Removing Gratuities Onboard at Guest Services

[andrewwilliamnewman]

Hello all.

I know this is a touchy topic, so I thought I would ask to gauge opinions, and find information from those that have done this...

If you go to guest services onboard and remove gratuities (I know its frowned upon but hear me out...), do your dining staff/stateroom attendant get informed of this?

I like to tip in cash, so I know the money goes directly to the people that go out of their way to help me out, so this ambiguous daily charge, is thought provoking as you don't know who gets it, and exactly at what percentage.

$18pd/pp for a 1 week is $252 (2 person).

Surely tipping for example $100 to stateroom, $50 each to dining server/attendant, $50 split to people who help you throughout the week is a better way of making sure the staff that support you are paid what they deserve?

I just worry that by remove onboard gratuities at guest services on day 1/2, and these staff you see daily being informed about it in advance (or having a black mark on your account or something) before the usual last day tipping frenzy of the above, could lead to lacklustre service/attentiveness throughout the cruise.

Let me know your thoughts, better ideas, and experiences.

 

[Ken at the beach]

Many reports and some with photo's of lists that cabin stewards have had that show rooms and who has removed gratuities.  I also believe that there was one posted of a dinning list as well.

[d9704011]

I'd leave the gratuities alone and tip extra, if you choose, to those you feel deserve more.

[not-enough-cruising]

You will get opinions that run the gamut on whether or not staff knows you removed the gratuities.  I don't know if they are aware or not (I tend to think not) nor do I care.

I have removed the daily gratuity every cruise for years, and have never seen any degradation in service, just like always there are some that excel at their job, and others that are just getting by.

[smokeybandit]

If you're already planning on a cash tip, just leave gratuities alone and factor that into what you give them at the end.

[shipgeeks]

My information is that they are informed who has prepaid/doing daily charge/removed gratuities.

Of course we all know that our waiters and cabin stewards are the primary recipients, and some give cash to them.  But I always think of the crew who spend their day sterilizing the stair rails and elevator buttons; do people hand them $ every time they pass by?

I'm comfortable just pre-paying, and knowing that people like that will get their fair share.  And my exceptional waiters and steward will get some extra $ and a good mention on the survey.

[JJK2008]

Tipping is an American custom that is NOT practiced in most of the World. Many Americans have become "conditioned" so that tipping is now just expected as an added cost to ANY service good or bad. That mindset is actually contradictory to the whole concept of tipping. Don't feel pressured either way. Do what YOU think is the best approach. Enjoy your cruise.

[1025cruise]

I don't know if this is true, but this is what I've heard in the past. It might be for a different cruise line.

All cash tips are marked with the cabin number of the person who gave it. When the accounting for the cruise is complete, if you left the gratuity in place the cash is returned to the person you gave it to. If you didn't, the cash is added to the pool and the person receives their share of it. So by removing the gratuities and paying cash to the individual person, they are not getting the whole amount you give them. They still need to pay out a share to the pool.

[watcher_62]

🍿

[Tatka]

Please do not remove it.

Server is paid from collected autogratuities. Just like other people behind the scene are paid.

This amount is not going against profits so it is not taxed, but all people are paid better. Server gets good pay, others lower positions are paid better than they used to. It was almost $4K for customer serving positions from cash tips and $500 for not customer serving. Now it is more like $2500 (still amazing money for waiters) vs $1500 for others.

 

If gratuities are included in the fare we will pay more as it will be all profit of company.

Edited August 13 by Tatka

[TeeRick]

49 minutes ago, JJK2008 said:

Tipping is an American custom that is NOT practiced in most of the World. Many Americans have become "conditioned" so that tipping is now just expected as an added cost to ANY service good or bad. That mindset is actually contradictory to the whole concept of tipping. Don't feel pressured either way. Do what YOU think is the best approach. Enjoy your cruise.

Ok another tipping thread.  It is not an American custom.  Tipping is practiced world wide in many more places than not.  With some exceptions of course. The amount tipped (%) for certain services varies widely world wide and according to local custom.   In the USA, we have gone tip-wild lately since the pandemic.  And the onset of electronic checkouts everywhere that have built-in software asking you for tips with suggested amounts.  I tip for service- not for simple takeout or purchases.

 

On a cruise, daily gratuities are a baseline cost of cruising.  We do auto gratuities since it is easier.  And then tip with extra cash to those deserving.

