Tipping

[Roybthered]

4 hours ago, Vibe said:

The crew member is made aware of what, how and when they are bring paid.  They accepted the job on those terms, just like people do when accepting a job on land.

 

The tips are part of the system the cruise industry came up with to use cruise passengers' money to pad their employee's salary. Just like restaurants in the US do.  

 

When you book a cruise, they add an additional amount for taxes, port charges and fees. Do we obsess over what the fees are and who get them. Probably not.

 

It would be much less stressful if you add the cruise fare, taxes, port charges, fees and tips together to come up with the final total of what the cruise actually costs. If you are satisfied with that cost vs the cruise experience, go ahead and enjoy yourself. If that total cost is not worth it to you, then don't go on the cruise. The same logic with any purchase that you are contemplating. 

When booking a cruise the additional amounts are added, taxes, port charges and fees. This also includes gratuities if pre paid so tipping should not come into it. It is a personal thing and should be at your own digression but should not be looked down upon or lambasted if you do not. Every person can tip or not tip simple.

[Saab4444]

Many People from the US need to understand that an average income for service staff in the Philipines, Indonesia or India is about 300 USD per months. Local families are used to live with that. If a cruise line guarantees you about 1.000 per month this is a lot and with tips many make about 3.000 and more per month. No need to worry and to have this endless discussions about appropriate tipping. They are all doing fine with some paying a lot and some others not so much.   

[cannotfathom]

15 hours ago, not-enough-cruising said:

I don't care to tip "non customer facing" crew

We have always prepaid our gratuities and currently have 2 cruises that we prepaid them.  BUT....I wished we hadn't.  I am very frustrated that our gratuities have gone up but services have decreased.  It is also annoying to read reports that earning were good but there are cost cutting measures being reported everywhere.  (Before you flame me about their losses...our family had to survive with 1 income during that time.)  If I had a magic wand, I would take back what we paid and be way more generous to the service in front of me....who are probably only getting a pittance of the prepaid. 

 

 

So can I get my prepaid grats back?  

[DallasGuy75219]

Bingo, so some of the proud tip removers on here wouldn't be so proud if the people serving them found out.

[Biker19]

1 minute ago, cannotfathom said:

So can I get my prepaid grats back? 

Only if you remove them before final payment.

[time4u2go]

51 minutes ago, Saab4444 said:

Many People from the US need to understand that an average income for service staff in the Philipines, Indonesia or India is about 300 USD per months. Local families are used to live with that. If a cruise line guarantees you about 1.000 per month this is a lot and with tips many make about 3.000 and more per month. No need to worry and to have this endless discussions about appropriate tipping. They are all doing fine with some paying a lot and some others not so much.   

That's a great point, and one that I'm sure most cruise passengers do not realize.  Thank you for bringing it up.

[pcur]

17 hours ago, snoozer of the seas said:

 

An employees wages should be a private transaction between the employee and the employer. The customer should never enter in it.

 

A fair days pay for a fair days work.

Regardless of what the "should" is, this is not the compensation model RCCL has used for over 50 years.  So, regardless of what we think individually, if we think our service staff on RCCL cruises deserve a fair compensation, then we pay the daily gratuity.

[time4u2go]

4 minutes ago, pcur said:

They must have some algorithm somewhere that shows the minority of passengers that cancel their daily gratuities, and when that decease from the tip pool adversely affects the average compensation for tipped crew, I think they will make the gratuity mandatory. 

Or raise the daily gratuity amount 😉

[pcur]

Just now, time4u2go said:

Or raise the daily gratuity amount 😉

Yes, that's a possibility.  I've never understood why it's always been psuedo-discretionary.

[sgmn]

22 hours ago, BirdTravels said:

So,,, you do understand that for those crew who get service charge, a large part of their contract wages come from tips.

 

For example: Florida has a minimum wage is $11/hour. BUT,,, if you are a tipped employee in Florida like the waiter in your local diner, an employer can pay you as little as $3.02/hour and the expectation is that the first $8 per hour of your tips goes to getting you to minimum wage before you start earning more. And your local diner waiter struggles to get to minimum wage based on the lose change people leave as tips.  Your stateroom steward is the same. They get a minimum salary from the cruise line, the first $xx of the gratuities goes to getting them up to their minimum contract salary. Then it become real gratuity after that, if any. And you know that cruise lines do not get a compensated like US employees based on working the hours they do, 7 days a week. 

But some middle of the road  cruise lines like P&O include gratuities in their fare and their fares are generally cheaper than Royal Caribbeans'. 

 

So I think this argument that we should tip extra (on top of basic gratuities) to make up a shortfall in what RC pays its staff is a smoke screen.  I'm sure there must be some sort of minimum international seaman's wage structure they have to adhere to, otherwise they would find it even more of a challenge to get staff than they do. 

Personally I think the gratuities should be baked into the price, then everyone pays

Edited February 24, 2023 by sgmn

[goldfish65]

1 hour ago, Saab4444 said:

Many People from the US need to understand that an average income for service staff in the Philipines, Indonesia or India is about 300 USD per months. Local families are used to live with that. If a cruise line guarantees you about 1.000 per month this is a lot and with tips many make about 3.000 and more per month. No need to worry and to have this endless discussions about appropriate tipping. They are all doing fine with some paying a lot and some others not so much.   

 

I understand how people have this sentiment, but it strikes a nerve with me. Taking it upon ourselves to judge for someone's circumstances that "they make enough" to justify withholding income from them. How would we like it, if someone decided that we make more than the average income which people in our locality are used to, so now we are going to pay you less?