Tipping on Pride of Aloha

[bonnie voyage]

We will be sailing on Pride of Aloha in February. When we booked through NCL we were told that the $10.00 per day service charge per person would be added to our account each day. However, I keep reading on the boards that this is not so. Will some of you who have sailed recently please share with me how you tipped the waiters, bar staff, room steward etc.? I have no clue as to how the $10.00 per day is usually split out. Any assistance is most appreciated. Thanks so much.

[electricron]

Normally, NCL charges $10 per day per person.

The sole exception "was" being the Pride of Aloha.

 

I was under the impression, and I could be wrong, that the exception ended last September.

 

I, like you, would like to have this point cleared up.

[Quincella]

I sailed the POAloha on 10/23/05 and the service charge was back in effect. That was the first sailing in many months that it was applied. The Freestyle Daily that we received upon embarkation said that the charge was not optional and that it could not be removed. However, I prefer to tip cash, so I went to the account desk the day before debarkation and had it removed.

 

The money is supposed to go to the waiters in the main and specialty restaurants, and I think the bus staff in the buffets are supposed to get a cut. We chose to tip in the restaurants as we went and we tipped our room stewardess on the last day of the cruise.

 

If you add a tip to your Sign and Sail card at the bars, they are pooled and divided between the whole bar staff. If you tip cash at the bar, the money goes directly to the bartender/server who wait on you. We went the cash route as often as possible.

[Quincella]

By the way, we tipped the room stewardess $50, which is about the same as $3.50 pp/pd that other lines recommend. We tipped the bartenders what we would tip at any land bar (a buck or two whenever we bought drinks). The wait staff was trickier, because service varied greatly. I think we left $5.00 or so when we ate breakfast in the restaurants (as opposed to the buffet) and ten or so at dinner, since we figured our meal was comparable to a $50.00 one on land.

Plus, I had a former waiter from the POAloha tell me that that is what they considered a good tip...if each couple at the table tipped $10 they were happy.

[ejnsb]

We returned today from Pride of America. The service charge is in effect and they are kind of vague where it goes but we understood it to be for the room steward and main dining room waiters and attendants. Regardless we tipped our room steward a total of $60 through the course of the trip and we tipped all servers depending on the level of the service and what the value of the meal might have been. Our son is an entertainer on the Pride of America and he said those who work in food and beverage share the tips with everyone on their shift when they are added to the total but if you are very happy with the service, give them a cash tip and you are then rewarding that particular server who keeps it all.