Do room stewards know that you prepaid gratiuties?

[livingonthebeach]

11 minutes ago, brillohead said:

I don't recall who it was, but back when Galley Tours were still a thing, someone reported seeing such a list posted on a bulletin board in the kitchen for the servers.

 

 

So the executive chef, sous chef, line chefs and dishwashers would know as well.  Why not the entire ship? Might as well announce it on the PA system. 

[DirtyDawg]

2 minutes ago, livingonthebeach said:

 

So the executive chef, sous chef, line chefs and dishwashers would know as well.  Why not the entire ship? Might as well announce it on the PA system. 

🤐 don't give them any ideas!

[DirtyDawg]

We are now 5 pages in and over 100 posts! 🥳

 

So Have we solved the age old mega serious dilemma of tipping on a cruise ship yet?

 

Sorry, I should have said,  have we solved the age old mega serious dilemma of resort fees on a cruise ship yet?

 

How about we move on to pre tipping vs post tipping! That should be good for another 100 posts!

😉 

 

 

 

[Ourusualbeach]

15 minutes ago, livingonthebeach said:

 

So the executive chef, sous chef, line chefs and dishwashers would know as well.  Why not the entire ship? Might as well announce it on the PA system. 

They don't directly interact with the crew would be a logical explanation. 

[livingonthebeach]

2 minutes ago, DirtyDawg said:

We are now 5 pages in and over 100 posts! 🥳

 

So Have we solved the age old mega serious dilemma of tipping on a cruise ship yet?

 

Sorry, I should have said,  have we solved the age old mega serious dilemma of resort fees on a cruise ship yet?

 

How about we move on to pre tipping vs post tipping! That should be good for another 100 posts!

😉

 

"Resort Fees" are passé and un-PC.  They are now called "Destination Amenity Fees" which cover waitstaff fee, housekeeping fee, fitness fee, package delivery fee, in-room-safe fee, fax service fee, telephone fee, CEO bonus fee, etc. etc.

  😉

[livingonthebeach]

7 minutes ago, Ourusualbeach said:

They don't directly interact with the crew would be a logical explanation. 

 

Well if they post the print-out in the kitchen wouldn't the other workers besides the waiters see it? 

[bjlaac]

As a long time cruiser I can tell everyone for certain the "gratuities" issue has evolved many times over the years (for the worse IMHO), something many of you already know.......Anyway.

 

On our first few cruises in the late 70's and early 80's the cruise director would have a talk on tipping and it usually went along the lines of this.  The recommended tip was around $2,50 per person each day for both the Cabin Steward and Waiter.  The waiters tip was split with the bus boy as per their own agreement.  The CD would also say if the Maitre'd did something special consider giving he a one time flat fee of you own choosing.  All of the cruise lines operated the same except for Holland America who had a published no tipping policy and although they didn't discourage tipping they didn't promote it either.  Everything except the initial fare was in cash on those ships as well.

 

Then when the ships became more modern and computerized there as a push to remove cash from the daily activities with all expenses charged to onboard accounts backed by credit cards and cash as we see it today.  The last cash remnants besides the casino's was the gratuities which most cruise lines adopted but it was merely a swap of cash to vouchers for the Waiter and Steward gratuities.  Whatever the equivilant of the $2.50 charged daily was printed on the vouchers you would hand to the waiter and steward on the last night.  If I recall correctly, the implementation of my time dining and specialty venues also made this a much more practical solution since a large percentage of passengers never had the same waiter and had no one to hand the vouchers to on the last day...not that it really mattered.  

 

There was always debate among cruisers as to the amount of the "suggested tips" even back when it was $2.50 cash being handed to the stewards and waiters. I guess there will always be cheap passengers and big tippers but overall the system worked and you could always remove the gratuities and tip in cash or not at all if you so chose. 

 

Then what many of us who have seen this evolution and started to object too was what became an apparent cruise line money grab from the cruise lines.  Instead of the actual tips going directly to the waiters and stewards it became a pool of money that also went to multiple behind the scenes staff like laundry workers.  They also removed the specialty waiters from the pool and double charged for tips by charging the service fee on top of the bill in those specialties.  Although the cruise lines won't detail where every dollar goes, if you do enough research you will see references to amounts paid based on performance and things like recreation facilities paid for the benefit of the crew....all things the cruise lines should be paying for and not part of the tipping pool.  It leaves you to believe all of those monies are not directly paid to the crew.

 

Finally the amount of the daily charge has also gone up disproportionately from the $2.50.  The average household income in 1980 was around $21k compared to approximately $100K today (last published number is $97,000for 2021).  That's a 4.76 increase and if applied to the $2.50 should be in the $12.00 range not the current $15.50 ( i believe that's the current rate).  Everything points to the cruise lines making out on these charges to the detriment of the staff, even Holland America ditched the no tipping policy decades ago.