[SilkySal]

We have always prepaid our gratuities and will continue to do so to insure that those behind the scenes get their share. We then tip extra cash to those who we feel go over and above to make our vacation more enjoyable. Do what you think is best, I guess. However, a few cruises ago, we encountered one of the room stewards in our hallway, who was very, very upset. He told us that a couple of his rooms were crowded with families and lots of kids, who had removed the automatic gratuities and left him no tips whatsoever. He felt that he was doing an excellent service for all of them and got nothing in return. We felt very bad for him. Just sayin'. How would you feel?

[CGTNORMANDIE]

21 minutes ago, Tatka said:

Please do not remove it.

Server is paid from collected autogratuities. Just like other people behind the scene are paid.

This amount is not going against profits so it is not taxed, but all people are paid better. Server gets good pay, others lower positions are paid better than they used to. It was almost $4K for customer serving positions from cash tips and $500 for not customer serving. Now it is more like $2500 (still amazing money for waiters) vs $1500 for others.

 

If gratuities are included in the fare we will pay more as it will be all profit of company.

🤗🤗🤗🤗. Hi Tatka, I agree with your assessment.  

[Vibe]

If you are going to remove your automatic gratitudes, you may want to keep your toothbrush in a secure location. You don’t want the cabin steward to mistakenly use it to clean your toilet,

[MeHeartCruising]

OP should not have cruised on an American cruise line if they weren't prepared to deal with this custom.  Pay the daily service charge for gratuities.  Tip extra if you want to reward your "special people".  Otherwise, you are impacting the compensation for the people who clean your towels, cook your food, clean your bar glasses, support the bar tenders, support the cooks... the list goes on.  

[2wheelin]

8 minutes ago, SilkySal said:

We have always prepaid our gratuities and will continue to do so to insure that those behind the scenes get their share. We then tip extra cash to those who we feel go over and above to make our vacation more enjoyable. Do what you think is best, I guess. However, a few cruises ago, we encountered one of the room stewards in our hallway, who was very, very upset. He told us that a couple of his rooms were crowded with families and lots of kids, who had removed the automatic gratuities and left him no tips whatsoever. He felt that he was doing an excellent service for all of them and got nothing in return. We felt very bad for him. Just sayin'. How would you feel?

I feel that based on experience, Some stewards are very good at pulling heart strings. How did he know before they left that they left no tip? We have heard a few of these sob stories and when we start sympathizing and asking questions the stories quickly fall apart.

[DHADEN]

WOW - here's an idea.....

"I like to tip in cash, so I know the money goes directly to the people that go out of their way to help me out,"

Believe it or not, a LOT of people feel this way, so go ahead and do that and then ....

Tip your room steward and your waiters AT THE BEGINNING of the cruise instead of the end.  Maybe even the second or third day to see how you like them first.  That way they get more $$ to themselves, and appreciate it. 😎

[gmerick]

FWIW:  I remove auto gratuities.

 

I read court summaries of several lawsuits between the Norwegian Seafarers Union (the collective bargaining agent for RCI crewmembers).  These court summaries are easily found online by searching for "Norwegian Seafarers Union" in any search engine. 

The employer will pool all auto gratuities, beverage receipt tips, (both automatic and added to the receipt), all specialty dining receipt tips (again, both automatic and added to the receipt), as well as any other tips that are not given directly to a crew member as cash.  The pool is not specific to a sector (dining, stewards, hotel, etc).  The pool is across multiple ships.  Several of the summaries indicate the pool was not fleetwide, as the Orient ships were not pooled with the Caribbean ships.

The pool of all those tips is divided up by the number of pool shares allocated by employment contract to every non-management crew member.  Some members have a much smaller pool share than others, I could not find a breakdown of pool share by position.  The employment contract also specifies a minimum pool share allocation for that crew member.  If the calculated pool share does not meet that minimum, the employer (RCG) will make up the difference.

The court summaries for lawsuits filed by cabin stewards indicate their take home pay is somewhat on the order of 20% from contract base pay, 30% pool shares, and 50% cash tips.

 

As others have said, you do what is right for you.  The above is only part of the process I went through to find out what was right for me.

 

[Saab4444]

52 minutes ago, Vibe said:

If you are going to remove your automatic gratitudes, you may want to keep your toothbrush in a secure location. You don’t want the cabin steward to mistakenly use it to clean your toilet,

This comment is just stupid. The steward does not know if he gets something or maybe more in cash until the cruise is over. And even if not he still has to do his job. 

[Tatka]

1 hour ago, CGTNORMANDIE said:

🤗🤗🤗🤗. Hi Tatka, I agree with your assessment.  

