Whats the deal with tips/gratuities?

[Shockey86]

Ok, so I know that tips/gratuities are important and $10 per person per day is the "norm." My questions are:

 

1) Can you pay those upfront (i.e. when you first board the ship?)

 

2) What does that $10 cover? Room Service, porter, etc.?

 

3) Gratuities are automatically added to alcohol purchases (so I hear). Do you ever tip the bartenders with cash then?

 

4) Should you bring a bunch of $1s and $5s for other tips?

 

 

Any "in-depth" explanations of this whole tipping process would be much appreciated.

[dforeigner]

Ok, so I know that tips/gratuities are important and $10 per person per day is the "norm." My questions are:

 

1) Can you pay those upfront (i.e. when you first board the ship?)

You will have to either place a cash deposit per day or give them your credit card number.

2) What does that $10 cover? Room Service, porter, etc.?

It does not cover the porter. Some suggest that you should tip room service an extra dollar or two. This has been debated extensibly on these boards.

3) Gratuities are automatically added to alcohol purchases (so I hear). Do you ever tip the bartenders with cash then?

If you feel like it. If the service warrants it.

4) Should you bring a bunch of $1s and $5s for other tips?

Shore tours, etc.

 

Any "in-depth" explanations of this whole tipping process would be much appreciated. Which cruise line are you using? It normally covers your room steward, kitchen and dinning room servers.

 

I hope this helps.

[megabill]

The other thing to point out is that many cruise lines automatically, or can, at your request, add them to your shipboard account. In most cases where its done automatically, you can request the tips be removed if you feel more comfortable giving cash (when its done automatically, vouchers are sent to your stateroom so that you can still hand something to the particular persons). But if you are having it put on your shipboard account, then you've probably already put in a cash deposit or provided a credit card...

 

The tips usually cover Stateroom Attendant, Waiter and Ass't Waiter, the Maitre D', (and if there is one, probably the Ass't Maitre D')... And i'd guess the Chief Housekeeper.....

 

As far as drink orders go - i usually dont give any more than the automatically-included 15% - that is unless i have a great bartender that happens to be around most of the voyage. and that tip is automatically on *any* purchase from the bar, not just alcohol - so if you order a Soda - its on there too. I have a family member that buy the soda-cards ... thats the only time i've seen anyone tip cash (she'll leave a buck each time she orders a soda...)

 

As the dforeigner said - you should definitely bring extra cash for tips for things like cab rides, shore excursions, etc.

 

If you're looking for a breakdown of the tip amounts it probably varies slightly by each cruise line, but here's what i remember being most common: all amounts are per-person/per-day

 

Stateroom Attendant: $3.50

Waiter: $3.50

Ass't Waiter: $2.00

Maitre D': $0.75 (i could be wrong on that - but thats what stick out for some reason)

Chief Housekeeper: $0.75 (i could be wrong here)

Butler (if applicable): $4.00

 

I generally travel with about a group of 10 people, so we generally tip the Matire D' a flat amount for all of us... i've never actually done the calculation - which is why i dont recall the exact amout he would get tipped.

 

hope that helps :)

[wrp96]

Tipping depends on your cruiseline - every cruiseline does it differently. On Royal Caribbean you have a few options: one you can prepay all your tips when you book your cruise, you can sign up once you get on the ship to have them put on your Seapass card, or you can pay in cash at the end of the cruise.

 

The suggested gratuities (on RCCL) cover your stateroom attendant, your waiter, assistant waiter, and head waiter.

 

Whenever you order a drink, there is automatically a 15% gratuity added to your bill. There will be a line where you can add more but you don't have to if you don't want to. Usually on the first day of the cruise I find a bar I like, tip additional that day. And then wait until the last day of the cruise and give the bartenders a large cash tip - if the service warranted it throughout the week.

 

You should bring $1s and $s along with you for tipping people like porters, room service, etc as you go along.

[Fredr]

Hello,

 

Based on my 15 cruises the other respondents have given you excellent guidance on tipping. If I may, here are my additions. First, recognize excellent servce by tipping more than the recommended guidelines set by the cruise line. I ususally give a percentage amount over. For example on our last cruise the recommended amount for two passengers for the cabin steward was $126.00 for an 18 day cruise. We gave the cabin steward $186.00 or approximately 48 percent more than the recommended. This way you can reward good service.

 

Second, as much as you can, treat the cruise staff with respect and lots of smiles in addition to your tips. With very very few exceptions my wife and I have had very good to great service from our cabin stewards and waiters/asst. waiters.

 

And please remember only a truly low person doesn't tip even the recommended amount. If someone really isn't doing his or her job correctly speak up promptly to the head Waiter, or Chief Cabin Steward and get the matter resolved.

