afrayedknot

Yes, never let anyone else's behavior ruin your own cruise!!!

(Or day on onshore...)

I happen to think it is the part of where he is from. I have had great staff always except one time we had a waiter from the Ukraine. Had to laugh every night before dinner as to what we would end up with. The food was great but NEVER what we ordered. After being reprimanded the first night from him for sending it back we just ordered, ate what was to our liking and went to the lido afterwards to finish. Didn't adjust but sure wanted to....

INMHO- This is just plain horrid.

You could be right but sure hope you are wrong.

I, too, hope you are wrong. But you may be right. At some point, I'll live/travel in other countries, in a manner more frugal.:)

We leave the auto tips in place, but quit tipping extra to anyone a couple of cruises ago. Truth is we have never had exceptional service from waiters, stewards or really anyone ON ANY CRUISE LINE. For the most part, cruise ship employees seem annoyed with pax and most of them seem disinterested and as has been posted many times, some of them are downright rude and surly. The ones who do address guests by name and make small talk come across as pretentious and phony to me. IMO, they're just graveling for tips. It's really obvious.

 

Cleaning the room, making the bed, bringing ice and towels are all part of the steward's job. Waiters are supposed to bring water, bread and butter as needed. IT'S THEIR JOB. On the RCI forum, a poster was ridiculed for complaining about not receiving bread, water and butter at the table. Some posters stated that waiters had better things to do than bring bread, water and butter to a table.:rolleyes: Requesting milk for a toddler in the MDR should not warrant the head waiter rolling his eyes. On another thread, I was actually accused of being too demanding for the milk request and it was suggested that we were putting the wait staff out for the request :rolleyes: Extra tips for service "above and beyond" as some of you like to put it. No thank you.

Have had the occasional service slip but for the most part, my experience and views on employees making small talk is the polar opposite of yours.

Mmmmmm??

I just read your post. I didn't read responses though. Shame on me.

 

Whatever you do, please do it with some consideration for your fellow cruisers and their families. Show some restraint and try not to get "hammered" when it's still family time in the public areas. Have a good time, but don't be "that guy" whose making an @ss of himself in the hot tub or dropping the F-bomb every 30 seconds.

 

If you are drinking 15 drinks a day, it's likely you may have a drinking problem...or more accurately, a stopping problem.

 

If your plan for vacation is to be hammered, why go on a cruise? Rough seas and you'll be seeing your "investment" again, coming out the way it came in.

 

Also, if your plan is to be hammered why spend the extra cash for being on a cruise in the first place? Just get a nice hotel on the beach in Mexico and imbibe till you can't see straight? It's not like your going to remember anything anyway.

 

Stay thirsty amigo....

"Family Time?" "Family Cruiseline?" as opposed to, what?

This is Carnival, with the FUN ships....

Go on Princess or HAL if you want a more "sedate" atmosphere.

Why don't you just book the whole ship so you can have all the "Family Time" you want, without those other pesky adult passengers who do indulge and come onboard for a good time?

I am not saying adults need to become absolutely smashed, in order to have a good time.

Have seen adults who weren't smashed, making asses of themselves and dropping F-bombs, as well.

I am getting Cheers on my upcoming cruise- a $300 bar bill for 6 days sounds reasonable enough for me.

That is how I am thinking about it. Not how I must have 15 drinks a day, because I paid for them.

I have never "lost my investment" on a cruise.

I find your proselytizing absolutely repugnant.

It makes sense to me. It sounds better to say that they are improving things rather than say the truth- that they are cutting more corners.

Imagine if they made a commercial for tv where JH said

"Here at CCL, we are making many brilliant changes. We have stopped flying in professional guest entertainers and instead, your fellow passengers will entertain you. We have replaced live bands with a guy playing loud mp3 hip hop noise, and in the dining room, we have made brilliant changes like decreasing the number of servers so it takes two hours to get through dinner and replacing things like filet mignon with meatloaf, replacing ny steaks with challenging to the jaws flat iron steak. You'll never feel alone on CCL as we proudly have the most crowded ships in the industry!

Book a CCL cruise now to see what other brilliant changes we are making."

Brilliant sarcasm!!

Love it;)

:rolleyes: THAT is too funny.

OMG- I always leave notes for my stewards.. requests for ice, etc.

Post its on the mirror.

Also "Thanks" for requests or I make comments on the towel animals, etc.

As far as having "phantom" stewards, have had a few of those.

No complaints, but I missed the contacts, getting to know a little about them.

For instance; if they get to go off on one of our ports, what they like to do, when do they get a vacation, what they will do, what ships they've been on, when their contract is up, when they get to see their family, what pets they have. If they tell me about a hobby, a collection or interest, I may pick up a small, related gift while I am ashore.

Of course, this never supplants tipping. I think we both benefit from the contact. But if I sense the steward wants to be left alone to do her/his job, I don't prod.

I would never grill them but if they show interest, I may ask them these things, depending on how they react. Most times I find employees are really happy to talk about their real lives, for someone to show a genuine interest in them, which I enjoy doing.

Pam

The 15% is added to the entire amount of Cheers when you purchase it.

 

From then on, each time you order a drink, you get a "receipt" for the purchase price, with a "promotional discount" of 100% applied for a net cost of $0.00 and the "15% gratuity" line is also at $0.00 for a total cost of $0.00.

 

They do leave the blank line so you add an extra tip if you want to.

 

If the receipt was for one of the "Classic Cocktails" you can take it to the casino cashier and get a $5 match play coupon to use at a table game.

Table game, like craps?

Sailing on Dec. 1st- not quite holiday time for me, yet.

