You Better Tip at Port Everglades - Or Else!

[Crzn-Life]

Wow, just Wow! We have boarded 40 cruises in Port Everglades over the years and have never run into a problem with the porters. Most have been nice, a couple have been brusque but never have we felt intimidated. We actually see a lot of the same folks taking the bags. We always tip about $2/bag. Never had one of them say anything about the amount. Actually they typically don't even look at it. You also need to hand them the money right away or they've moved on and you have to try to catch up with the person that took your bags.

 

We've had issues and bad information from the contract employees working for Princess in Port Everglades, but so far never an issue with the longshoremen.

 

Actually the only ports we've ever had issues with the baggage guys were San Francisco, and Southampton. In Southampton you have to be sure to take your bag to the correct section and you have to move it yourself up to the area where the guy then puts it on the conveyer belt. Also you can get grief from them if they think your bag is overweight.

 

Southampton is the only port where one of our bags has been dumped in the water, but that was several years ago and wasn't deliberate but due to an accident. And of course it had nothing to do with tipping.

[compozer]

The porters are supposed to pool their tips, so I’m wondering if the porter in question held back your overly generous tip, hence the confrontation from the person he should have turned it in to. This shouldn’t happen, and I doubt it happens regularly.

I’m sure the folks at Port Everglades read these forums on a regular basis and have already investigated and addressed the issue.

 

 

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I doubt it has been addressed by the port. This has been going on for many years. And there are lots of threads here over the years.

[cruise4kicks]

I agree it’s out of control but if you think that’s too much, don’t cruise out of NYC . We live on Long Island and cruise out of the city often. If you don’t give a good tip your bags will be floating next to the ship.

LOL! You reminded me of an incident at Pier 88 about 10 years ago...

 

Our driver dropped us off about 20 feet from the closest porter. We stood there a while, but no one came to take our bags. I exchanged several looks with said porter, then he began to ignore me. In fine New York fashion I hollered "AY!" He looked at me and hollered back "WHAT?!" I motioned at the bags. He yelled "You got to bring them here!" I yelled back "So what good are you?!"

 

When we met our friends on the ship and told them what happened they said, "Your bags will end up in the Hudson." :') :')

 

They arrived just fine.

[compozer]

The porters are supposed to pool their tips, so I’m wondering if the porter in question held back your overly generous tip, hence the confrontation from the person he should have turned it in to. This shouldn’t happen, and I doubt it happens regularly.

I’m sure the folks at Port Everglades read these forums on a regular basis and have already investigated and addressed the issue.

 

 

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I doubt it has been addressed by the port. This has been going on for many years. And there are lots of threads here over the years.

[Pierlesscruisers]

I am not so sure the porters that greet pax as they exit their transportation are union workers. If they are like the porters at the airport, they mainly work for tips. The Longshoremen are inside the terminal sorting bags and reloading them by area. The porters are like restaurant servers where they are paid a very minimal wage well below the $7.25/hour rate and are expected to make up the difference in tips. I personally find the whole tipping routine as rather barbaric and would like the US move to the European model where everyone is paid a living wage. However this is where this country is today. We always check two bags and give the porter $5 for the bags usually before he takes them. We have sailed out of PE many times and have never had a problem. Like everywhere there are bad apples who smear the good ones.

 

For those carrying on their luggage, it has to fit though the scanner or it will be rejected. Anything bigger than a carry on will most likely not fit.

 

I don't know how it is in Florida, but in Seattle the porters at the piers are definitely longshoremen. I suspect that it is the same in Florida also. Bag handlers at SeaTac are not longshoreman but the minimum wage in the city of Seatac, where the airport is located is a bit over $15/hr and has been so for the past 3 years or so.

 

 

Tom

[moki'smommy]

So it looks like it is a matter of who you get as a porter. I don't care whether they are union or not or what their base salary is. I expect someone who will take my bag from where my transportation drops us off (assuming it is the correct place) to wherever they deposit it so that I will next see it on the ship for a reasonable tip (which I define as about $2 per bag) without any attitude about it. If I get a snarky attitude, I'll take care of it myself. My experience at other ports has been uniformly positive, but I've also noticed that they don't take things very far.

[damiross]

Vancouver also has signs saying tipping is not permitted. Union workers - backbone of our modern world - gave you a weekend, stopped child labour, fighting for equal pay for equal work rights.

Yes, they did. Unions were good at one time in getting better work conditions. Now that there are literally thousands of laws and regulations protecting workers it seems the main purpose is to declare that workers (especially public "servants") are underpaid and they will strike if they get a 2.1% instead of a 2.2% raise.

 

 

$1 a bag is a good tip. A dozen passengers an hour with an average of 1.5 bags each would an additional $18 per hour. That actually breaks down to less than 20 minutes worth of work. $18 in 20 minutes would actually be the equivalent of $54 an hour. Nice work if you can get it.

