Tips - What is your standard?

[DGNewton]

I know that the following is posted by Carnival as a guideline for gratuities; however, I’m more interested in what most people do. For the last 2 cruises I just pre-paid them. The last cruise I also gave the cabin steward an extra $20 on check-in just to ensure we were taken care of.

What do you allow for tips?

The total amount will be $10 per guest, per day, which breaks down as follows:

$5.50 pp/pd for Dining Team Service (Headwaiter and Waiter)

$1 pp/pd for Bistro Service (Waiter/Cooks)

$3.50 pp/pd for Cabin Services (Cabin Steward)

I know the pre-paid way makes a lot of people think that the servers come to expect this and slip in service. I actually haven’t experience bad service.

Please let me know your thoughts as we prepare for another cruise! THANKS

[catmand]

Can't comment on a slip in service as we have only been at it a couple of years but we have found all service to be excellent, after all there are people like you and us who will give a little extra.........................so we usually toss in an extra 20 bucks but I do it the end of the cruise.

[momofmeg]

I know that the following is posted by Carnival as a guideline for gratuities; however, I’m more interested in what most people do. For the last 2 cruises I just pre-paid them. The last cruise I also gave the cabin steward an extra $20 on check-in just to ensure we were taken care of.

What do you allow for tips?

The total amount will be $10 per guest, per day, which breaks down as follows:

$5.50 pp/pd for Dining Team Service (Headwaiter and Waiter)

$1 pp/pd for Bistro Service (Waiter/Cooks)

$3.50 pp/pd for Cabin Services (Cabin Steward)

I know the pre-paid way makes a lot of people think that the servers come to expect this and slip in service. I actually haven’t experience bad service.

Please let me know your thoughts as we prepare for another cruise! THANKS

 

Even for louzy service we give at least the recomended tip. We never pre tip-before the end of cruise except for room service of course. We almost ALWAYS get great service and usually tip our steard and dinning room waiter double the suggested amount at the end of cruise-they would have to be mediorce for us not to do this.

 

Only once have we tipped less then recomended amount-but this person was really terrible and took a "I could care less" attitude. If a person does not do a good job but is obviously trying hard-perhaps new-like a couple of assistant waiters we have had we still tip the suggested amount and sometimes a little better.

[Krazy Kruizers]

HAL adds on $10 per person per day. $3.50 goes to the cabin steward. $3.50 goes to the dinning room steward. The other $3 is put into a pool and divided among the cooks, laundry, etc.

 

So we always give extra to our cabin steward and dining room steward and anyone else who has served us well and made our cruise an enjoyable one.

[Cotton]

DG - Since you asked what MOST people do....and since you specifically menitoned Carnival:

 

I've been on the boards for quite awhile, and from my observation, most folks leave the automatic tips of $10 per person per day on their Sail & Sign account. Some, but not many, remove their tips and tip in person at the end of the cruise.

 

However, the amount Carnival puts on the S&S account is a very fair amount. It would take a LOT of rudeness or inept service for me to remove or reduce any of their tips. Then, I tip a little extra to whomever has gone 'above and beyond' their normal duties. I do this on the last evening. I never tip anyone when I first board (cabin steward), because this seems like a bribe....and I KNOW I'm going to have great service without having to do this.;)

[Nliedel]

I pay the suggested amount at the end of the cruise unless someone really does an exceptional job, then I up it accordingly. I did short the Maitre'D last cruise because he was below par (won't go into the reasons why) but I gave his loss to the assistant waiter, plus a hefty amount because he was beyond fantastic. I also spoke to the captain about the service and how outstanding our assistant was.

[VentureMan_2000]

I read something from Bob Dickenson a couple of years back. I believe he said that 95% of Carnival passengers leave their tip on the S&S card. Only 5% ask to have it taken off... most under the guise that they prefer to tip the staff in person with cash. He said of these 5%, about 3% follow thru and tip in cash and that 1% to 2% stiff the wait staff.

 

Of the few that are disgruntled over poor service from a staff member, the passenger usually just shifts the the tip down for the bad service, and up to another staff person for good service. That is, they don't remove the money from their S&S card... just shift it around so that bad service is not rewarded.

[seadancer]

We always tip the minumums unless something happens for us to remove some.As far as sail and sign .We hate them. To us it just takes away from the experience.I personally give cash just because every room steward and waiter I've gotten to answer has said they would rather have it that way.Otherwise the lines just tie up there money in payroll.

If they do a great job we bump the tip $5 or more depending on the impression given.On a few occasions the weekly tip was doubled.We've skipped the maitre'd a couple of times because we never saw him or had to use his services for a special occasion.

 

Seeeeuuu

Jeff

[Arwenmark]

Since you ask what most people do I will tell you what we do. We always leave the automatic tips on the account and usually tip our waiter an extra $100 at end of cruise with $50 for his assistant and usually another $100 for the cabin steward. If you remove the auto tips and give in person the people you gave it to do not get it, if you leave auto tip on and give it personally in addition they must report it but get to keep it when it is clear you did not remove the auto tips.

[nparmelee]

We do the same thing as Arwenmark, leave the base tip on the shipboard account and if we have excellent service from others, tip them additionally in cash, how much varies. I usually write out thank you notes to put the extra tip into.

[Jane110]

We always leave the automatic tip that the ship puts on the S&S account.

We also tip for all room service trips as we order breakfast daily.

 

We always end up tipping extra to people who've gone out of their way to make our cruise great. This usually includes our cabin steward, waiter and busbuy. If we get a great sommelier, we always tip him too. In the casino, I've seen people gamble for hours and not tip the dealers - I think that's just awful. We always tip our blackjack dealer.....more if we win, less if we lose.:)

 

Jane

[Ice Travel Agent]

$10 per person per day :p

[obnurse]

I LOVE having the gratuities added to our ship account. I think it's a fair amount and then we don't have to think about it.

[Richard Parker]

I've always seen the automatic tips on Carnival as a starting point. When you really think about how much these people do for you, $10 per day seems a bit paltry.

 

Because it's anonymous and I'm genuinely interested in what people actually give, I'll let you know what we tipped.

 

First of all, we left the standard $10 per person per day tip on our S&S account. We tipped our cabin steward $10 at the beginning of the cruise to keep the cooler full of ice. He did an average job at that but did a great job otherwise of keeping the room picked up and clean, so we gave hin an additional $20. I've never understood tipping the Maitre'D. I guess he does a good job keeping the dining room running, but he never came to our table, so I had no personal reason to tip him. We ended up giving him the $9 that was left in my wallet after we had taken care of the people who actually directly took care of us. Our dining room table waiters made the cruise for us. Their excellent service just kept driving up their tips all week. In addition to their standard tips, both our head waiter and assistant got $50. I personally thought this was very generous, but my wife thought they deserved $10 a day or $80 each. Either way, I loved their service and felt like they earned every penny. In all honesty, our waiters erarned their way up from an additional $20 tip each, which I feel is standard, to the $50 they got by their excellent service all week.

 

So I guess that's all I've got to say about that. ;)

[Loves_Dogs]

On both of my 2 cruises, I left the automatic tip on my S & S account. But, I also gave my cabin steward $20 on the first day, $10 in the middle of the cruise and $20 in an elvelope on the last day. I gave our waiter and his assistant each $50 on the last day. Our service was excellent and everyone worked so hard to make our vacation a memorable one.