Tipping for excursions

[ChicagoCruisers2006]

Getting ready for our cruise in a couple weeks and wanted to know what the policy was/what people have done re: tipping for shore excursions. Is it a percent of the price? Do you give the guides a flat amount? Just trying to get a sense of what's normal before we go.....

[Budget Queen]

My opinion only, I do tip $5-10++ per person depending on the tour. I don't care if they are the owner or not. :), If I enjoyed the tour- I just about always do :) I always tip, including a dollar or two to shuttle drivers.

[RNCheryl]

Woops.. .budgeting alert, must take more $$$.

[agabbymama]

I usually only book tours in the $25-50 range. I usually give the driver $2 and the guide $2. If I end up with no singles, then I might give them a $5 to split. Most tours I've been on, they announce that they split the tips anyway.

[travelcrazy006]

it depends on how good the tour was, what they did, etc. i went ziplining and because the two guys were great i gave both of them $5. they deserved it. for a city tour i gave $3., bus and shuttle drivers $2.

[Keith1010]

It's good to get a sense of range of what people do and then we base our tip on several factors including the length and total cost of the tour, what we thought of the tour and most importantly the impact that the tour guide had either on our enjoyment or lack of enjoyment on the tour. Most people on a group tour tip around a couple of dollars a person or five or ten dollars per person. But again all of this varies by person and by tour. And, some people don't tip. It's all up to you.

 

Keith

[MercedMike]

For your typical bus tour from the ship's excursions, the "suggested" tip is $1 or $2 per person for a half day tour, and $2 up to $5 per person for a full day tour. Obviously if you have a wonderful guide who really gives you a great tour, you should up the tip.

 

For a smaller tour, or an independent tour, the figure of 10% of the tour price is probably pretty reasonable.

 

For an intense tour with lots of help from the staff in special activities, they usually make the experience so good that you will want to reward them specially.

 

Have a GREAT cruise!

[Boca_Raton]

We generally tipped every tour guide and shuttle driver. It was really kind of tacky though when the gal who was on the P.A. during the railway tour said she was coming through the cars to "personally meet us." We did tip her, but would have given the same tip to the gal who helped us on and off the train as they usually split it all anyway.

[bhamcruzer]

I give 15% of what the excursion cost as a tip to a guide, and and maybe around $5 to any bus/shuttle drivers. $1 a bag to anyone who handles my bags anywhere.

[mbmadeline]

What about for an expensive excursion? Such as a $500 helicopter glacier trek

[nikatgram]

That's exactly what I want to know - how about the helicopter /glacier excursion?

[LaBayouBabe]

And how about the float plane trip?

[caneable]

Somebody please give us all a clue on the last two posts. We're a couple of supposedly stingy Brits who happen to want to do the right thing without tossing our wallets away. Just because we don't go in for automatic tipping doesn't mean that we won't follow the when in Rome approach.

 

C'mon give us a little encouragement!

[Amaranthine33]

That's exactly what I want to know - how about the helicopter /glacier excursion?

 

I'm going with Harv & Marv. Do I need to tip? If so, how much? 10%, 15%, 20%?

[Happyladi]

I'm going with Harv & Marv. Do I need to tip? If so, how much? 10%, 15%, 20%?

 

I always thought that you didn't tip the owners and they own the boats. What do others think?

[Krazy Kruizers]

Depending on the tour and if we had a good guide, we tip anywhere from $5 to $20 per person. Some tours are also all day long - thus a bigger tip.

[caneable]

Thanks Happilady and Krazy Kruizers

 

If we get into trouble I'll just quote your thread - just kidding! It is a difficult area for us Brits as we tend to tip by quality, but having read a lot of comments from US cruisers on these boards I've now got a better grip of why your practice is so strong. It will be interesting to see how things go in the UK in years to come. Time was higher education was completely free, but these days more and more costs are being passed on to students and many are racking up big loans at college / uni. Those experiences may mean that they are more receptive to automatic tipping in years to come.

[kristieokc]

We went on our cruise in July and took both the floatplane tour in Ketchikan and the glacier dogsledding in Skagway. For the floatplane, we gave the pilot $20 for the two of us ..... for the helicopter pilot we also tipped $20 for us as a couple, and $20 for the dogsled guide as well. Since those excursions were a little more expensive, we thought the tips should be slightly larger. Perhaps $20 isn't that large, but it seemed appropriate, and they were appreciative.

 

Shuttle drivers we usually just gave $1 or $2; we had six suitcases so we tipped the porter at the pier $10. We put a $10 in the tip jar for our whale watching cruise in Juneau.

 

Where tipping got really expensive was our all-day fishing trip in Seward, although we felt the workers earned every penny. It was something like a nine-hour tour and our two deckhands were fabulous --- superb. We gave them $20 apiece when the tour was over, then bought them beers while they were cleaning and filleting all our fish at the fish house, then gave them another $10 apiece for all the time it took them to clean our fish (Almost two hours of work, and that was *after* the trip itself, which was almost nine hours.) Like someone else said, we did not tip the owner of the boat on either of our boat tours. Not sure why that is the practice, but it's what I've always heard.

