Staff Salary

[RetireeWannabee]

Keep in mind that the staff is not forced to work on a cruiseship... They choose it... They are fully aware of the compensation and travel requirements.... in fact, those are two big reasons why they choose this line of work in the first place...

 

It's a lifestyle they choose, which is why so many of them have been working on ships for YEARS!!!

Exactly!!

[wild0826]

I usually tip accordingly to service. On my cruise last year my assistant waiter did an outstanding job. He did as much work as the waiter so my husband and I tipped them the same amount of money. I only saw my head waiter the night before tipping. He said hello and left. We did not tip him anything because we were not going to tip someone for saying hello one night.

 

 

 

[RetireeWannabee]

Tips are a way of life in this country. If you dine out your wait person works for tips. Even if they make minimum wage - they have to pay taxes and FICA on their tips - most of the time your paycheck is $0 or close to it. Due to tax law changes over the years even if you have a bad night and get several tables of non-tippers - you have to claim tips you didn't receive or prove you did not receive the tips. Cause Uncle Sam is going to take his hit. You are expected to claim a certain percentage of your sales as tips.

 

Good or bad - pricing in restaurants and on cruise ships reflect this fact.

Interesting. Do you happen to have a link to IRS rules on this, as this is not at all how I understood it (having never lived the Tipped Lifestyle).

[Majesty Fan]

My husband used to be a waiter on the Majesty. They do get paid $50 a month but they do get free room and board and have to pay for their laundry, and cabin cleaning too. The waiters who get the big tables have gotten excelent from the week before or cruise before anything less than excellent on comnet cards gets them a samll station. Some people do not come back the last night. We tip more than the suggested amt. It is not really about the service for us but the vacation. We like to have good service but is aslo about being away from home. We had lousy service on Disney but still tipped the correct amt.

Lexi

[amybear912]

Interesting. Do you happen to have a link to IRS rules on this, as this is not at all how I understood it (having never lived the Tipped Lifestyle).

 

 

Here's a link from the IRS site regarding the claiming of tips...

 

http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/industries/article/0,,id=98401,00.html

 

Any restaurant I have worked at required you to sign off at the end of the night where you claim your tips... it's usually a printout from the register program that indicates the amount of product you sold, then calculates the required amount of tips to claim... I've worked in some where the standard calculation was as little as the 8% noted in the link and some where you claimed up to 15%.... either way, the employer must submit to the IRS your tips for tax purposes...

 

The beauty of it is that anything over the 15% that you are tipped, basically goes unnoticed by the IRS and is essentially tax free money... this is why many like working the tipping lifestyle...

 

Depending on the type of establishment, you can make a very decent living waiting tables... I have served alongside several people over the years who left their white collar jobs to wait tables specifically because the money is that good... IF, that is, YOU are that good of a server...

 

The ugly side is that a few cheapskates on a slow night can have you walking out the door with barely enough to put a half tank of gas in your car... it's a gamble... and few people have THAT bad of a night...

[cookiersmom]

As tipping is not a major source of remuneration in Australia, cruises are sold with gratuities included. I guess if someone exceeds my expectations I will tip on top but the whole tipping scenario won't be a big deal for me.

 

Since RCCL does not automatically include tips, how do the tips that you say are included get to YOUR steward and table staff? Are they put on your shipboard account by the TA and then doled out by RCCL?

There are some cruise lines (Holland and Princess) that DO automatically charge all customers (on top of the cruise price) via their shipboard accounts for tips, but RCCL does not.

 

Please make sure that your service staff really will get fair remuneration for their efforts for you.

 

Side note: I seriously dislike the Princess/Holland policy. On those lines, while there were some great staff, I found many of the staff clearly NOT as service oriented as on RCCL, and I definately attribute that to their thinking that their "tips" are pretty much assured, it is very difficult for passengers to change the "auto tip" amounts. But, on RCCL, stewards and wait staff know that most folks do not do auto tipping and will decide during the cruise what to tip. So, I for one, like the tipping policy on RCCL, and 95% of the time, at least, we have had great service and tip accordingly

[Sarvowinner]

"Since RCCL does not automatically include tips, how do the tips that you say are included get to YOUR steward and table staff? Are they put on your shipboard account by the TA and then doled out by RCCL?"

 

In Australia, it's the custom to include all port charges and tips in the cruise price. Possibly because tipping is not considered mandatory. Many of my aunts and uncles would never tip. Having lived in Canada where I worked as a waitress, I usually tip around 10%. However, that may not be the norm as a waiter will may have a base salary of up to AUD 18.50 per hour and double that on a public holiday or Sunday.

