How much extra to tip butler.

[RN4Nsy]

How much above regular tip do you give your butler? This is our first Celebrity Cruise and first Sky suite. 7 nights to Alaska. In a regular cabin we give $50.00 or so above. I figure we'll be spoiler rotten and want to do the right thing.

[Phxazzcruisers]

There have been many, many posts on this topic. Tipping is very personal. Some do not tip anything extra, some do. These threads about tipping tend to be very controversial. We do tip our waiters, stateroom attendants, and butlers extra, if they go above and beyond. We find that most on Celebrity and Azamara do go above and beyond. Enjoy your Suite

[cle-guy]

How much above regular tip do you give your butler? This is our first Celebrity Cruise and first Sky suite. 7 nights to Alaska. In a regular cabin we give $50.00 or so above. I figure we'll be spoiler rotten and want to do the right thing.

 

I tip my butler (sail solo) $100 for a 7 or 13 day cruise, unless I host parties, then I tip an additional $100. All I use him for is to deliver my coffee and pastry in the morning, take laundry and pressing out and handle the paperwork that needs tended to (like turning in the disembarkation questionnaire or RSVP for invited events on my behalf, or calling and arranging dining times if I do specialty, which I often don;t bother with).

 

Which if I ordered room serve breakfast would be 1 buck a day tip to the delivery guy and I wouldn't tip laundry at all just stuff it all in a bag and send it out. I've never had a meal served in my suite.

 

I don't tip above the standard gratuity in standard cabins unless they do something above and beyond, which I haven't seen happen yet.

 

Everyone varies, but this is my method.

 

DO the math figuring out how much the standard gratuity adds up to on a monthly basis, assuming a cabin stewed has 26 cabins, 2 people each, 30 days in a month $3.50 per person per day of the $12.50 daily gratuity is allocated to cabin steward (butler also gets $3.50 PP/PD as the standard gratuity is more for suites)= $5,460 in guaranteed gratuities, plus the menial salary whatever that is plus the extra tips. Decent money for a cabin steward or butler really. Certainly not near as meager as people tend tho think it is.

 

Here's how the standard gratuity is broken down:

• $12 per person per day in staterooms

• $12.50 per person per day in Concierge Class and AquaClass® staterooms

• $15.50 per person per day in suites

This gratuity is shared by your stateroom attendant, dining services staff, and housekeeping staff members who help enhance your vacation experience.

At your discretion, the gratuity payments may be adjusted onboard at Guest Relations, in which case they will not automatically be added to your onboard SeaPass® account.

A 15% gratuity will be automatically added to all beverages, mini bar purchases, spa and salon services. Additional gratuities may be added at your discretion.

The breakdown is as follows:

Waiter - $3.65 pp/per day

Ass't. Waiter - $2.10 pp/per day

DR Mgm't. - $1.00 pp/per day

Stateroom Service - Suite Butler $3.50 pp/per day; Aqua - $4.00 pp/per day; Concierge Class - $4.00 pp/per day; Regular Stateroom - $3.50 pp/per day.

Other service personnel: $1.25 pp/per day

[Lsimon]

Another approach: Since the standard recommend tip for the butler is $3.50 it is the same as the recommended tip for the stateroom attendant (you'll have both in a suite). So if you choose to tip extra you might start with what you've given the stateroom attendant in the past for each and increase or decrease as you please based on the level of service you receive.

[papaflamingo]

I'm confused. We Will be on our first Celebrity cruise in Nov. We have an Aqua Suite on Reflection. Is part of the standard gratuity for the Butler or does he only get cash tips?

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Edited July 30, 2014 by papaflamingo

[A Sixth?]

I'm confused. We Will be on our first Celebrity cruise in Nov. We have an Aqua Suite on Reflection. Is part of the standard gratuity for the Butler or does he only get cash tips?

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

AQ 1 and AQ 2 (Aqua Class) have no butler, they have a room attendant.

 

The tip is included for the attendant in the auto gratuities.

 

If you want you may add a bit but the tip has already been added.

[fleckle]

I'm confused. We Will be on our first Celebrity cruise in Nov. We have an Aqua Suite on Reflection. Is part of the standard gratuity for the Butler or does he only get cash tips?

Yes, you will have a butler with an Aqua Class Suite and the tip for the butler is included in the standard daily gratuities fee.

 

Of course, you may always tip extra if you wish to do so.

 

Aqua Class Suite

[Sloop-JohnB]

I'm confused. We Will be on our first Celebrity cruise in Nov. We have an Aqua Suite on Reflection. Is part of the standard gratuity for the Butler or does he only get cash tips?

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

An Aqua SUITE is a suite... NEW and only on Reflection. So yes you will have a Butler.

 

Butler's Grats are part of the Gratuities that are outlined in your Celebrity Cruise Contract.

 

If you wish to TIP EXTRA then you can.. It is up to you.

