New to cruising... tipping questions!

[dino76]

Hi, we are new to crusing and will be cruising on Enchantment of the Seas in February. Do we tip everyone every day? At the end of the cruise? Some of each? Charge it or pay cash? We have signed up for using our seapass to pay for extra charges, does that include tipping as well?

 

Should we tip with cash to our room steward the first day to get better service???

 

Enquiring minds want to know. THANKS!

[madforcruising]

First of all welcome to Cruise Critic.

 

You will get a load of different answers on tipping and sometimes on these boards it can end ina heated discussion, so just be prepared.

 

You don´t tip each day. The cruise line suggest some tipping guidelines and it´s customary to tip at the end of the cruise. You will get some envelopes to do this delivered to your cabin, put the money in them and hand them over to the person to be tipped. On RCCL these persons are the waiter, assistant waiter, head waiter and cabin attendant.

The other way to take care of is to prepay your tips either upfront or once onboard charging them to your seapass account. They will announce this option once you are onboard and there will be forms to sign up for this option.

For the people charging the tips to the onboard account there will b evouhers delivered to your room at the end of the cruise to hand to the people that took care of you.

 

The bar service people are automatically tipped with 15% of the bill added automatically. Of course you can put an additional tip on the bill or throw in some cash.

If you order room service you should tip every time you receive it.

 

This is a great place to calculate the tips upfront:

http://cruisetip.tpkeller.com

[Captain Crunch]

Is tipping optional?

[Happy ks]

Captain Crunch (or anyone else who wonders!) Tipping is optional, but it should not be, I wish it were included in the cost of the cruise, so the workers will not be stiffed by anyone. The people who are serving you are working for tips, they really don't receive much compensation for what they do. If a passenger is unhappy with the service, instead of not tipping, which just makes a person look cheap, talk to their supervisor, or write in on the comment card. The talk with the supervisor is best, get the problem taken care of during the cruise, so you don't have to come back here and whine about the poor service all week. You also never know what is going on with your service personnel, they may have just gotten bad news, they may not be feeling well that week.

 

Some people think they are getting extra service by tipping at the beginning, but we never have and we receive the same great service pre-tippers mention in their posts.

 

The tip calculator is a great tool, you can see what you will need to be tipping and can make it a part of your cruise budget, no surprises.

 

We have almost always gotten wonderful service from cruise ship employees. I'd like to think that a small part of the reason is because of the way we treat them, with gratitude and kindness.

 

:) climbing down off the soapbox now:)