tipping

[lougee1043]

is the tipping on windstar the same as on hals ships -- auto tipping is in place --- 15% add on to bar service and you can tip extra with cash to specific crew and they get to keep all the cash because the auto tip is in place??

[Pudgesmom]

No, there is no auto tipping. Tipping is "not required."

 

We did, however, tip generously on our Windstar cruise this Jan. The service was outstanding. Well over and above what we expected.

 

 

Beth

["Wandering Wino's&quo]

No, there is no auto tipping. Tipping is "not required."

 

We did, however, tip generously on our Windstar cruise this Jan. The service was outstanding. Well over and above what we expected.

 

 

Beth

 

Since we will be cruising in Europe do we tip in euros or dollars? As I understand from other posts you can not add the gratuity on to your ships account.

[laughoutloud]

Since we will be cruising in Europe do we tip in euros or dollars? As I understand from other posts you can not add the gratuity on to your ships account.

 

:) Funny, I just asked that of Windstar this morning: They prefer Us dollars.

[lougee1043]

No, there is no auto tipping. Tipping is "not required."

We did, however, tip generously on our Windstar cruise this Jan. The service was outstanding. Well over and above what we expected.

Beth

 

so tipping on windstar is like the old days on hal before autotipping

["Wandering Wino's&quo]

:) Funny, I just asked that of Windstar this morning: They prefer Us dollars.

 

:) Thanks for asking the question that I'm sure several of us were wondering about, if they prefer dollars or euros to be used for tips. While we have traveled to Europe many times this will be our first time that we have cruise in Europe. So many details need to be considered when you travel overseas. Our last cruise to Mexico only required us to load up our PT Cruiser with lots of good wine and a large box of decorations for 5 suites and drive a few miles to San Diego. No long flights, weight limits for luggage etc. sure hope it's worth it. Of course I know that it will be, for no better reason then it was my idea!:rolleyes:

[golfergal]

"so tipping on windstar is like the old days on hal before autotipping"

 

No, not really unless HAL used to be tips included in the fare. Tipping is not required or expected like on mainstream cruises, where there is the expectation that you tip a certain amount to specific people. You don't have to tip a single person if you don't want to and the tips are "technically" incldued in the fare.

 

Of course, most of us do tip as the service is excellent and we don't have confidence that the "tips in the fare" really get to the people in the amount we would want. Last year we tipped crew who regularly helped us, not everyone with whom we came in contact. With open seatting you could have 7 different servers for dinner, so you'd have to remember each one and tip him. Of course, the crew is smart in that they seem to "adopt" people and try to be their regular server and that works out better for everyone. I was pleased with the tipping policy as it was let up to us what we wanted to do. Which for us was to tip well the people we thought desired something extra.

 

By the way, we tipped in Euros as that is what we had and no one frowned or turned it away. ;-) So if you have dollars left, great; but don't worry about keeping a stash of dollars just for tips.

[rogfam]

Our first Windstar cruise this summer and still not clear on tipping. When we cruised on Princess and had open dining, my room was charged a certain amount for the dining staff and the ship distributed the money because we had a variety of waiters/busboys.

Do most people tip after each meal, or at the end of the cruise. If so, how is it decided who to tip?

[Pudgesmom]

We tipped at the end of the cruise. On a smaller ship, you will know some of the crew members, having seen them several times a day on your trip.

 

We tipped those that had provided really great service to our family, which, of course, was most of them.:D

 

Beth

[luvnorway]

This clarification is offered based on 11 cruises on Windstar ships. All except one have been on Wind Surf in the last 2 years - just so you know I'm not just basing the information on one cruise.

 

There is no autotipping on Windstar (yet). This means you cannot add tips to your bill; you have to use cash and there is no 15% (or any other amount) added to charges for drinks.

 

Yes, the tipping situation on Windstar IS the way it was on HAL before autotipping (we've done 30+ cruises on HAL - again, so you know my frame of reference). Tipping is "not required", no one will suggest to you how much to tip, and crew are not allowed to solicit tips.