 

If you don't plan ahead for tipping, it could definitely be a surprise chunk out of your budget. I am more than happy to tip for good service, but wouldn't hesitate to give a smaller tip if the service was sub-par. Fortunately, we had great service on all our excursions this past summer. :)

[ysr_racer]

What about for an expensive excursion? Such as a $500 helicopter glacier trek

 

That's exactly what I want to know - how about the helicopter /glacier excursion?

 

And how about the float plane trip?

 

We / most people give $20 per person to the pilot. No, I'm not a pilot, but they work hard to make sure you have fun.

 

$20 per person to a fishing guide also.

 

Brad G.

So. Cal. USA.

[Happyladi]

We / most people give $20 per person to the pilot. No, I'm not a pilot, but they work hard to make sure you have fun.

 

$20 per person to a fishing guide also.

 

Brad G.

So. Cal. USA.

 

This kind of bugs me. I used to work for tips, but I was paid $1.25 an hour. I am sure a pilot is well paid, why should we have to tip a pilot? If he does 4 flights a day and gets an extra $80.00 a flight that really adds up.

 

I don't mind tipping if someone gets paid less due to the fact he/he works for tips but I think some of these people are well paid.

[ysr_racer]

I'm not tipping on how much you get paid, I'm tiping on how much fun I had.

 

If you spend 8 hours dragging my sorry butt up and down a river looking for fish, and then I get my limit, you get a good tip.

 

Same thing, you land the plane on a gravel bar that looks like a bowling alley, you get a good tip.

[agabbymama]

I just returned from a HAL cruisetour, and their recommended tips for land portion was $4 pp per day for the Tour Director and $2 pp per day for the coach driver. $2 pp per day for the Train Car Manager and $1 pp per day for the beverage attendant on the train car.

 

Now we were on the coaches from usually around 8:00am to 6:00 pm and that tour director sure did a lot for the 44 folks on the coach. And even once we arrived at the hotel he was still available if we needed help. His job was actually a 24 hour one.

 

And the coach driver made sure we got where we were supposed to be on time and safely, so he/she also earned their tip, in my opinion. Plus they were entertaining us on the long ride.

 

The first train ride from Fairbanks to Denali was only about 3 1/2 hours whereas the train from Denali to Anchorage was 8 hrs. I upped the tip a little on the longer ride as they serviced us longer than the first trip.

 

Shuttle drivers weren't mentioned, but I tipped them $2 pp per trip.

 

In the restaurants, I followed the same 15% guide I use at home, however, at Denali the server was unhelpful then became downright rude, so she didn't get a tip at all. Plus two of our companions filed a complaint at the desk.

 

I think $20 for a day tour is excessive, but that's just my opinion.

 

You have to decide if the service provided is even worth a tip, and how much. HAL used to say no tips were necessary, but they even now put $10 per day on your shipboard account, but that is split between all the service personnel.

 

Don't worry so much about it. They are paid for their service, and the tip is extra to show your appreciation for their time and expertise. If you want to tip large, do so, if you want to tip small, do that.

 

Have a great time!

[NancyIL]

I always thought that you didn't tip the owners and they own the boats. What do others think?

 

Our first excursion was the Misty Fjords floatplane in Ketchikan. Based on what I read here, I was prepared to tip $20 per person for my husband and myself. My husband said, "You don't tip the owner of the business -they get it all." After a bit of discussion with the others on our plane, NONE of us tipped the pilot, from what I could tell - but we did tip the van driver. I felt bad about that decision at the time, and even considered mailing the pilot/owner a check for the tip later! (After further thought when we returned home, I didn't - because we were charged the full amount for our excursion, even though we didn't "see" Misty Fjords due to weather.) However, I disregarded my husband's advice for the remainder of our excursions and tipped the owner of our whale watching boat and our tour guide/bus driver (who was also the owner) for our rail/bus tour in Skagway.

[mytime53]

Many people don't think you should tip the owner of a business; I think the assumption is that they make plenty of money. As the wife of the former owner of a fishing guiding business, I can tell you that many small operations barely get by. If there are employees, they get paid regardless of the operations income. The owner gets what is left over, or absorbs the loss. If the owner is the sole employee, it is such a small business that it takes several years to acquire enough clientele to even begin to make a profit, much less a living wage. However, the expenses those first few years are astronomical.

Also, the fishing trips where you don't catch a fish? Chances are, the guide worked way harder for you on that day than on a day when the fishing was great.

"even though we didn't "see" Misty Fjords due to weather"

You can't expect Mother Nature to cooperate with you all the time. If tour operators refunded $ whenever Mother Nature didn't cooperate, they would all be broke, and there wouldn't be any tours for you to go on in the first place.

[Yukon]

For excursions, my formula is pretty simple - if the guide goes the extra mile and gives me more than I expected to get, I pay more than I expeced to by tipping. If I get exactly what I expected (or less), I pay exactly what I exected - ie no tip. I try to not let Mother Nature's mood influence that decision. Whether the person who is guiding owns the company is immaterial since I often don't know anyway. After talking to a whole lot of guides during the 17 years that I was one, though, the variation in what people give is huge - there really is no "standard" tip any more than there's a standard guide.

 

Murray