Dining Options

[LibraLass41]

PN

 

We have always given our 2 table waiters one tip in same envelope, after all they sign the menus from both of them and I'm sure they work as a team and share their tips together. Other people i noticed did the same, some writing thank you messages on the envelope.

The wine waiter does not need to be tipped, as he works on commission from wine sales. We give our one room steward the same amount as we give the 2 waiters.

[Pontius Navigator]

Sue,

 

We did as you do except on our previous cruise we noticed that all the others produced two envelopes at dinner.

 

No my query is really more general. Do those receiving tips receive less pay compared with those that don't? Certainly on Celebrity all drinks, including wine, were marked up by 20% and, I guess, pooled with Sommelier and deck/bar staff and most likely pro-rata.

 

On Celebrity, when Mrs PN ordered her first drink the waiter showed her where to sign and pointed out the bit where she could add a tip. Adding a 10% tip to a bill that has a 20% markup gives you a hefty shock.

 

A good bottle of wine on P&O might be £12.50 whereas on Celebrity it was perhaps £13.50 then £2.70 markup :(

[lostinvegas]

This is where I cannot work tipping out.

 

I would much rather just tip the people who deserve it rather than having amounts automatically added to my bill.

 

It seems crazy to me. The whole point in a tip is to aknowledge good service, a thankyou if you like for going above and beyond. On P&O we got great service and I gave out some big tips to the people who looked after us.

 

When we were on Carnival the tips were automatically added to our bill but we were also given an enverlope?? this completely confused me. I wanted to give the resturant staff and cabin steward a good tip as they had been excellent. There was no way in the world i wanted to tip any of the bar staff and the service was shocking. With the tips being added it was like they were going to be pooled around all the staff. Now it was our first time on carnival and rather than spend a day finding out what the system was we just left the tips added to our bill. We then left a small tip in the cabin at the end for the Steward.

 

To me having the tips pooled is an excuse to pay the staff less and make their pay up with a guarentee of tips. If thats the case then of course the service is going to suffer.

 

now quite a few years ago I worked at The Belfy as a bar tender. When I started you kept your own tips. Later on in my employment they started pooling the tips. The staff got lazy and I was working hard to earn tips and other just did not bother. So I thought stuff this and just kept my tips to myself as did most others. in the end you got a few staff working hard and others not bothering which really effected to consistancy of service.

 

I still don't really know how much to tip, I would be very interested to know how much the staff get paid as this would probably alter my perception on how much to tip.

 

Chris

[StLucia]

PN, I don't know if I'm right about the pooling or not but I'm sure this confusion about tipping is one of the things that deters people from cruising.

On RCI you can opt to prepay which means you pay your tips many weeks before you have even been on the cruise and this would probably not be covered by insurance, a fair amount of money on a longer cruise. On X I think we have got the option of having a set amount added to our SeaPass? We felt there was a lot of pressure from RCI to have tips added to our SeaPass at the amount they recommended with no option to change up or down without queuing and discussing the point at customer services. Also as you say both RCI and X add 15% automatically to any drink purchases. Interestingly on RCI it was actually the assistant waiter who took our wine order. We were given 4 envelopes on the last day 1 each for the steward, waiter, assistant waiter and head waiter, for vouchers if you prepaid or for cash at their recommended amount or more. We prefer and get pleasure from tipping in a more discreet way. Tips to me are a way of rewarding good service and should not be a way of making the cruise seem cheaper than it really is. Some people were even having their photos taken presenting their envelopes, really weird!

 

We are very pleased that pando seem to operate a more British/European method of rewarding staff for good service. But I would like staff to be paid the right rate for the job with tips as an extra. As you have said this acts as an incentive.

LostinVegas, when we went on Carnival we went on a cruise and stay package arranged via Virgin. They prepaid our tips and it was included in the package price. We tipped both the steward and the waiters extra because as you say they were so good, better we thought than RCI.

[Pontius Navigator]

LostinVegas, exactly. My daughter once was very pleased to receive a £5 tip and proudly put it in the pot. At the end of the night the tips, all £5, were divided equally. Lesson learnt.

 

St Lucia, on Celebrity, as I said, drinks, including soft drinks +20%. Tipping was pro rata depending on cabin. The amount for butler, steward, deputy chief house keeper, waiter, assistant waiter, assistant Maitre 'd were all specified with amounts IRO $1.50 to $3.50 ppd. Conveniently they added this to your account.

 

As the dining room was the pits we used it on only 4 meals out of 42 and wanted to tip accordingly. It took me 4 days to get it removed from the bill.

[StLucia]

PN, its interesting that you have said X added 20% service charge to your drinks bill. I checked the brochure for our future cruise on Solstice and it says 15%. It also gives the recommended gratuities at £5.15 (£6.91 for suites) pppd, but as I said before we object to being told how much to tip and prefer to make this decision for ourselves based on the service provided.

 

I'm sorry to hear you had a bad food experience. We are trying X next based on a friends recommendation. It will be interesting to see how it compares with Ventura. At the moment we think the food in the dining room on Carnival was better than Independance. We actually thought the buffet on Ocean Village better than Independance. We are looking forward to Ventura in 7 weeks time and hopefully she will be better still.

[Pontius Navigator]

St Lucia, did I mention food? I meant dining room service and one pair of dinner companions.

 

However we found that the Celebrity (US) idea of club dining service was different from a UK style. The standard menu was a plated service and you had to order vegetables as an additional option whereas P&O offer silver service as standard.

 

Anyway we fled the dining room for the buffet. The buffet had a vast range of dishes in the evening: sushi, pasta, pizza or pasta, sushi, pizza or pizza, pasta, sushi.

 

However we did dine in Liners and opted for their wine inclusive menu. The per capita cost of $54 was high compared with P&O at £7.75 but it included a per capita cost for 5 different wines of $27. The service and experience was outstanding and eclipsed anything on any other cruise so far. The food? No idea, it was quite incidental to the dining experience and I can't remember so in must have been good at least.

[StLucia]

PN, not had silver service on any of our past cruises so it will be interesting to see if the quality is any better. As you say the US ships are not great for vegtables but they do give you plenty of protein. We asked for extra veg on IOS and that solved the problem except we ended up with too much. Can't satisfy some people!

 

I know what you mean about dinner companions though. Our table mates for diner were lovely but a couple we sat with for breakfast would have sent us crazy if we had been with them for another meal. Couldn't you have asked to move?