 

So the bottom line is do what you feel is right for you and while we almost always tip in addition to the prepaid charges, we won't feel one bit of concern in removing them either if there's an unsolved issue because it hurts the cruise lines a lot more than the staff especially if you tip in cash if you do remove the daily service charge

[DirtyDawg]

5 minutes ago, livingonthebeach said:

 

"Resort Fees" are passé and un-PC.  They are now called "Destination Amenity Fees" which cover waitstaff fee, housekeeping fee, fitness fee, package delivery fee, in-room-safe fee, fax service fee, telephone fee, CEO bonus fee, etc. etc.

  😉

In addition to the fax service fee, the DAE also covers the Y2K upgrade fee, and the DOS legacy system fee. Maybe some day it will include a shareholder dividend fee. 😁😉

[livingonthebeach]

3 minutes ago, DirtyDawg said:

In addition to the fax service fee, the DAE also covers the Y2K upgrade fee, and the DOS legacy system fee. Maybe some day it will include a shareholder dividend fee. 😁😉

 

The DAE is a great deal since it now covers the Walkman, Discman, Walkie Talkie and 8 Track Player fees. Not to mention the  Pinnball, Atari and Pacman machine fees as well as the Commodore 64 computers and rotary phones with phone books in every cabin. 🙃

 

[PolicromaSol]

On 8/20/2022 at 1:38 AM, Maria63 said:

You do have a point, and for my part I'm okay with paying the daily service charge and have so far never removed it.

 

However, I'm not sure I like the idea that the moral responsibility to pay employees a good salary is shifted to the guests even when the employee works in a position where he/she doesn't directly interact with the guest. You can defend that bar & restaurant waiters, cabin attendants etc are paid a lower base salary, as fairly generous tipping is the norm in the US. But if it's not the norm that you tip the people you don't directly interact with on land in the US, I'm not sure if I can fully agree with the way the service charge is sold to the customers in the cruise industry. But like I said, I can live with the current practice.

 

 I remember locally, there was a big fuss with a particular tea room that split the tips among their employees. Some Karen sued them over it, even though she had no dog in the fight and the employees were happy with the tip system at this particular establishment.

 

The end result? Tipping is no longer allowed there, no matter how well your server or chef does.

 

Is that good or bad? The employees liked the system as it previously was. And yes, now they have a higher "base" pay. But they can no longer "dial it up" for a little extra. Now they no longer have that "lucky day" where some rich guy will leave a several hundred dollar tip. The reality is that some people work those types of jobs specifically *because* they like the tipping system.

 

I tend to be on the "middle" when it comes to tipping. Parts of it make sense, parts of it annoy the hell out of me. I foreheadsmack at places like Flix Brewhouse that charge 18% gratuity automatically, claim it's all well and good, but still leave a "tip" line on the receipt. Do I leave more or not? It's almost like it's shaming you to leave more. (I try to get my money's worth out of their customer service in response though! More cookies for the kiddo, please! LOL)

[PhillyFan33579]

51 minutes ago, bjlaac said:

As a long time cruiser I can tell everyone for certain the "gratuities" issue has evolved many times over the years (for the worse IMHO), something many of you already know.......Anyway.

 

On our first few cruises in the late 70's and early 80's the cruise director would have a talk on tipping and it usually went along the lines of this.  The recommended tip was around $2,50 per person each day for both the Cabin Steward and Waiter.  The waiters tip was split with the bus boy as per their own agreement.  The CD would also say if the Maitre'd did something special consider giving he a one time flat fee of you own choosing.  All of the cruise lines operated the same except for Holland America who had a published no tipping policy and although they didn't discourage tipping they didn't promote it either.  Everything except the initial fare was in cash on those ships as well.

 

Then when the ships became more modern and computerized there as a push to remove cash from the daily activities with all expenses charged to onboard accounts backed by credit cards and cash as we see it today.  The last cash remnants besides the casino's was the gratuities which most cruise lines adopted but it was merely a swap of cash to vouchers for the Waiter and Steward gratuities.  Whatever the equivilant of the $2.50 charged daily was printed on the vouchers you would hand to the waiter and steward on the last night.  If I recall correctly, the implementation of my time dining and specialty venues also made this a much more practical solution since a large percentage of passengers never had the same waiter and had no one to hand the vouchers to on the last day...not that it really mattered.  

 

There was always debate among cruisers as to the amount of the "suggested tips" even back when it was $2.50 cash being handed to the stewards and waiters. I guess there will always be cheap passengers and big tippers but overall the system worked and you could always remove the gratuities and tip in cash or not at all if you so chose. 

