing.  I know the real cost of the package varied a little bit from that over time, but same concept and not a big difference in the 18% tip amount.

[cruzsnooze]

1 hour ago, MissP22 said:

Everyone gets the same level of service. Extra tip or not.

That's not what I asked. There is elevated service in club class. Besides no waiting to be seated  there are more waiters so they serve fewer people. The question is what that $110 PP PD is for? Does that go to the wait staff?

Edited March 22, 2023 by cruzsnooze

[wowzz]

2 hours ago, HotRoot said:

I would tip a dollar drink.  They know who tips.  Your next order will move to the top of the list.

No it won't. 

[wowzz]

As a matter of interest, when in Europe, do those of you who normally tip $1  give a €1 coin instead ? 

 

Edited March 22, 2023 by wowzz

[suzyed]

27 minutes ago, wowzz said:

As a matter of interest, when in Europe, do those of you who normally tip $1  give a €1 coin instead ? 

 

Not usually unless we have them available.

[KLM3164]

15 hours ago, lvpet said:

Thanks for quick responses!  If I have a glass of wine delivered to my room, what would be an appropriate tip?

I tip $1 per drink that is delivered to the room. If we both order a drink then we tip $2. Normally I’m just ordering a latte in the morning so it’s $1. But as others have said it’s not required or expected.

[HotRoot]

We always have a drink package.  When we order our first drinks at a bar, we tip $5.  For the rest of the cruise, when the bartender sees us, he makes our drinks.  We tip $1 a drink for those drinks.  Our drinks are made before others in line.  I would assume the same would work for room service.  We have never used room service for drink orders.

[MTNest93]

12 hours ago, cruzsnooze said:

    Does the $110 PP PD I'm paying for Reserve class  a gratuity for elevated service?

The $110 PP PD includes your drink package, wifi, and gratuities.  It is not all gratuity.  I believe the gratuity daily allocation for Reserve Class is $15.50 (or $17 depending on when you booked).  IMHO that's a pretty small amount to be split among all crew members so we plan to tip additional.  However, it's not required so use your own discretion.

[cruzsnooze]

11 minutes ago, HotRoot said:

 When we order our first drinks at a bar, we tip $5.  For the rest of the cruise, when the bartender sees us, he makes our drinks.  We tip $1 a drink for those drinks.  Our drinks are made before others in line.  

Is that a tip or a bribe?

Edited March 22, 2023 by cruzsnooze