How does the tipping work?

Are the tips added to our onboard account?? And in general what do they run per person or per cabin? This will be helpful to know for my three daughters who have separate cabins. Thanks.

$10 per person perday :mad: . $5pppd forunder under 16's (I think).

I understand, however, that if you prefer to reward those responsible for good service yourself you can insist on this sum being recredited to your onboard account. Never tried it though.

You may also give additional tips at any time..in any restaurant, lounge, cabin stewards, etc.:)

Are the tips added to our onboard account?? And in general what do they run per person or per cabin? This will be helpful to know for my three daughters who have separate cabins. Thanks.

Tipping is neither required nor expected, HOWEVER (and this is not meant to get into a discussion of semantics) NCL assess each person a $10 per day service charge which is used as the "tips". according to the web site it is mandatory and may not be removed. (No one has been on and mentioned that it can be removed since it was made mandatory a few months ago.)

In short for purposes of your question you should assume that there is a $10 per person per day required fee that is added to your ship board account.

I'm doing this from memory, so mighthave the age wrong, but I think it's $5 per day for each child under 12.

The amount is automatically placed on your on-board account. That is to say, there's no need to take any direct action to tip the crew appropriately. As someone posted above, if a crew member does something very special for you, you can show your appreciation by an additional tip given directly to the crew member.

But don't forget, The Butler and The Concierge for suite passengers, along with the Kids Crew counselors, are NOT included in the general tipping pool.

We always tip the kids crew counselors, from the age group our kids were in, separately at the end of the cruise.

$10/day is a deal. Have to wonder what the reason is for the sour-faced emoticon in the posting above.

A $10/day required fee is NOT a tip, it is an additional $140 fee for 2 people on a 7 day cruise. A tip is a reward for excellent service, when it is a set required amount how is it anything besides an additional hidden surcharge? (I call it hidden, because it is not very clearly disclosed, you have to go searching for it).

I have no problem giving the butler $100 at the end of the cruise, the service goes way above and beyond what I would expect. It is not mandatory I tip him anything, so giving him something is a tip. If they added a $100 charge on my bill for "Required Bulter Tip", it is no longer a tip but a surcharge to help them pay his wages.

A $10/day required fee is NOT a tip

... which is why NCL calls it a "service charge." ;)

... which is why NCL calls it a "service charge." ;)

Which I am okay with, but I think it needs to be disclosed at booking next to the Fuel Surcharge as a line item for Payroll Surcharge. :)

Due to only using childrens crew & room service, & cabin steward due to personal issues which I will not go into. We removed the service charge filled out the form, received envelopes, tipped our room steward, childrens crew & room service every meal which was more than 4 times a day. We did not use any other services due to above mentioned issues and I sleep very well at night. We tipped those who provided us a service and the amount was more than if we had left the service charge on. To each his own & your money is yours to spend as you see fit and mine as I wish. And no I will never sail onn NCL again.:(

So, I just got back from work and it seems that I shouldn't have given the short form answer to greywillow's question.

Yes, gratuities do happen in other countries. They did when we lived in Europe and the custom continued on our later visits. Haven't been back across the pond in the past 8 years but I assume that it is still the same.

Having said that, the % tipped and the number of people to be tipped is IMHO no where near the level of here in the States.

Going to a cruise ship it is possible to tip the van driver from the parking lot to the airport terminal, the porter at the terminal, the porter at the arrival terminal, the cab driver to the hotel, the bellman at the hotel, hotel bellman again the next morning, the cab or van driver to the pier and the porter at the pier. Holy Cow... the tip could be worth more than the bags:eek:

So, sorry if I offended anyone (and especially our friends to the north who do tip on a similar scale) with my short answer.

Charlie

Auto tips are perfect for freestyle cruising. I work from 70-80 hours a week on the ship and if it wasn't for the auto tips I would see at most $5 per week. I have a video on my website http://web.mac.com/cruisingjames that explains how it works. I'm also going to be uploading another one over the next few days.

I always leave the auto tip there... I dont know... I consider it a part of the cost of the cruise... Out of 12 or so cruises I have never removed it... on some cruises we have not tipped anything extra... on some cruises we have tipped extra to the room steward and/or waiters at dinner.

We have never tipped anything to the maitre'd because honestly we have never felt the maitre'd has done anything for us personally... yes they have a job to do but on the rare occasion when we had a request to be moved or anything it was always turned down so.... plus on most cruises we never even met the maitre'd until the last night when he was there with his hand out...

We've had some meals where the waiters did exactly the minimum that they could have done... weren't overly friendly, weren't talkative etc... yes they did their job, but with no "additional effort"... And then we've had cruises where the waiter introduced themselves, found out our names, actually remembered our names throughout the entire cruise which always amazes me, remembers after 1 request that we always like lemon with our water and only white bread rolls and not the other kinds... brought us an extra entree without even asking when they saw we were having a hard time picking between two, brought me vanilla ice cream with my chocolate cake without being asked because he overheard me saying i loved chocolate cake or brownies with ice cream... ... stuff like that... in those cases we absolutely tipped extra at he end of the cruise...

Same thing with room stewards... we've had some room stewards who never stopped to introduce themselves, did the bare minimum required to keep the room cleaned etc.. and then we've had room stewards who always smiled and said good morning, always asked how our excursions were, always made extra little touches... we are really clean and picked up kind of people... i always wipe the counter down with the hand towel if I spill water on it, wash my glasses and set them on a towel to try, keep all our trash in the container, suff we want to keep in a drawer, the bed always made etc... I would say we are pretty easy people to clean up after... obviously they still have to clean, but i'd say we make it a lot easier than some people might... so, in some cases we have definately tipped extra, and in some cases we havent....