It will be my 20th Carnival Cruise so am thinking about putting up

ribbons in Carnival Colors (Red, White, Blue) on my door?:rolleyes:

I understand your issues, his attitude was something to consider. While we understand that staff on the ship are worldwide and their culture differences may not be what we are used to this certainly was outside of the norm. While you did not reduce the tip, I think I would have, especially when he approached your wife. Mess with me that’s find, but you approach my wife different ballgame. I believe you should write a letter to Carnival and express your concerns.

 

On our cruise last week on the Sensation met our room attendant he told us about him doing the room twice a day and all of that. I took a soft side cooler and asked the room attendant if he would put ice in it. That evening there was no ice in it or in the ice bucket, saw him in the hall and asked him about ice, he stated that he tried to fill the cooler but it was full. Well the cooler was not full, as a matter of face the ice he brought me I put in the cooler.

 

He never put ice in the cooler at anytime. He would bring ice in the bucket and leave it, but never put it in the cooler and the cooler was on the desk in the tray that holds the ice bucket. Not a big deal, I just poured the ice in the cooler from the bucket, just thought it was odd that he never did or make an effort to. I didn’t reduce tips or anything just caulked it up as one of those things. My wife did mention that he was not as friendly as previous attendants. He would barely speak when we saw him in the hallway. Actually got more responses from other staff in the hallway than him, again no big deal.

Usually if I place my carryon wine on the counter, the steward will place it in a big bucket of ice.

I had to constantly ask for ice from my room steward last week. He was stingy with the ice- asked for the big bucket, didn't get it.

So I started to order it from room service and that worked out well. (With a tip, of course.)

One out of only 2 room attendants who disappointed. Pretty good odds:rolleyes:

Pam

To those that said they would not have reduced the tips because they go to so many people... that is incorrect. If you go to guest services they can remove/reduce the portion for the room steward. They have a formula for what percentages go to which department. You can also increase tips to one category (say your dinning waiter) but normally if I want to add tips I just do it with cash and in person because that way i KNOW where it went.

 

And I like the others agree that you were not being unreasonable in your requests nor in your actions. After he was in my cabin alone with my wife I would have been on the phone to guest services and DEMANDING to speak with the hotel manager. He/she needs to know that it took place.

I didn't know you could remove the tips for one employee only.

This is definitely a situation that calls for it!!

Pam

Bibble-

I taught English, never was much good at math:confused:

Pam

I taught ESL to adults at a college (have an M.S. in Ed. TESOL- which had a linguistic component involving cultural communication.)

 

Not to be judgmental but I agree with you part of the "problem" might have been differences in communication preferences.

I also suspect the steward has personality issues, as well.

 

OP- I would not have adjusted the auto tips and I'm glad to hear that you didn't compromise your own standards of behavior, either.

 

Pam

 

P.S. I've only had 22 stewards who disappointed. One I tipped $20 when I got on board. Never did that again.

OOOOPS!! 2 stewards, not 22!!

Those were pretty much my thoughts too.

When I was working in the medical field, we had employees of a specific descent and you could pluck out the specific nationality just by the tone of the voice. It was their culture and it was not abnormal to them to be so blunt and bossy.

I taught ESL to adults at a college (have an M.S. in Ed. TESOL- which had a linguistic component involving cultural communication.)

Not to be judgmental but I agree with you part of the "problem" might have been differences in communication preferences.

I also suspect the steward has personality issues, as well.

OP- I would not have adjusted the auto tips and I'm glad to hear that you didn't compromise your own standards of behavior, either.

Pam

P.S. I've only had 22 stewards who disappointed. One I tipped $20 when I got on board. Never did that again.

My flipflop magnet and margarita magnet were stolen off the door by the 2nd day. :(

My bows have "disappeared,"

usually on a cruise when I hear rambunctious kids running down the hall-

Don't spend much on them and can't take them home

(they'd crush in my suitcase.)

So, not a big deal....

Never been on a bad cruise, like everything else, it's what you make of it!!

Pam

ALWAYS decorate my door-

with big stick-on curly ribbons, bows from the dollar store.

Purchasing them for the cruise whets my (*already amped*) anticipation--

Just a cruise ritual for me.

Last cruise, on the Inspiration, the bows wouldn't stick on the door

so I put them on the mirror in my cabin- so festive!!

It was a Halloween Cruise so the deco was orange, black & green.

Pam

I always miss my dogs when we are away- and admittedly call the doggie camp repeatedly to check on them. But once I board a ship and get a look at the water it's "what dogs?"

Exactly!!:p

(off-topic, as well.)

I got tired of leaving Boris (my cat) at the cat spa,

so took a few years off from cruising and B & I traveled in a motorhome.

Now, I have an in house cat sitter so am back on board....

We DO take walks- he has a stroller and a lead and harness.:D

Pam

We write thank you notes on the envelopes with the extra tip inside for the waiters and stewards. We've never tipped extra to bartenders until this past cruise. Our MDR bar waiter really went above and beyond and we felt he deserved extra.

I bought a wine package and asked for 2 bottles (e.g.one white, one red)

to be brought out each night in the MDR.

I like to have the choice of wine, depending on what I'm eating.

Also, shared Prosecco with the whole table.

For the schlepping and pouring, I always tip extra...

Pam

Just did the Chef's Table last week on the Inspiration, on Halloween-

Since most of us were in costume- we relaxed immediately

and had a Fabulous Time!!

Not often you get to dine with Sonny & Cher, Red Riding Hood &

the Big Bad Wolf :eek:

Also attending were 2 Ancient Romans- totally befitting the

Bacchanalian Feast....

Pam

P.S. This lusty Pirate Wench had the time of her life!!

Am booking the CT for a cruise next month, too.

Welcome to the world of cruising!

I hope your first cruise was all you expected it to be...

and that you enjoy many, many more-

Thank you for sharing your enthusiasm.

Reading your post, I felt like I was right there with you!!

Pam:)