The Great Luggage Debate

Haven't sailed for 4 years now, just a little worried about the chance of lost luggage when checked vs carrying on all suitcases. What is the better option? Check bags or carry all bags?

Also, hearing a lot about $20+ tips to the porter to ensure bags make it on the ship?

Thanks!

never lost a bag and never carried luggage aboard and never tipped $20. Once the bags leave the porter, not a Carnival employee, they go below for distribution. We usually tip $10 for the service.

Haven't sailed for 4 years now, just a little worried about the chance of lost luggage when checked vs carrying on all suitcases. What is the better option? Check bags or carry all bags?

 

Also, hearing a lot about $20+ tips to the porter to ensure bags make it on the ship?

 

Thanks!

A couple bucks is all you need AND make sure your luggage is clearly labelled with your ship tags outside and inside as a back up. On my shuttle, two couples handed their bags to the porters and walked away, no tip and no luggage tags attached. He just shrugged and tossed them on the cart.

Haven't sailed for 4 years now, just a little worried about the chance of lost luggage when checked vs carrying on all suitcases. What is the better option? Check bags or carry all bags?

 

Also, hearing a lot about $20+ tips to the porter to ensure bags make it on the ship?

 

Thanks!

That’s just craziness. Where are you “hearing” these reports?

Did you read 1 thread where someone mentioned this? Or did you read 100 threads?

I’ve never tipped more than $10 total for 4 plus bags and my bags have never gone missing. That’s with 14 cruises and hundreds of flights domestic and international.

Might a bag go missing? Of course, but the numbers tell you it should be way down at the bottom of the worry wart list.

I just tip $1 per bag we hand to the porter. Before we walk completely away, we discreetly observe to make sure all the pieces make it onto the cart.

Our luggage tags are securely affixed and printed in color to make the crew's job of sorting easier.

Haven't sailed for 4 years now, just a little worried about the chance of lost luggage when checked vs carrying on all suitcases. What is the better option? Check bags or carry all bags?

 

Also, hearing a lot about $20+ tips to the porter to ensure bags make it on the ship?

 

Thanks!

:o I didn't know they started extorting people at the ports!

I print a second luggage tug to go inside of each luggage. Some keep a change of clothes in the carry on and check the rest. I don't worry about checking my luggage on the ship any more than luggage on a plane. I do always carry travel insurance that would reimburse any clothes I would have to buy (yay all Carnival Logos) if my luggage gets lost. No one knows your comfort level, so it's up to you whether to check luggage or not.

I did once see a woman demand to be let off the ship after they realized they left all the luggage in the car. They told her there was no way she would make it back in time even if parked right across the street. She said she would rather just leave and not come back if she couldn't get her luggage. This was in those few minutes after muster just before the ship pulls away. Well, we saw her and her whole family wearing Carnival logos for the rest of the cruise.

Haven't sailed for 4 years now, just a little worried about the chance of lost luggage when checked vs carrying on all suitcases. What is the better option? Check bags or carry all bags?

 

Also, hearing a lot about $20+ tips to the porter to ensure bags make it on the ship?

 

Thanks!

You're good with $1/bag. I've done up to $5/bag to see if it made it to the room any quicker...it didn't. I've settled in a $3..it's a big bag.

:o I didn't know they started extorting people at the ports!

On Oceania out of Miami, last August, the porter said that he would personally ensure that our luggage made it to our stateroom...hoping for a big tip, I suppose.

We tip $5 a bag and that is plenty. These porter are longshoremen and already make decent wages.

Compared to flying, checking luggage into a cruise ship has pretty much zero risk of loss.

Occasionally one gets tossed into the water, but technically that is not lost, just ruined.

Of all the years I’ve been cruising and frequenting websites like this one, I can say that its rare to read about someone’s luggage being lost by the cruise line. I only recall reading one story when there were two Carnival ships at the port of Miami and some passengers gave their luggage to the porter at one terminal but their ship was departing from the next terminal so they had to walk over. You can imagine what happened to their luggage. It was loaded to the wrong ship. The snafu wasn’t caught until the ships had sailed and the passengers didn’t get their luggage. The luggage was located but the passengers couldn’t get it back until they returned to Miami. But stories like this one are extremely rare.

