tipping the wine steward

[murphyis1]

I'm a HAL newbie. DH and I plan to bring our own wine to DR. I know about the $15 corkage fee, but I've read on CC that sometimes the fee is waived when passengers "take care of the wine steward". First of all, I'm not exactly sure what a wine steward is. Most of my cruises have been on RCI, and our wine was always handled by our waiter or assistant waiter. Second, when is the appropriate time to tip this person? Each night at the end of dinner, once at the end of the cruise, once at the start of the cruise??? Thanks for your input!

[NextOne]

Welcome to HAL! On the Volendam, each group of tables in the dining room was assigned a wine steward, separate from the waiters. Ours was a lovely lady named Elizabeth. She helped with wine selections, brought the glass/bottle, refilled the glasses from the bottle, and then corked & stored the bottle after dinner for the next night if there was any left. The bottle was waiting for us at the table the following evening. She would also take care of requests for sodas or mixed drinks at dinner. I also saw her assisting at the two wine tastings offered during the cruise. (Don't miss those if they're offered!) We gave her a tip on the last night of the cruise, which seemed to be the usual practice.

We didn't bring any wine on board with us, so I can't answer about the corkage fee.

[sail7seas]

We always tip our wine steward by envelope on the last night of the cruise.

 

Never before this last cruise did we ever bring any wine aboard with us.

This cruise, we had a pre-cruise stay in FLL and a very good friend there gave us a wonderful bottle of champagne which we did not drink while at the hotel. It was too fine to leave in the hotel and we treasured our friend had done this for us.

 

We brought the wine aboard and we explained the situation to our wine steward. We brought it to the dining room and he served it to us the same as he served all the wine we had throughout our cruise.

 

We were happy to thank him the wonderful service he provided us our whole cruise.

[Harry1954]

we always have wine with dinner as has been our practice in our home during our forty years of marriage. the wine steward(ess) makes this very pleasant on our cruises by preparing and serving the wine. we have yet to bring bottles of wine; although for a south pacific trip next year, I anticipate doing so only because the wine list is so limited.

we always tip the wine steward(ess) last night by envelope, even though we may splurge and buy very expensive wines during the trip and there is a 15% service fee on these.

harry

[Krazy Kruizers]

Even though we know that wine steward does get part of the 15% gratuity that is added onto all wine and alcohol bills, we still give him/her a tip at the of the cruise.

[O2B@C]

On my one and only HAL experience (so far - there will be more!), I reminded the wine steward not once but twice that I owed him corkage for the two bottles we drank in the dining room. Nonetheless, no bill for the corkage was forthcoming. So the same $ went to him in the form of a tip, in an envelope on the last evening. But I didn't see it as a quid pro quo - "I'll forget the corkage if you tip me" - nor did I offer or promise him a tip up front. I think he just decided to be nice about it - or was too busy to bother - and I'm sure he was hoping I would be nice to him in return, but he never asked or even hinted.

[cruiserfromohio]

If you order all your wine from the overpriced wine list on the ship, they add 15% to the cost as a tip, so the wine steward gets some compensation for the sale of wine to you. If you bring your own wine to the dinning room the $15 corkage fee has a small tip built into it ($12.75 for HAL and $1.25 for the wine steward). That all said, if it were me, I'd tip the wine steward based on three criteria -- service, knowledge, and whether it was your wine or HAL's.

 

Service, was it prompt, was it right, was your glass kept reasonably full. Most, but not all, HAL wine stewards meet this criteria

 

Knowledge -- do they know the wine list well enough to make a real recommendation, not just the most expensive bottle on the list? Do they know enough to correctly pair the wine they recommend with the food you will be eating? Do they know enough to suggest politely that maybe the wine you're asking for might be the wrong wine for what you're going to have as a meal. Most HAL wine stewards know little about the wines on the list or how to pair the wine with food. My experience is that when asked for a recommendation, HAL wine stewards will always equate price with quality and value and recommend the most expensive wine in of the type/variety/region you suggest.

 

Your wine or HAL's -- a $1.25 per bottle (the steward's share of the corkage fee) is a pretty low tip, even if the wine only cost you $10 in FFL. A tip of an additional $3 - $5 per bottle of wine that you bring to the dinning room is reasonable, especially if you received good service from the wine steward.

 

All in all should you tip the wine steward -- it's up to you. If you order only from the wine list and the wine steward gave you good service a $1 per bottle is a reasonable tip. Average service desires nothing. Outstanding service then give the steward $2 per bottle. If you bring your own wine, then tip at least $3 per bottle -- think of all the money your savings -- to the wine steward. So for seven days tip $0 for average service, $10 -$20 for good to outstanding service, and $25 - $50 for good service and its your wine.

 

Tip on the last night of the cruise and tip early in the evening, these guys are really busy cleaning up at the end of the meal and you might have trouble finding them.

[murphyis1]

Thanks for all the responses. It's my understanding that the wine steward is not included in the auto tips that are added to our shipboard account. Is this correct?

[ldog]

Wine steward is not included in auto tip but they do get the 15% that is automatically added on to each bottle.

 

We had Elisabeth on the Volendam last October. What a lovely lady! And very knowledgeable about the wines. She was going home to get married after this contract.

 

That said, the HAL wine list is pretty boring and overpriced. I'm hoping that we can buy some great Australian and NZ wines in February. I doubt there will be many on the ship's list.