 

Quite a few TAs in the US also sell the cruise including tips, I gather you are given prepaid vouchers that are given out in envelopes at the end .

 

If you search, you find threads explaining the process.

 

I just checked P&O Australia's polciy and it says tipping is at the passenger's discretion so I assume the crew salaries must be higher and the overall price accommodates the staff remuneration.

[AllieInMD]

yeah that is true for US restaurants - but most crew I've seen aren't american - they are from elsewhere - and the ships are all registered outside the USA - I doubt Uncle Sam is getting any of it (not that they should, just saying it's apples and oranges)

 

Tips are a way of life in this country. If you dine out your wait person works for tips. Even if they make minimum wage - they have to pay taxes and FICA on their tips - most of the time your paycheck is $0 or close to it. Due to tax law changes over the years even if you have a bad night and get several tables of non-tippers - you have to claim tips you didn't receive or prove you did not receive the tips. Cause Uncle Sam is going to take his hit. You are expected to claim a certain percentage of your sales as tips.

 

Good or bad - pricing in restaurants and on cruise ships reflect this fact.

[mamaza]

This is from a waitress we met and still keep in contact with. She left as you can tell from this part of a letter she sent me. I was answering the same question that was originally asked. She's a sweetheart,BTW.

 

Regarding the tips to wait stuff in Royal Caribbean.... You know, they always change the rules... About 5-7 years ago the company paid to the dining-room waiter 450 $ a month plus the waiter had tips from the guests he served to (in the envilope). Plus that time they were giving uniforms for free and provided laundry for free.. It was more that 5-7 years ago.. .

Then later they changed to only 50 $ per month to anybody from the dining-room staff (every asst.waiter, waiter and head-waiter) - plus they made us buy all uniforms and they canceled laundry for free. But we still had our tips (I was working for this system that time).. Of course, some guests paid, some didn't... But in general all the tips we gethered during the month was our wages... Marc and Mary - you were very good regarding gratitues You are very generous people!!! I wished everybody was like you when I was working there... Because I remember the times when half of month my asst. waiter and head-waiter had to work for free.... Sorry, for Royal Caribb. Internation Company

 

You will be laughing now... I still keep in touch with some of my friends that are still working there now. They say (they cannot lie to me) the company cancelled even 50 $ per month....))) And for everything they have to pay... drinks, food... nightmare...

Regarding the payment... If the guests want to pay they can do in one of two ways: either to go to the reception - and they will charge them (I don't remember exactly - about 40-50$) and they will be divided in the following way: from the each guest who had paid : voucher "to your waiter is 24.5, 12.5 to the asst. waiter and the rest to the heat-waiter... Or they can just put an aproximate cash into the envilopes... And then the guest decide - how much they put into everybody's envilope... There is no more sharing... Everybody has the money he received in the envilope after the cruise... After receiving money or vouchers the waiter and asst'waiter can only pay - how much they want - to the dish-wash guys, because everybody has to take care of his station plates, cups and silverware... A little bit too complicated, isn't it?

[rt1092]

The wait staff also have to kick back to the cooks. When they bring you lobster tail after lobster tail. Somebody has to make money.

[joy cruiser]

I could never understand why anyone would ask the staff how much they make. If they asked us I am sure we would not tell them and would probably get indignant.

[michigan tim]

I could never understand why anyone would ask the staff how much they make. If they asked us I am sure we would not tell them and would probably get indignant.

 

I've never asked how much a crew member makes, but have had conversations about how they are paid and if I use the voucher do the receive it all and do they prefer cash over the voucher. On my last RCL cruise (2 weeks ago) I was told they work solely for tips. I could not imagine service being poor enough to stiff these guys. We did have less than satisfactory service in the dining room on the beginning of our last cruise (way too much time between courses, empty water goblets for 30min... basically inattentive), but after bringing this to the head waiter's attention we were right back on track. The head waiter was pouring water and taking desert orders. It appears in order to keep costs down the waitstaff is being reduced and thus have more tables and the same with the housekeeping staff, thus having more cabins. If the prior posts in this thread are any indication then there are a lot more cheapskates afloat than I thought.

[FL_Cruiser64]

This is from a waitress we met and still keep in contact with. She left as you can tell from this part of a letter she sent me. I was answering the same question that was originally asked. She's a sweetheart,BTW.

 

This was a very heart warming mail. We made plans to exchange e-mail addresses several times with our fav waiter or bar personnel. But we always pushed it to the very last minute and then something came in between and we missed an opportunity. :(