 

      Hi. I studied this issue for a long time. As I am originally from one of places servers and other crew are coming from, so I investigated this thoroughly. 🙂 

 

    Despite many cruisers from Western countries being convinced that crew is underpaid, not being paid fairly, crew is paid well. Remember crew does not live in USA, UK, Australia and so on. What seems to be low pay here (due to much different spending structure) is a good or more than a good pay for them as in their country everything cost way less. I know people who bought condos after 1-2 contracts.

 

  However non customer facing crew was hugely underpaid and switch to auto-gratuities  helped a lot. And separating cruisefare and gratuities helps with tax issues as I mentioned above. If cruiseline include gratuities in the cruisefare it will be a larger amount. So it will not do any good to cruisers.

 

 To give above this amount is nice,but this is discretionary and really depends on service received. We often give, but not huge amounts I read about. We never remove autogratuities.

Edited August 13 by Tatka

[gumshoe958]

1 hour ago, MeHeartCruising said:

OP should not have cruised on an American cruise line if they weren't prepared to deal with this custom.  Pay the daily service charge for gratuities.  Tip extra if you want to reward your "special people".  Otherwise, you are impacting the compensation for the people who clean your towels, cook your food, clean your bar glasses, support the bar tenders, support the cooks... the list goes on.  

Paying crew to do the job they’re contracted to do is what my cruise fare is for. 

[SilkySal]

1 hour ago, 2wheelin said:

I feel that based on experience, Some stewards are very good at pulling heart strings. How did he know before they left that they left no tip? We have heard a few of these sob stories and when we start sympathizing and asking questions the stories quickly fall apart.

FWIW, we spoke to this room steward (not ours), who was in the hallway, getting ready for the next group of cruisers. The people in his rooms were already gone and we were on our way out as well. He knew they had removed the auto grats and left no extra tip anywhere, so he was not puling at our heart strings. He was noticeably very upset. I agree that some are good at pulling heart strings but definitely not this time. Satisfied? Need more info?

[Vibe]

36 minutes ago, Saab4444 said:

This comment is just stupid. The steward does not know if he gets something or maybe more in cash until the cruise is over. And even if not he still has to do his job. 

Even though most employees (house keepers and food servers etc) don’t retaliate when they are mistreated by condescending behavior or reduced compensation; an employee that has reached their breaking point will unfortunately seek revenge.  
We are so fortunate to have the time and money to cruise, the crew accepted their position with the cruise lines with the current tipping compensation method in place. Even though I don’t agree with it, I leave the automatic tipping in place so that I contribute to the agreed upon method. I give extra cash to those that go over and above.

[Tatka]

1 minute ago, gumshoe958 said:

Paying crew to do the job they’re contracted to do is what my cruise fare is for. 

 

I explained above why gratuities are not included in the cruisefare.

It will be more expensive as full amount will count toward profits.

[andrewwilliamnewman]

56 minutes ago, gmerick said:

FWIW:  I remove auto gratuities.

 

I read court summaries of several lawsuits between the Norwegian Seafarers Union (the collective bargaining agent for RCI crewmembers).  These court summaries are easily found online by searching for "Norwegian Seafarers Union" in any search engine. 

The employer will pool all auto gratuities, beverage receipt tips, (both automatic and added to the receipt), all specialty dining receipt tips (again, both automatic and added to the receipt), as well as any other tips that are not given directly to a crew member as cash.  The pool is not specific to a sector (dining, stewards, hotel, etc).  The pool is across multiple ships.  Several of the summaries indicate the pool was not fleetwide, as the Orient ships were not pooled with the Caribbean ships.

The pool of all those tips is divided up by the number of pool shares allocated by employment contract to every non-management crew member.  Some members have a much smaller pool share than others, I could not find a breakdown of pool share by position.  The employment contract also specifies a minimum pool share allocation for that crew member.  If the calculated pool share does not meet that minimum, the employer (RCG) will make up the difference.

The court summaries for lawsuits filed by cabin stewards indicate their take home pay is somewhat on the order of 20% from contract base pay, 30% pool shares, and 50% cash tips.

 

As others have said, you do what is right for you.  The above is only part of the process I went through to find out what was right for me.

 

Very interesting information. I shall do some research here, and see what comes up!

 

Everyone, really appreciate the input.

 

The post is not meant for cause to divide and create tension, its just trying to find what works best for me with information/experiences that are different to what I know.