 

Then what many of us who have seen this evolution and started to object too was what became an apparent cruise line money grab from the cruise lines.  Instead of the actual tips going directly to the waiters and stewards it became a pool of money that also went to multiple behind the scenes staff like laundry workers.  They also removed the specialty waiters from the pool and double charged for tips by charging the service fee on top of the bill in those specialties.  Although the cruise lines won't detail where every dollar goes, if you do enough research you will see references to amounts paid based on performance and things like recreation facilities paid for the benefit of the crew....all things the cruise lines should be paying for and not part of the tipping pool.  It leaves you to believe all of those monies are not directly paid to the crew.

 

Finally the amount of the daily charge has also gone up disproportionately from the $2.50.  The average household income in 1980 was around $21k compared to approximately $100K today (last published number is $97,000for 2021).  That's a 4.76 increase and if applied to the $2.50 should be in the $12.00 range not the current $15.50 ( i believe that's the current rate).  Everything points to the cruise lines making out on these charges to the detriment of the staff, even Holland America ditched the no tipping policy decades ago.

 

So the bottom line is do what you feel is right for you and while we almost always tip in addition to the prepaid charges, we won't feel one bit of concern in removing them either if there's an unsolved issue because it hurts the cruise lines a lot more than the staff especially if you tip in cash if you do remove the daily service charge

If you remove gratuities it has no impact on the cruise line. One hundred percent of gratuities goes to crew members. So people who remove gratuities are only screwing over individual crew members, with no financial impact to the cruise line.
 

i understand when occasionally I read or hear about extremely poor service a passenger(s) receives during a cruise, which leads them to removing gratuities. But people who remove gratuities just because they can are literally treating crew members as slaves (they are basically working for free). 

 

The history of gratuities on cruises over time really doesn’t matter. The main reason almost all major cruise lines have gone to some form of auto gratuities is because the demographics of people who cruise has changed considerably over time. 
 

 

[PhillyFan33579]

5 hours ago, crazyank said:

We doubt this very highly.  Why would a cabin steward have access to financial information about a guest account? 

They don’t have access to financial information. Prior to each cruise each cabin steward is provided a list of the passenger(s) in the cabins they are responsible for and this list indicates if gratuities were previously paid. This is how most cabin stewards will call you by name the first time they meet you (a little off subject but it amazes me how so many crew members remember names of passengers, what their favorite drink is, etc.). And if a passenger removes gratuities during a cruise, cabin stewards normally find out because their boss will ask them if there has been any issue(s) with these passengers. I don’t think leadership is concerned about the cabin steward losing money, I think they are concerned about the passenger(s) not being happy about something.  

[livingonthebeach]

15 minutes ago, PhillyFan33579 said:

If you remove gratuities it has no impact on the cruise line. One hundred percent of gratuities goes to crew members. So people who remove gratuities are only screwing over individual crew members, with no financial impact to the cruise line.......

 

It goes both ways. If you remove gratuities at GS before you even meet your steward and state you will leave cash at the beginning, throughout the cruise and at the end of the cruise and actually follow through (like most that leave cash tips)  - the crew members that are suppose to get tips end up probably getting more directly in cash than they would with any opaque tipping pool. 

[Ocean Boy]

It is so interesting when certain people proclaim to "know" something yet they have contradicting knowledge.

[livingonthebeach]

1 minute ago, Ocean Boy said:

It is so interesting when certain people proclaim to "know" something yet they have contradicting knowledge.

 

Exactly -- wonder where those in the "know" actually get their info from when these policies change constantly even from ship to ship. Tipping is as fluid as the liquids people pour into their rum runners. 

[brillohead]

2 hours ago, bjlaac said:

As a long time cruiser I can tell everyone for certain the "gratuities" issue has evolved many times over the years (for the worse IMHO), something many of you already know.......Anyway.

 

On our first few cruises in the late 70's and early 80's the cruise director would have a talk on tipping and it usually went along the lines of this.  The recommended tip was around $2,50 per person each day for both the Cabin Steward and Waiter.  The waiters tip was split with the bus boy as per their own agreement.  The CD would also say if the Maitre'd did something special consider giving he a one time flat fee of you own choosing.  All of the cruise lines operated the same except for Holland America who had a published no tipping policy and although they didn't discourage tipping they didn't promote it either.  Everything except the initial fare was in cash on those ships as well.

 

 

My first cruise was in 1981, and it was not just $5/passenger/day -- we definitely had separate envelopes for all the various people I mentioned before.  Same for HAL in 1987.  And it was still the same way on Celebrity and Princess in 2003 and 2004.  

I have never cruised where the expectation was to only give cash tips to just two people.  