 

As outlined above you pay $ 15 per person per day in a Suite for Grats ($ 3 more than any other Class)... That is the amount designated for the Butler

 

Personally... Knowing the breakdowns of where the Grats go, we always TIP EXTRA to those who go above & beyond to give us an extraordinary vacation... Depends on performance... But could be... Butler - Room Steward - Asst Room Steward - Head Waiter - Asst Waiter - Sommelier - or a favorite Bartender

 

These people depend on tips for their livelihood

 

Cruise lines pay very little in actual cash their obligation are room & board & medical.

 

Hope this helps,

 

Cheers!

[papaflamingo]

Thanks for the replies. We always tip extra too. I really appreciate the hard work these people do to give us a great experience.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[ClaudiaB]

We tip extra too. We always tip a couple dollars for room service - we get a lot of breakfasts delivered, particularly on port days.

 

For our butler we typically give him something like $20 or $25 every few days, just to spread it out some. We never wait and do it all at once at the end. Why?

I have no idea. We just do.

 

We also tip some special bar staff or people we might get outstanding service from around the ship. At the Elite cocktail last cruise we had one bar waiter who was so good and remembered our names and even made me a special bellini off menu, and we tipped him at the end of the cruise.

 

Once I wanted to tip the Captain's Club hostess but she refused. She had gone way above and beyond for us on Infinity but she wouldn't let us show our appreciation in that way.

[Project_gal]

As others have said, tipping extra is a personal decision but the way we decide what to give, and the advice I always give others who ask, is to work out what the auto-/pre-paid gratuities are for your butler [or anyone else] for the length of your cruise. Use this as your benchmark. If you then want to tip extra, ask yourself what percentage of the benchmark tip the extra should be.

[sweetred61]

Hi all we are sailing on the Century in Dec out of Sydney to the Pacific Islands,would we be tipping in AUD or US.We are from Perth.

Thanks Sharon

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums mobile app

[cle-guy]

Hi all we are sailing on the Century in Dec out of Sydney to the Pacific Islands,would we be tipping in AUD or US.We are from Perth.

Thanks Sharon

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums mobile app

 

Celebrity ships al run US Dollars whoever they travel. It's the "official on-board currency". They may have an ATM that will dispense local currency, but it can run out of cash so don't count on it.

 

End of day, staff will take any currency you give them, they can exchange it with guest services or spend it however / wherever they want that would take foreign or local currencies.

[sweetred61]

Thankyou I won't think too hard about what cash to take then.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums mobile app

[A Sixth?]

Yes, you will have a butler with an Aqua Class Suite and the tip for the butler is included in the standard daily gratuities fee.

 

Of course, you may always tip extra if you wish to do so.

 

Aqua Class Suite

 

Wow! Thanks for the link... booked an A1 Sky Suite on our next cruise and did't know about the AQ Suite class....

[spookwife]

How much above regular tip do you give your butler? This is our first Celebrity Cruise and first Sky suite. 7 nights to Alaska. In a regular cabin we give $50.00 or so above. I figure we'll be spoiler rotten and want to do the right thing.

 

mine got nothing over the daily charge as we never used him for anything. the daily 'afternoon tea' was rather a let down as far as offerings.

 

I suppose if we had prevailed upon him to go above and beyond we would have slipped him some extra.

[fleckle]

Wow! Thanks for the link... booked an A1 Sky Suite on our next cruise and did't know about the AQ Suite class....

You are welcome, but apparently that AQ suite category will not be around for much longer.

 

The last we heard, they are planning to phase out the aqua suites and reclassify them as regular S1 sky suites when they do the suite changes next year. So you could have either an A1 Aqua Class stateroom (with no butler) or a Sky Suite with a butler, but not an A1 Sky Suite.

 

A further source of confusion for some is that A1 and 1A are two different categories.

Recently a passenger mistakenly thought she had been upgraded to aqua class when she was upgraded to 1A.

It probably would have been better if they had given them names that are not so similar. :)

 

Another source of confusion is the name of the Aqua Spa Cafe, which is not limited to aqua class passengers.

The Aqua Spa Cafe was around long before they had Aqua Class staterooms.

 

 

By the way, how about telling us where the name A Sixth? came from. ;)

If you have already explained it, I apologize for asking again as I must have missed it, but it certainly is one of the most interesting names on here.

 

 

Edited July 30, 2014 by fleckle

[ReneeFLL]

Here is an article about tipping.

 

http://www.cruisecritic.com/articles.cfm?ID=261

[A Sixth?]

 

 

 

By the way, how about telling us where the name A Sixth? came from. ;)

If you have already explained it, I apologize for asking again as I must have missed it, but it certainly is one of the most interesting names on here.

 

 

 

Hmmm I usually reserve the explanation for Meet and Greets when asked.... :rolleyes::rolleyes:

 

It's one of the most interesting and memorable stories ever told BTW ;)

 

And as much as I'd like to share it, I am under Cruise Critic orders not to put it in writing.... :rolleyes::p

Edited July 31, 2014 by A Sixth?