Prepaid gratuities

[Eddieboysr]

On the last few cruises my parents have experienced bad service at times throughout the cruise. Has anyone opted out of prepaid and used the envelopes to tip the staff?

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

[bhopal21]

First your tips are not prepaid unless you choose that option before your cruise.

 

The gratuities are added to your shipboard account each evening for that day.

 

You can go to the purser's desk and adjust the tips as you desire.

 

My first task after boarding is stopping by the desk and having them increase my gratuities.

 

Mike:)

[paul929207]

On the last few cruises my parents have experienced bad service at times throughout the cruise. Has anyone opted out of prepaid and used the envelopes to tip the staff?

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

I am surprised your parents received bad service. Did they bring the problem to the attention of management? We have always been thrilled with out service.

 

To answer your question, yes, you can cancel the autotip and tip cash

[shepp]

On the last few cruises my parents have experienced bad service at times throughout the cruise. Has anyone opted out of prepaid and used the envelopes to tip the staff?

 

The problem with auto-tipping is that it's not really a reward for good service, but a mis-labeled service charge. A portion of autotips goes to staffers you seldom or never see, such as housekeeping, and those people will be shorted unless your parents are very vigilant in handing out envelopes. Who gave them bad service? Their regular waiter in traditional, their steward, or occasional waiters in the Horizon Court, anytime dining, the IC, or just random staffers? Would slow service in the MDR be the fault of the waiter, the kitchen staff, or circumstances beyond anyone's control?

 

One might argue that many of those people would get only a minuscule portion of the auto-tip, but then, 11 bucks a day isn't much, either. If I received service bad enough to warrant removing a tip (which, over the course of six months aboard Princess, I never have, though a waiter or two came close), I would write up the person/people involved instead. That's a targeted approach that can have real repercussions for the staffers involved.

 

I sometimes think it would be great if staffers could withhold service from pax who are PITAs...

Edited January 26, 2015 by shepp

[Eddieboysr]

It was the waiter in the main dining room on the last cruise and their cab steward on the cruise last year. Our cab steward on the same cruise last year at first was quite stand offish on the first day but after that was super cool.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[AE_Collector]

Agreed, the auto tips are a service charge that as much as we are frugal cruisers, we would never remove it. We always hand out a little extra near the end of the cruise and this extra amount is the only thing that we might consider reducing or possibly eliminating for any specific person (not everyone) though we never have had reason to even consider that. Our service has always been amazing.

 

Terry

[Astro Flyer]

If they opt out of the auto tip, any cash given to crew must be turned in to be added to the tip pool & if they keep the cash they can be terminated.

 

If I had a problem with service I would report it onboard without removing the auto tips from all of the great crewmembers.

Edited January 26, 2015 by Astro Flyer

[caribill]

On the last few cruises my parents have experienced bad service at times throughout the cruise. Has anyone opted out of prepaid and used the envelopes to tip the staff?

 

 

 

First, any tips in cash given to your dining room wait staff or cabin steward must be turned in by them to their supervisor. If you have not cancelled the daily gratuity charge, they will be allowed to keep your cash tip. However, if you did cancel the daily gratuity charge, the cash tip will be turned over to the same tipping pool you opted out of and the people you tried to reward will only get a small part of your cash tip from the overall gratuity pool.

 

Second, if there is bad service, report it as soon as you can to a supervisor.

 

Third, the daily gratuity is also shared by others than your dining room staff and cabin steward. For example, the staff in the buffet, at the pizza counter, at the grill by the pool, at the International Cafe, etc. If you cancel the daily gratuity, they will not get rewarded for their efforts unless you carry around cash and tip each time for the service you receive.

[skynight]

I'll just support the comments that it is a poor idea to cancel out the daily hotel charge (auto-tip). In case of poor service just refrain from providing any extra tips to the individuals involved.

[Saruman]

For those of us who do NOT as a rule remove the auto tip on our cruises, is there any advantage or disadvantage to pre-paying this…other than the timing of the money coming out of our bank accounts, that is? Am I missing something?

[JimmyVWine]

When you say "Pre-Paid Gratuities", are you referring to the promotional sale that was run last year where passengers received free gratuities, or are you referring to purchasing OBC in the amount of the gratuities? If it is the former, I honestly don't know what you can do about retracting that, but raise that only in the hopes that someone else might know. I have "free" gratuities from that promotion for my next cruise, and it shows up in my Personalizer not as OBC, but very specifically as paid-in-full gratuities. While it might be possible to go to the passenger service desk and ask that my pre-paid gratuities be retracted, but I am under no delusion that doing so would "recharge" my OBC by $84 per person. I assume that if I withdrew my gratuities, I would lose that benefit and any tipping that I did would have to start from the ground up. Not a very wise thing to do even if I were so inclined as to tip the crew individually.

 

Bottom line as noted by many above is that the per diem that you pay in gratuities is shared all around the ship. If one removes the auto tip because a single waiter provided poor service, many, many other people would be impacted. That waiter is getting a very small chunk of the daily fee. Getting ticked off at a single crew member and then consequently retracting the auto tip ignores the fact that the vast majority of crew members did their job up to and perhaps exceeding your expectations. If you have a real problem with an individual crew member, it is best to confront the issue through the employment chain of command rather than trying to influence a future outcome by withholding economic benefits. The deletion of your small share of the overall tip isn't going to make any crew member have an epiphany.

[bhopal21]

None, it is just for your convenience (and Princess)

 

Mike:)

[skynight]

"For those of us who do NOT as a rule remove the auto tip on our cruises, is there any advantage or disadvantage to pre-paying this…other than the timing of the money coming out of our bank accounts, that is? Am I missing something?"

 

It's just a method for the passenger to manage their own credit or debit card account. Pay before you go, or pay after you return.