Leaving remaining OBC to staff as a gratuity?

[2023]

At the end of a cruise I believe you can leave your remaining OBC to staff as a gratuity but can you nominate a particular staff member?

And if so, can you be sure they actually receive it?

[Georgia_Peaches]

You could always use the casino trick to cash out your remaining obc and then gift it to whomever you choose by placing the cash in an envelope with their name on it and handing it to them personally. 

[2023]

Good thinking - Thank you 😊

[prmssk]

Yes, guest services (or the concierge if you are in the Retreat) has a form which allows you to name individuals.  I've done it a number of times and recently was even thanked by the staff member before disembarkation which gave me some confirmation they got it.

[Georgia_Peaches]

3 minutes ago, prmssk said:

Yes, guest services (or the concierge if you are in the Retreat) has a form which allows you to name individuals.  I've done it a number of times and recently was even thanked by the staff member before disembarkation which gave me some confirmation they got it.

Good to know. It is reassuring when you get confirmation. 

[cruisestitch]

3 hours ago, 2023 said:

At the end of a cruise I believe you can leave your remaining OBC to staff as a gratuity but can you nominate a particular staff member?

And if so, can you be sure they actually receive it?

Yes, and if you don’t wait until the very end of the cruise, you will be able to get confirmation that they received it before you leave the ship

Edited October 26, 2023 by cruisestitch

[jelayne]

1 hour ago, Georgia_Peaches said:

You could always use the casino trick to cash out your remaining obc and then gift it to whomever you choose by placing the cash in an envelope with their name on it and handing it to them personally. 

More ships are limiting the ability to cash out OBC.

[cruisestitch]

A little further update. I filled out my form to give extra tip to the waiter, assistant, waiter, and room steward, and I took it to guest relations. I was just going to drop it off, but the man there said, wait I need to show you each person’s picture to make sure we have the right employee, because sometimes two waiters have the same name. So he looked up their employee numbers and showed me their pictures to confirm that I had the right person.

 

 

[Honolulu Blue]

2 hours ago, cruisestitch said:

A little further update. I filled out my form to give extra tip to the waiter, assistant, waiter, and room steward, and I took it to guest relations. I was just going to drop it off, but the man there said, wait I need to show you each person’s picture to make sure we have the right employee, because sometimes two waiters have the same name. So he looked up their employee numbers and showed me their pictures to confirm that I had the right person.

Very interesting.  Thanks for sharing this.  When this subject came up a few months ago, I wondered how they could distinguish between different employees with the same name when one doesn't know their employee #.  Now I know they can, at least for this purpose.

[DaKahuna]

Given the name, position, and where they work helps a lot.  We've not been shown pictures but I really like this way of adding extra gratuities.  

You do not have to wait until the end of the cruise to do this either.  We were once so impressed with service we received from an individual that halfway through the cruise we submitted a feedback from praising this individual and also submitted one of these additional gratuity forms for them.  It's only happened once that we've done both and that was because it was in a specialty restaurant where we only dinned that one time.   Normally, we use the feedback from once or twice a cruise and do the extra gratuities at the end of the cruise. 

 

[Traveling Fools]

Good to know information.  Thank you for sharing!

[Islander500]

We did this recently for the first time because we never knew it was allowed and we had a lot of OBC (it had been booked a long time ago when OBC was flowing much more freely.)

It worked well for the stateroom attendant. Since we dined mostly in BLU and had been seated at multiple tables (different teams of waiters)  we tried to leave the balance of the OBC for the BLU team.  Guest Relations said that I could not do that, only to individuals.  The Maitre D had told us that they pool their gratuities so I don't know if there is a way to leave the OBC to this "pool."  But if it's doable, I'm sure someone here on CC knows!

 

 

[DaKahuna]

3 hours ago, Islander500 said:

We did this recently for the first time because we never knew it was allowed and we had a lot of OBC (it had been booked a long time ago when OBC was flowing much more freely.)

It worked well for the stateroom attendant. Since we dined mostly in BLU and had been seated at multiple tables (different teams of waiters)  we tried to leave the balance of the OBC for the BLU team.  Guest Relations said that I could not do that, only to individuals.  The Maitre D had told us that they pool their gratuities so I don't know if there is a way to leave the OBC to this "pool."  But if it's doable, I'm sure someone here on CC knows!

 

 

 What comes to mind is to use the casino to draw as much as possible in cash and put in an envelope vane give to the Blu Maitre’D. 
 

[Jim_Iain]

On 10/25/2023 at 6:01 PM, 2023 said:

At the end of a cruise I believe you can leave your remaining OBC to staff as a gratuity but can you nominate a particular staff member?

And if so, can you be sure they actually receive it?

 

You can go to the front desk an ask for an Additional Tip Form.     If you fill in the amount on the front that only designates positions -  e.g. Waiter, Butler, Stateroom Attendant then it goes to the Ships pool for those functions.

If you write the person's name on the back with location it goes to the individual.   I've had that confirmed by the HR Director who is the person that applies it to their pay check.  She also sends them a message that you left them a tip and the amount.    I have had the people actually thank me the next day.

[cruisestitch]

The form I received, which is pictured above, had nothing on the  reverse

.

 There was no way to designate money into a pool; it could only go to the specific employee I designated.

 

do you have a picture of both sides  of the form you received?

Edited October 27, 2023 by cruisestitch

[DaKahuna]

On the form Jim is talking about the back was blank and was different than the one in the picture above.   You wrote it in.  I wass only doing one individual so I wrote it in the white space at the bottom of the page.  

[goofysmom99]

On 10/25/2023 at 10:22 PM, cruisestitch said:

Yes, and if you don’t wait until the very end of the cruise, you will be able to get confirmation that they received it before you leave the ship

Thank you for the picture! This version is new to me.  Looking forward to using up a rather massive OBC this way on an upcoming cruise (any leftover will go to the crew fund).  

[di T]

On 10/26/2023 at 9:33 AM, cruisestitch said:

A little further update. I filled out my form to give extra tip to the waiter, assistant, waiter, and room steward, and I took it to guest relations. I was just going to drop it off, but the man there said, wait I need to show you each person’s picture to make sure we have the right employee, because sometimes two waiters have the same name. So he looked up their employee numbers and showed me their pictures to confirm that I had the right person.

 

 

We had a similar experience on our last cruises, the guy at reception showed a photo of the staff member we wanted to give to, but never found out if he got it.Hopefully he did but on our second part of the b2b we gave out the extras with cash, so we knew the staff we wanted to tip extra received it.