Tipping employees with gifts

[compman9]

One day every cruise I make sure the stateroom attendant has a day off from our room. A small gesture, but a gesture nevertheless.

 

As a football writer, I also end up chatting about football with various barmen, waiters etc., who have an interest in English soccer. I always make sure I leave my backlog of magazines with them before I leave.

 

And it doesn't matter what little extra you can afford, padding out the envelopes at the end of the week just can't hurt either.

[Tucker in Texas]

They tell me that they can't stand American dessert and chocolate because it is so sweet.

 

He/she may not like the candy but I'll bet he has a friend that does. He sure will like the extra dollar or two I leave with it and the note thanking him for something plus a mention by name on the exit survey.

 

Just curious have you ever left the " do not disturb" sign on your room? IMHO.

 

The night before disembarkation, I always put out the DND sign because I have had unfortunate experiences where the steward, tip safely in his pocket, has banged on my door very early in the morning (like 6:00 a.m. one time) to get me going. Once, I had the DND sign out but the door was not bolted because husband had gone to fetch coffee while I showered. The steward knocked lightly and, before I could get to the door (around 7:15 a.m.) let himself in. Fortunately, I was dressed. He said he saw my husband leave and thought we had vacated the cabin. I asked him did he see husband dragging any luggage with him? Did he see me with him? It cost him the extra tip I had planned to leave on the vanity. So the DND sign does not necessarily mean they will honor it.

 

I leave a note (or tell them personally if I can) the night before disembarkation telling them that we plan to vacate the cabin no later than 8:00 to 8:15 and will leave the Make Up the Room sign to indicate the coast is clear and to please not disturb us before then. Thought I had solved the problem only to have Celebrity (I think) blast music in our room at 7:15 a.m. This from a speaker that never worked to hear announcements made in our cabin (lol). To add insult to injury, we were on a B2B and weren't vacating the cabin.

 

Tucker in Texas

[JenAndDan]

If you are giving your cabin steward the day/night off - DEFINITELY let him or her know. On our honeymoon cruise we spent the whole day on a private excursion in Bora Bora and drank a lot of champagne. Then we came back to the ship and had more champagne as the sun set. Then we took a "little" nap before formal night and ended up sleeping right through dinner. We stepped out for a few minutes to grab pizza and when we returned our phone was ringing. Apparently, our steward had come to our room numerous times waiting for us to leave and then he saw walking back to the room and wanted to k now if we wanted our bed turned down as he was suppose to go off duty! We felt SO bad. We apologized and, of course, gave him extra tip at the end.

 

We ALWAYS tip more in CASH. And, if we have great service from someone, we also put it in the comments section. I look at it this way - These guys LIVE at work and they have to be HAPPY and/or HELPFUL every day. Could you imagine living at work, away from your family and never having an off day for fear it could cost you your tips?

[donaldsc]

We did the pre-paid gratuities to get my time dining so we are paid up in that respect but what about those that go above and beyond? I read on one thread that cruise employees love being tipped with calling cards. Any other suggestions or stick with cash? If calling cards, which one?

 

 

Best,

Sunny

 

What would you think if you worked as a server at a restaurant and one of your customers left you a calling card on the table as an extra tip instead of upping your tip from 15% to a higher number? Why do you think that the people who work on cruise ships feel any differently.

 

DON

[MaskedTurtle]

I just had a thought about those who mentioned putting the DND sign in the door to give the room steward a little break. There may be specific tasks that they have to complete during the day as part of their job, such as going into each room twice a day. I know, it sounds weird, but it could be. A few years ago, I stayed in a hotel in Atlantic City, NJ, and when I went out to dinner, I put the DND sign on the door. I figured that as long as I keep the room neat and did not need anything, the maid wouldn't have to come in. Well, when I came back from dinner, the maid was in the room cleaning. I asked her why she was in there since I did put the sign on the door. She said that as part of her job, she is required to go into the room at some point during the day or else their job would be considered incomplete and she would be reprimanded for not finishing her work. It didn't seem to matter that I had the sign on the door for hours. It sounded funny to me, but I let it go and waited for her to finish. There have since been a few instances in a which a maid would ask to come in and clean even though it wasn't necessary and when told so, would ask to use the room phone to call housekeeping. Apparently, calling housekeeping from the room phone lets the supervisors know that the maid was actually in the room.

 

My point is that I don't know if Royal Caribbean has a similar policy or not. We never thought to ask.

[bluegirlum]

[quote name='donaldsc']What would you think if you worked as a server at a restaurant and one of your customers left you a calling card on the table as an extra tip instead of upping your tip from 15% to a higher number? Why do you think that the people who work on cruise ships feel any differently.

DON[/QUOTE]

Exactly! I don't understand why people get on a cruise ship and suddenly common sense goes out the door. Just because these folks are from different countries doesn't mean that they're idiots or want crappy stuff from America. Would you ever leave chocolates or pizza for a waiter in the US? No. These are people just like us. They are working hard to feed their families back at home. Cash pays the bills. Chocolate doesn't. If they want to buy themselves some candy, they can use my money to do so. I would not be so presumptuous as to think that my cabin steward would love cheese curds just because I do.