I would be 1,000 times more adamant about checking my luggage when flying than when cruising. Our luggage was lost (and NEVER found) when we sailed to Alaska. Thank you Southwest.

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never lost a bag and never carried luggage aboard and never tipped $20. Once the bags leave the porter, not a Carnival employee, they go below for distribution. We usually tip $10 for the service.

Ditto

We have never had a bag lost. We typically have 2 (sometimes three) bags to check and I tip around $5-6 total. Never had a problem.

Never had a bag lost. We tip $2 per bag.

I also generally tip $2 per bag

It's very rare that a bag gets "lost". Bags can get misplaced though. There have been stories of a bag going missing and either not showing up until later, or at the end of the cruise. There's nothing to stop someone from taking your bag, even if by accident. I wouldn't worry too much about the porters losing it.

I prefer to bring my own bag aboard, especially if I know my room has a good chance of being ready.

"I did once see a woman demand to be let off the ship after they realized they left all the luggage in the car. They told her there was no way she would make it back in time even if parked right across the street. She said she would rather just leave and not come back if she couldn't get her luggage. This was in those few minutes after muster just before the ship pulls away. Well, we saw her and her whole family wearing Carnival logos for the rest of the cruise."

Why do I have a tough time believing this story, so far fetched.

I also generally tip $2 per bag

That seems on the high side of fair, since the person you tip does minimal work, does not ever step foot on a ship, and has nothing to do with when your bag gets delivered.

Why do I have a tough time believing this story, so far fetched.

Skepticism is healthy on the internet. Doesn't make it less true, though.

Obviously vastly more luggage makes it to the proper cabins in a reasonably timely way than doesn't. Vastly. No way to calculate how big (or small actually) a risk it is. Carry your own bags on if you want - there's no rule against it that I know of. But hauling it all around with you until the cabins are open sounds like a real drag to me - I don't even bring a carry-on. In 12 cruises with an average of 5 pieces of luggage on each one, we've never once had an incident. We don't go nuts tipping the porters either - $5 or $10 for all of them is reasonable and we give it in thanks for the service, not because we're worried they'll do something bad to us if we don't.

I just tip $1 per bag we hand to the porter. Before we walk completely away, we discreetly observe to make sure all the pieces make it onto the cart.

Our luggage tags are securely affixed and printed in color to make the crew's job of sorting easier.

We do exactly the same

Great! Thanks for the advice everyone.

On Oceania out of Miami, last August, the porter said that he would personally ensure that our luggage made it to our stateroom...hoping for a big tip, I suppose.

 

We tip $5 a bag and that is plenty. These porter are longshoremen and already make decent wages.

They are not "longshoremen". They are porters, the lowest category in the union with no advancement. They probably make $15 an hour, part time.

That seems on the high side of fair, since the person you tip does minimal work, does not ever step foot on a ship, and has nothing to do with when your bag gets delivered.

Minimal work? You want to spend a couple hours in 95 degree Miami humidity tossing 50 pound bags onto a cart and then pushing 500 pounds into the terminal to unload while being crabbed at by cruisers?

It's very rare that a bag gets "lost". Bags can get misplaced though. There have been stories of a bag going missing and either not showing up until later, or at the end of the cruise. There's nothing to stop someone from taking your bag, even if by accident. I wouldn't worry too much about the porters losing it.

Yes, a family on one of my earlier cruises had two bags go missing. Carnival covered their "logo apparel" during the cruise and distributed printed "be on the lookout" flyers to every cabin with (presumably stock) photos of the missing luggage.

The two pieces mysteriously appeared on the last morning of the cruise. We all figured they had sat in someone's stateroom unnoticed (or not bothering) until debark morning.

But as has been mentioned, this sort of situation is extremely rare.

They are not "longshoremen". They are porters, the lowest category in the union with no advancement. They probably make $15 an hour, part time.

You're incorrect. Our resident CHief ENGineer has stated in the past that the porters are quite well paid...much more than $15/hour and, including tips, more than many of the cruisers they are ostensibly helping.

Still, I generally tip $1 per bag, and if they notice the FTTF logo on the luggage tags and put the orange "priority" tag on our bags without prompting, I double it or hand them a fiver.