What do you Tip extra for?

[regnig]

Ok as it seems I have tipping on the brain this weekend thought I'd see what kind of things people tip 'extra' for. I'm not talking just the 'suggested' tip but what you consider service worthy of 'extra' for. I'll get it started with a couple of my examples -

Room Steward -
Since we usually travel with at least 3 other couples we usually have 4 cabins in a row serviced by the same steward. As is our want, we normally all go to breakfast at the same time. It's never a long event, just a brief get together to see what others are doing for the day. The steward who recognizes that we are a 'group' and sees to it that [I]all[/I] our cabins are tended to by the time we return usually reaps the benefit of his/her observation.

Dining Staff -
Our group of at least 8 always eat dinner (late traditional) together. The dining staff who learns our names and beverage preferences by the second night - not an easy task since we play musical chairs never sitting the same place twice - always gets extra.

Ok, now it's your turn. What do you give extra for??

[seattlekckckc]

I always tip extra for room service, regardless of how long it takes. I appreciate the usually quick service. I almost always tip extra to our room stewear, but it realaly depends on the relationship we build in addition to how good of job they are doing. And wait staff we tip extra, but only for traditional seating. We dont tip extra to any PC dining staff, unless they make a huge inpact on our cruise.

Casey

[NoNoNanette]

My husband makes it a point to shake our steward's hand as soon as possible, and slips him a $10 bill with a warm smile.

I usually clothes-pin a few dollars a day onto my collapsible cooler with a note asking for ice.
It's gotten to the point where our steward would automatically ice-down a few of Dom's beers, and have a bottle of bubbly chilled for me!

As far as I'm concerned, stewards deserve much more than the typical cruiser tips them. Be good to your steward and he/she will be good to you!:D

[NoNoNanette]

On the Royal Olympia line, we had a WONDERFUL bartender that we'd "visit" each day for Happy Hour. (Yep! Happy hour on a cruise ship!!!).

The guy would actually "save" our barstools for us. When he'd see us walk in, he'd do his thing and have our drinks at our "reserved" seats. (Made a MEAN MARTINI!)
On our last night, Dom gave him a $20 bill. The guy went above and beyond what one would expect from ANY bartender, much less on a cruiseship.:)

[nycruise]

We always tip extra to the room steward. We never use room service, so no tipping there. Since we used P.C. on our last cruise, we normally wouldn't tip the dinning room staff, but we went to Vivaldi 3 times on our last cruise and had the same wait staff each time so we tipped the 2 waiters on the last night.

[Toto2Kansas]

We tip our room steward extra IF we have cocktail parties that are extra work for him/her to clean up after. Also if we have any special requests during the cruise that are intrusive into his/her normal duties. Anything above cleaning the room is rewarded.

Room Service we always tip for no matter what is delivered.

We also tip the head waiter IF he does anything special for us, or supplies useful into about ports etc. during the cruise. Some we never see, others seem to be at our table each and every night supplying useful info and insite to make our cruise more enjoyable.

IF we have a favorite bar waiter/bar tender that we use many times during the cruise, we also will search him out the last evening and give him an extra tip.

[akur23]

We always give the morning room service person an extra tip on the last day (we have been tipping a couple of dollars every day), specially if it has been the same person bringing our morning coffee/tea.:)

[JanetMarie]

We always tip our cabin steward extra at the onset of the cruise. It sets a nice precedent for the upcoming week.

[Tania]

- to the room steward who has a genuine smile and goes the xtra mile...

- every room service delivery

and

- to the dining steward who tells me I have a beautiful daughter and means it...LOL...

- to the dining room steward who doesn't charge me corkage; HE gets the corkage fee at the end, above the auto tip.

[bjboothman]

I don't normally tip the room steward extra; we are very low maintenance people, never ask for anything, and I'm one of those who pretty much cleans the room before I leave it - even when I'm in a hotel.

Rarely do I use room service. I've never had a maitre'd do anything for me, so that's out. We typically get PC dining so never see the same face twice. If we ever get traditional dining again, I have no problem with an additional tip for good waiters.

DH and I typically go to Crooners (or a similar bar) every afternoon around 4:00ish for a martini (me) and a coffee (DH). Seems we always become friendly with just one waiter and get to know him quite well. DH always gives him an extra $20 the last afternoon.

[Aquarian]

Ditto to: "- to the room steward who has a genuine smile and goes the xtra mile..."

[mii]

[b]Frankly my DH and I do exactly the same as the above posts in that we tip the room steward and room service. We have our morning coffee delivered every day and we tip that person and often in the evening we may want a soft drink in our room or a plate of cookies and we then tip them again.[/b]

[b]Marilyn[/b]

[Genessa]

We have a couple of extra requests that we usually ask the steward for - water replenished daily w/o the card filled out, fruit bowl, extra conditioner - that would be at least $60 over the auto tip.

We have given even more extra is the steward notices we don't eat the oranges and he brings no more of them, if he leaves our shower setting and a/c settings alone.

We usually hang out by the aft pool or the deck right above it. We've gotten the same drink staff on several cruises and we will usually tip him/her $20 or so the 2nd or 3rd day if they have been attentive without being annoying - fine line to walk ;).