 

Hope that this helps.

 

Fred

[Host Kat]

For a Cruise Tip Calculator by one of your fellow Cruise Critic members, click here: http://cruisetip.tpkeller.com/

Kat

[Cotton]

Hi Shockey.:) It helps when we know which cruiseline, as they have varying policies.

 

Carnival:

 

The automatic tips of $10 per passenger per day will be the first entry on your Sail & Sign account. This would be $50 per person for a five night cruise - $70 per person for a seven night cruise. Only children under the age of two do not tip.

 

The auto tips are broken down as follows:

 

$3.50 per passenger per day to the cabin steward

$5.50 per passenger per day to the dining room waiter & asst.

$1.00 per passenger per day to the Lido Buffet personnel

 

Room service tips - $1-2 each time you order.

 

Bar bills automatically have 15% added, so no need to tip more.

 

The tips are a very fair amount. I believe the majority of passengers leave their automatic tips in place on the S&S account, and tip a little extra to a few folks at the end of the cruise. Hope this helps explain the tipping procedure for you.:)

 

Oh, you mentioned porters. The guys at the pier who take your luggage to the ship are not Carnival employees, but are employed by the port authority of that city. It is customary to tip them $1 per piece of luggage.

[on board]

When we cruise we always pay them at the end of the cruise with cash and nice note. I want to make sure they are getting what they worked so hard for.

We always take a hundred in ones and 5's for tipping everywhere on and off ship.

We always give the waiters who bring our drinks to us an extra dollar, it keeps them coming back! :D We also tip our cabin steward the first day and last day so that when we request he/she is more than willing to provide.:D

[Shockey86]

I appreciate all the input...very helpful! :)

[vanrhyn]

I normally don't pay anything in cash, so is it possible to have additional tips put on your ship board account for a particular individual, or does the extra go to a general pool? I am trying to get a handle on my cash requirements for a cruise in April.

 

:confused:

[Happy ks]

I normally don't pay anything in cash, so is it possible to have additional tips put on your ship board account for a particular individual, or does the extra go to a general pool? I am trying to get a handle on my cash requirements for a cruise in April.

 

:confused:

 

It may depend on the cruiseline. Giving more info, I'm sure someone can help you with your question.

 

We always prefer to give cash, but it's a personal choice of ours. We have cruised with family members who have done both, tipped with auto-gratuity and added a little more cash to the envelope with the voucher and added more to the account sheet. A paper is given out (on some cruiselines) that you have to complete for tipping, they added additional gratuity to the sheet. You fill it out and turn it in to the desk by a set time.

 

 

We also take along a stack of at least 20 $1 bills, as well as a few 5's and $10's, for porters and room service. We prefer to use cash in ports, so we take enough that we feel will supply us for lunches and incidentals like cabs. Last week we went through around $600 cash for these things, a family of 4, it included city tours in two port towns. I'm a bit leary of using a credit card in a foreign country. There was a safe in our cabin, or you can also have cash locked up at the Guest Relations desk.

[critterchick]

I normally don't pay anything in cash, so is it possible to have additional tips put on your ship board account for a particular individual, or does the extra go to a general pool? I am trying to get a handle on my cash requirements for a cruise in April.

 

:confused:

 

On Royal Caribbean, you can get cash from the casino on your Seapass and use that cash to pay extra tips. Unlike Princess, RCI doesn't charge you a fee to do so. So you don't need to bring a lot of cash onboard with you. We used to use the automatic gratuities that happyks described, but I think the crew prefer cash tips, so we withdraw cash onboard and use that for tipping. Several crewmembers have told us that the only pooled tips are the automatic 15% bar gratuties - anything extra that you put on the receipt or tip in cash belongs to the person who served you.

[wrp96]

On RCCL if you want to put your tips on your Seapass Card you can only do the suggested amount. They do not allow you to adjust the amount up or down.

 

What some people do is they put the suggested amounts on their SeaPass and just put extra cash in the envelopes with the tip vouchers you hand to the waiter/stateroom attendant, etc at the end of the cruise.

[MidLothian]

I believe the majority of passengers leave their automatic tips in place on the S&S account, and tip a little extra to a few folks at the end of the cruise.

 

Does the staff know that you have the automatic tipping in place? Or do they just assume you're stiffing them?

 

Also, I've seen some people mention tipping some extra on the first day do the room attendant, etc, to get things started off right. Is this a commonly accepted practice?

 

Oh, you mentioned porters. The guys at the pier who take your luggage to the ship are not Carnival employees, but are employed by the port authority of that city. It is customary to tip them $1 per piece of luggage.

 

I assume this would be done as you give them your luggage, if they aren't employees of the cruise line I doubt you'd see them again at the end of the trip?