Edited February 26, 2018 by damiross

[pasto5]

We had our luggage tags ripped off both suitcases because apparently we did not tip enough in Miami. There was a sign posted saying tips were not required. We had 5 luggage tags disappear and it delayed our luggage delivery considerably.

 

 

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[OCruisers]

Just adding a note on disembarkation.

When we are parked in the port parking area and our porter takes our luggage and us through customs and then to our car and helps unload the luggage, we tip him $30 or $40. Well worth it to us! :D

[moki'smommy]

Just adding a note on disembarkation.

When we are parked in the port parking area and our porter takes our luggage and us through customs and then to our car and helps unload the luggage, we tip him $30 or $40. Well worth it to us! :D

That's a totally different issue than the guy who moves your suitcase 50 feet from a drop off area to a cart.

[Aus Traveller]

We're sailing out of FLL on March 18 and it will be our first experience of sailing from that port. The general tone of this thread is upsetting. Hopefully we won't encounter jerks like the ones being discussed. I'm not sure if our larger bag will fit through the scanner or not but I'm feeling tempted to try just to avoid the nastiness that I've seen mentioned here and in other threads over the past few years. This port really does seem to have a bad reputation in this regard.

Our full-size suitcases fit through the Princess scanners (laying flat) with an inch or two spare on each side.:)

 

On reading this thread, I am surprised that anyone would think that tipping is a good practice. I believe it is better for employers to pay their staff a reasonable wage (I don't mean as much as the longshoremen get), with the customers not being obliged to pay a tip (wage subsidy).

[tip]

Me darling wife and I have been on twenty-eight cruises including sixteen out of Port Everglades. We have NEVER encountered a problem with the porters.

[rdsqrl]

We're sailing out of FLL on March 18 and it will be our first experience of sailing from that port. The general tone of this thread is upsetting. Hopefully we won't encounter jerks like the ones being discussed. I'm not sure if our larger bag will fit through the scanner or not but I'm feeling tempted to try just to avoid the nastiness that I've seen mentioned here and in other threads over the past few years. This port really does seem to have a bad reputation in this regard.

I've sailed out of FLL multiple times and have never had an issue with the luggage guys. If anything, they move so quickly, you have to really be alert in order to have a chance to hand them any tip at all; I question reports of actual arguments as you barely have time to say hi before they've grabbed the bag and humped it up onto the luggage cage and moved on. I have a sneaking suspicion that many of the confrontations related here are instigated by a bad attitude on the part of the passenger who's arriving already on the defensive about being ripped off. And, of course, there are the usual suspects who have an anti-tipping agenda. In short, don't worry about it. Worry instead about the Ft. Lauderdale taxi drivers, who are uniformly crazy as loons. Have never had a sane one yet.

[moki'smommy]

I've sailed out of FLL multiple times and have never had an issue with the luggage guys. If anything, they move so quickly, you have to really be alert in order to have a chance to hand them any tip at all; I question reports of actual arguments as you barely have time to say hi before they've grabbed the bag and humped it up onto the luggage cage and moved on. I have a sneaking suspicion that many of the confrontations related here are instigated by a bad attitude on the part of the passenger who's arriving already on the defensive about being ripped off. And, of course, there are the usual suspects who have an anti-tipping agenda. In short, don't worry about it. Worry instead about the Ft. Lauderdale taxi drivers, who are uniformly crazy as loons. Have never had a sane one yet.

We'll probably do Uber from the hotel to the cruise terminal. The hotel has a paid shuttle, but with three of us, Uber will be a better value and will depart on our schedule rather than the hotel's schedule.

[Crystal04]

Your luggage has to be small enough to fit through the X-ray scanners. That's basically the size of bag that you can take as a carry on with the airlines. Any larger and it has to be checked.

That's not true. I missed the luggage drop off on my first solo cruise out of Port Everglades and realized it after I was already waiting in the front of the line for over an hour. I got to the X-ray machines and both of my bags 25 and 29 inches fit perfectly and made it through. I got a lot of stares, but at least I didn't have to wait for my luggage. I have strong opinions on the unions that I have interacted with and it's not good. I would report the behavior to the Port Authority and give them a written statement and as much evidence as you can. I have never experienced this behavior at the port and now I am rethinking tipping if they are doing this to people.

[Go-Bucks!]

We had our luggage tags ripped off both suitcases because apparently we did not tip enough in Miami. There was a sign posted saying tips were not required. We had 5 luggage tags disappear and it delayed our luggage delivery considerably.

And I thought I was the only person who this happened to.........