 

OTOH, this does not mean tipping is not welcomed. I wouldn't go so far as to say it is "expected"- I don't think any crew would actually express any resentment if not tipped, but I'm sure they would be very disappointed. We have always received incredibly good and personal service on Wind Surf. Especially if you are used to cruising on large ships, you'll be amazed at how excellent it is and will want to tip, not do it because you feel you should.

 

Dining Room and Bistro staff pool their tips because of open seating and 2 venues -> you can put the tip in an envelope on the last night and give it to the Maitre d', any server, or the front desk and it will go into the pool to be shared. It is appropriate to tip equivalent to the guidelines and/or autotipping given on the large cruise ships - eg. $3.50-$4 per person per day.

 

Wine Stewards, bar/lounge/deck stewards are tipped individually and do not pool their tips. Because of open sitting, you won't likely always have the same wine steward in the Dining Room or Bistro -> you might want to tip him each evening. Wine Stewards also work as bartenders or lounge drink waiters, so you might want to cover off tipping them for wine service by including it in a larger tip given at the end of the cruise. We tip the bar/lounge/deck stewards, bartenders etc. at the end of the cruise rather than by the drink because we don't have many drinks in the lounges (our alcohol consumption is mainly wine in the Dining Room). If we spent a lot of time in a lounge before and/or after dinner, we would probably tip at the end of the evening. We tip those who, as a previous poster mentioned, kind of "latched on to us" - greeting us by name, always checking that we had drinks if we wanted them (and consequently were the ones who served us most frequently). Make sure you actually hand the tip to the person you want to reward.

 

Cabin stewards also do not pool tips. Like the Dining Room staff, it is appropriate to tip them equivalent to the guidelines and/or autotipping given on the large cruise ships (i.e. figure it out at the rate per person, per day) and also based (IMHO) on whether you make special requests of them, how messy your cabin is etc.

 

Hope this helps. The host will say all this at the disembarkation talk.

I really feel sorry for the crew who give excellent service and lose out because of the confusion caused by cruise line's effort to appear somewhat "genteel" and a cut above others. Their refusal to introduce autotipping or to recommend amounts to tip causes some people to undertip due to not knowing what to do and gives others the old excuse many used to use on HAL that "tipping not required" = not allowed, included in price etc.

[lougee1043]

thanks luvnorway

thats the way i thought it would be

[LindaKay]

We have 10 weeks with Windstar; some were combined cruises. LuvNorway gave an excellent explanation of tipping. Tipping may not be "expected", but tips are not included in the fare.

[golfergal]

Having never been on HAL, I don't know what it USED to be like before auto-tipping. I'm WAY too young to have ever been on HAL and have many, many year to go before HAL. Anyway, I did SPECIFICALLY caveat my comment about HAL as "unless". Again, having never been on HAL, I did not know they used to have a different policy than every other mainstream cruiseline. So I'm happy to hear that people who know what it used to be like on HAL understand the Windstar tipping now. LOL

 

We tipped many people as many people provided us excellent service. We didn't calculate it out as $X per day per person. While we have only been on one Windstar cruise so far ( I know, shame on me), we were able to figure it out.

 

As it was explained to us by several people who had cruised Windstar many times (maybe I should have asked for their "cruise resume" first), the compensation to crew took into account the "no tipping required" policy. So maybe saying the fare includes the tip portion of compensation is not a direct derivation, but from where else does the money come than the fares. Regardless, we did short change ANYONE, because of the Windstar policy. But we also didn't feel required to give everyone a tip regardless of what kind of service they did or didn't provide.

 

Jeepers!!!

[golfergal]

DH reminded me that one of those conversations about compensation was actually with our favorite waiter. So I think he had enough Windstar cruises under his belt that he's credible, even if I'm not. ;-)

[luvnorway]

Golfergal hit the nail on the head re tipping on Windstar with her statement that "we did not feel required" to tip - that IS what makes Windstar different from the larger ships, and adds to the enjoyment of the cruise.