[PolicromaSol]

29 minutes ago, PhillyFan33579 said:

They don’t have access to financial information. Prior to each cruise each cabin steward is provided a list of the passenger(s) in the cabins they are responsible for and this list indicates if gratuities were previously paid. This is how most cabin stewards will call you by name the first time they meet you (a little off subject but it amazes me how so many crew members remember names of passengers, what their favorite drink is, etc.). And if a passenger removes gratuities during a cruise, cabin stewards normally find out because their boss will ask them if there has been any issue(s) with these passengers. I don’t think leadership is concerned about the cabin steward losing money, I think they are concerned about the passenger(s) not being happy about something.  

 

I think it's also worth noting that in many businesses that have any kind of customer accounts have a note system for employees to leave information for each other on. They can warn other employees of ongoing issues, or even give heads up as to habits that may throw an employee off.

 

If they know in advance that there's a tip, they may have such a note system. Admittedly I am guessing here.

[ALKID]

1 hour ago, PhillyFan33579 said:

If you remove gratuities it has no impact on the cruise line. One hundred percent of gratuities goes to crew members. So people who remove gratuities are only screwing over individual crew members, with no financial impact to the cruise line.
 

i understand when occasionally I read or hear about extremely poor service a passenger(s) receives during a cruise, which leads them to removing gratuities. But people who remove gratuities just because they can are literally treating crew members as slaves (they are basically working for free). 

 

The history of gratuities on cruises over time really doesn’t matter. The main reason almost all major cruise lines have gone to some form of auto gratuities is because the demographics of people who cruise has changed considerably over time. 
 

 

Interesting theory, but then why does their pay not change from week to week?  How do they even figure out how much to deduct from a dishwashers pay because someone removed some of the gratuities?  How long would that take for the thousands of employees?  Some lines even share the tips fleetwide, so if someone on one ship decides to remove his gratuities, then how do they figure out how much to deduct from the paychecks of the crew on a different ship?  I

[livingonthebeach]

I believe most (not all) people who give cash tips do so to bartenders, waiters, assistant waiters, room stewards, maybe the occasional maitre d' or sommelier, tip extra cash at the speciality restaurants and those front end crew that provide direct services. 

[not-enough-cruising]

34 minutes ago, ALKID said:

Interesting theory, but then why does their pay not change from week to week?  How do they even figure out how much to deduct from a dishwashers pay because someone removed some of the gratuities?  How long would that take for the thousands of employees?  Some lines even share the tips fleetwide, so if someone on one ship decides to remove his gratuities, then how do they figure out how much to deduct from the paychecks of the crew on a different ship?  I

Crew have a guaranteed minimum in their contract (starting around $1100 per

month, that can’t change) They shouldn’t expect any more than that, and be surprised with whatever extra appears. 

[bjlaac]

1 hour ago, brillohead said:

 

 

My first cruise was in 1981, and it was not just $5/passenger/day -- we definitely had separate envelopes for all the various people I mentioned before.  Same for HAL in 1987.  And it was still the same way on Celebrity and Princess in 2003 and 2004.  

I have never cruised where the expectation was to only give cash tips to just two people.  

 

[bjlaac]

I'm only relaying my experience our first cruise in 1979 was on the Stataendam to Berumda...it was strictly NO TIPPING POLICY, our next was in 1980 on the Niew Amsterdam to Bermuda and the Carribenn also with a NO TIPPING POLICY.  In 1982 and for the next few years we sailed the Thanksgiving cruise on Home Lines where the cruise director named Stanley Kaine talked about the $2.50 per person per day as I outlined in my original post or $5 as you put it.  there were no others that expected an envelope  based on a daily charge.  Were there others we did, yes, like the Maetre'd for a special service or the deck steward who reserved your lounge chair for the entire cruise (ah the good old days)

 

Sometime after that the money grab started for "our convenience of course".  So I'm not sure what ships you were sailing but that was our experience.  Each cruise line was probably different in the day so each person's experience is certainly  different...but we wind up in the same place today.

Edited August 21, 2022 by bjlaac

[the penguins]

8 hours ago, Bird82 said:

Repeating your statement doesn’t help. 

You said my statement wasn't true. Which part of it are you saying is untrue?

[PhillyFan33579]

1 hour ago, not-enough-cruising said:

Crew have a guaranteed minimum in their contract (starting around $1100 per

month, that can’t change) They shouldn’t expect any more than that, and be surprised with whatever extra appears. 

Not sure where you are getting your information from, but the base salary of gratuity based positions is much lower than $1100. That’s why it is a big impact on them when guests remove gratuities. Fortunately only a very small percentage of people actually remove gratuities, but many crew members are supporting an entire family back home, so every dollar lost counts. 

[the penguins]

On 8/20/2022 at 10:37 AM, crazyank said:

Totally agree

Perhaps you would prefer Princess Cruises version as they have changed gratuities/tips to Crew Appreciation - a rose by any other name.