 

A couple months ago I cruised out of the Port of Miami. I had one 28" suitcase and a smaller-than-carry-on sized bag that I didn't feel like hauling around the ship until we could go to our cabin (not Princess), so I let the porter take both. I gave him $2, but was searching my purse for another $2 when he just took the luggage and was gone before I could give him the rest. The smaller bag had 2 heavy plastic ID tags on it (each with my name and phone #) and an airplane ID tag (paper, but with name and phone too). Later, when luggage was being delivered, my larger bag arrived but not the smaller one. Guest Services assured me that they were still delivering bags, so not to worry. Finally, an hour after sailaway, I personally went down to Guest Services and told them that my bag was still not at the cabin. The clerk asked me to describe my bag and she went into the back. She walked out with my bag!! She said that it had no luggage tags on it so the stewards didn't know who to deliver it to. I told her that it had had 2 permanent heavy plastic tags plus an airport tag. Obviously someone (probably the porter) had removed all 3 tags. I felt blessed that it was even loaded onto the ship and nothing was stolen out of it, but it sure left a bad taste in my mouth.

[eeyoremum]

Have only been on 5 cruises. 2 from Miami, 2 New York, 1 FLL. Never had an issue, never tipped as it is not a tipping position.

[Funkat]

Vancouver also has signs saying tipping is not permitted. Union workers - backbone of our modern world - gave you a weekend, stopped child labour, fighting for equal pay for equal work rights.

 

We saw none of those signs in Vancouver last May and the porter definitely did not turn down the tip.

[caribill]

Exactly, Mr Flagg--in today's world, there's so little actual "work" being performed, it's always a joy to find men actually doing something physical; I'd invite those who disdain these guys to put in a day hauling luggage . . . at our home port of San Pedro, our guys always go above and beyond on arrival and departure; typically on departure we will be accompanied from retrieval through customs, and out to the car--we both use canes, have 4 pieces, one of which is a large Globe-Trotter® case that is difficult to handle; the $20.00 we give is well worth it to us--we also view the $10.00 paid on arrival more insurance than anything else . . . when in Rome . . . we've found in all of our travels that it's much more the exception than the norm to run into thuggish behavior from service personnel, although it can happen.

 

The service the porters give you when you disembark is true service and they do deserve the tip that you give them.

 

But when you arrive at the cruise terminal the porter taking your luggage from the vehicle puts it on a cart next to him and then rolls the cart (which will also have a number of other people's luggage on it) a few feet where other (untipped) workers do the real physical work.

[Host CJSKIDS]

That's not true. I missed the luggage drop off on my first solo cruise out of Port Everglades and realized it after I was already waiting in the front of the line for over an hour. I got to the X-ray machines and both of my bags 25 and 29 inches fit perfectly and made it through. I got a lot of stares, but at least I didn't have to wait for my luggage. I have strong opinions on the unions that I have interacted with and it's not good. I would report the behavior to the Port Authority and give them a written statement and as much evidence as you can. I have never experienced this behavior at the port and now I am rethinking tipping if they are doing this to people.

 

that's good to know that that size bag will fit through the scanners. The guys at the door told us to go check our bags that they wouldn't fit, so that's what we did. I guess could have insisted since our one bag was 29 inches.

[Micahs Grandad]

Have only been on 5 cruises. 2 from Miami, 2 New York, 1 FLL. Never had an issue, never tipped as it is not a tipping position.

 

I am afraid that if you keep doing this your luggage will find its way to the ocean.

[Superfragger]

perhaps 10 was too much.

 

10$ is indeed a it much imho. I only leave 2 or 3$.

[Superfragger]

We boarded the Regal last weekend. Fortunately we did not have any attitude from the porter who took our two pieces of checked luggage. I only gave him $2. I thought it was adequate considering he moved our bags about 10 feet from where we gave them to him to the container holding other pieces of luggage. If you multiplied one bag per person times $1 per bag, that's $3,600 for the dozen or so men to split for a morning's work. Add in additional tips for those they helped with disembarkation, that's a nice day's pay, especially since they probably don't declare most of their tips as income.

 

We did get attitude from a cab driver on our last cruise who did not think we paid him enough. I wish now that I had not given him any additional tip. We had shared a cab from the port to the airport due to his thinking the other folks were with us.

 

Weird cab drivers are part of the experience on the way back from Port Everglades.

[moki'smommy]

Seriously, is it possible to take your own bags to the luggage room, thus avoiding these people? Or is the only option to roll it onto the ship ourselves?

[Host CJSKIDS]

Seriously' date=' is it possible to take your own bags to the luggage room, thus avoiding these people? Or is the only option to roll it onto the ship ourselves?[/quote']

 

You are too worried about your luggage! I have gotten my luggage on each and every cruise we have done as have everyone that I have sailed with.

 

There are some stories that come out of Fort Lauderdale but with all the people that cruise from there and are on here, they are a very small percentage. Unfortunately some people have had that bad apple in the group and have had to deal with something when handing off their luggage. It does happen, but it's not the norm.

 

People get their bags damaged, lost or any other thing while flying yet the great percentage of bags make it just fine. It's the same with Fort lauderdale, Miami and every other port. It's a very small percentage that may have an issue.