Gratuities

[Pam in CA]

IF and I emphasize IF the staff are really told who removed the auto tip then just don't remove it until the next to the last day of your cruise if that's something you feel you have to do. I personally have never found service lacking enough to remove or reduce my auto tips but others may have.

When you remove the auto-tip because of perhaps one cabin steward or one waitstaff, all the rest are affected. If absolutely every person providing service to you sucked, from the Maitre d' to those in the buffet, then I can understand removing the auto-tip. The best way to call attention to poor service is to use your Comment Card and explain what happened.

[springfire]

I always remove my auto tip from my account at the first chance I can. I don't want to wait untill the end of my cruise as I think everyone should know that's the way I do business. Princess has no problem with me doing this as they know exactly how I feel about auto tip. I always use traditional dinning as I want the same waiter/waitress and it makes it easier to tip them directly at the end. To each his own on tipping but for me, I will tip at the end.

[NotWthOutablcony]

Not with out,

 

Do you tip daily now? I was thinking of an envelope on the last night but your way sounds interesting. Perhaps a handshake with a tip to the waitstaff daily and a bill left on our pillow daily (like we do at hotels) is a better idea.

 

Editing just to add leaving the auto tip in place too.

Sorry, been a while since I visited this thread :p

Yep, we keep the auto tips on, but I always carry cash on me, usually $1's and $5's, and that's exactly correct, a nice handshake and bill exchange just to say thank you, it always goes a long way and they always remember it. It means a lot to ANYONE in customer service, I don't care if their from the US, Philippines or otherwise, the Customer Service industry is rough.

To those who believe that pax will "stiff" everyone in the event that auto tips are not applied, I cannpt catergorize everyone as such. The last cruise we took did not have auto tips (Carnival 7 days) we found we spent more than twice the amount in tips for the 3 of us. We found, that if we were responsible to recognize the great service, and we were in charge of our own tipping, that we found so much more to tip for, and really had a great time doing it, handing our waiter and his assistant $20 each on the nights we'd dine in the dining room, and seeing the smiles on their faces, meant a lot to me, from one service member to another. We also had a 7 day cruise that we were absolutely lazy the entire cruise and never dined in the dining room, not once and so we removed the tips regarding dining room service. I obviously have a different view on things and can be quite critical at times having been in the Customer Service Industry for so many years myself, but when I was a little man on the totem pole, $5 from a guest meant the world, it wasn't so much the money, it was the fact that my hard work had been noticed, they didn't know my crazy schedule, or how hard I was working, or how tight money was, they based it solely on our interactions, and it just meant so much.