 

We have discussed the tipping situation with both officers (informally and privately) and crew on both HAL and Windstar - how accurate the info we rec'd is, I don't know - both sources may have experience limited to only one cruise line, although some crew have made comparisons based on what friends working on other lines have told them - and officers may have a bias and/or may repeat the "party line". Both sources have told us that HAL (which owns Windstar, so I'm lumping them together) does pay crew a base salary that is considerably higher than other cruise lines and does provide better benefits re health care etc. (I assume this only applies while on board).

Eg. several crew members told us they had been flown home in the middle of their contract, at company expensed, on a 2 wk compassionate leave when a parent died.

 

Nevertheless, when you find out what their base salary is, although it may be higher than on other lines, it is still very low (the equivalent of several hundred USD per month). Some passengers say "Oh yes, but they're still making more than they could in their own country". Personally, I think this is irrelevant and that tips should be given based on the quality of service provided. On Wind Surf, the quality of that service has always been excellent.

[laughoutloud]

Nevertheless, when you find out what their base salary is, although it may be higher than on other lines, it is still very low (the equivalent of several hundred USD per month). Some passengers say "Oh yes, but they're still making more than they could in their own country". Personally, I think this is irrelevant and that tips should be given based on the quality of service provided. On Wind Surf, the quality of that service has always been excellent.

 

I agree. Even when some lines have established auto-tipping, it's only like $10 per person, per day, for ALL the gratuites. (Why do so many cruisers balk at that amount...) And although I have never needed a server or cabin attendant to go "above & beyond" their normal duties, I have always appreciated their smiling hospitality & have tipped accordingly.

[lougee1043]

Golfergal hit the nail on the head re tipping on Windstar with her statement that "we did not feel required" to tip - that IS what makes Windstar different from the larger ships, and adds to the enjoyment of the cruise.

 

thats what made hal so special til auto tipping came around --hal had a "tipping not required" policy that i personally liked becasue it gave me the total option of tipping who i wanted and how much ---this policy did confuse some of the new cruisers to hal ----- having said that the new hal policy is somewhat like e tix for the airline--you get used to it and after a few easy calculations you can tip extra to the crew members you wish to-----------------------------anticipate using the old hal tipping policy on windstar

[schmidlapp]

just a bit of tipping info here, first of all we tipped many of the service staff on our not so pleasant mid january winsurf trip. The service staff was excellent, just other issues caused our disappointment.

the bar staff gets a cut of every drink they sell, built in service charge,

that may be why the bartenders and servers seem so attentive...

We still tipped Sammy (and tipped him quite well) even though he sold us numerous drinks.... I think tipping is the norm (expected) even though it's not required. These guys and gals, have it all figured out, thats why some

of them have been with the company so long...

[Lair Bear]

Here are some guidelines for tipping on the Windstar ships as we know it:

1. The dining room staff pools the tips which are given to anyone of the staff on the last day using the ship's envelopes.

2. The cabin steward should be tipped separately also at the end.

3. The bar servers are independent and you tip them as you see fit but also at the end of the cruise (not while being served, unless you really want to).

4. The spa personnel are tipped after each session (10 to 15% which can be added to the account).

I am not aware of any others who expect tips. But maybe ? ? Did I leave out anyone? How much? You be the judge. But again tipping is not mandatory.

[kimrealestate]

We have been on 5 windstar cruises and just got back on July 9th. We have little experience on other cruises. We gave our cabin steward $50 Euros and carried around a wad of $20 bills the last day to give to waiters that had been attentive. We never miss "cocktails", so the bar guys that always remember our drink of course get tipped. I personally don't like pooled tips, but there is a box at reception for that. The service is fabulous and we always run into a few of the staff from previous trips and they always remember us. The number of staff that have many years on the Windstar tells me that they must be compensated and treated fairly. Great group and they are what makes this cruise line so special. I don't feel that how they are compensated should have any bearing on how I tip - seems a little patronizing.

[little britain]

"TIPPING NOT REQUIRED" POLICY

We sail under a "tipping not required" policy. That means the company policy expressly forbids any form of solicitation. Of course, staff members may accept gratuities when they are voluntarily offered for exceptional and outstanding service.