Tipping on board a cruise ship!!!?

Question

To anyone who has ever gone on board a Carnival cruise ship or a similar one... I need to know what have you done about the gratuities and/or tips...

According to Carnival:

"The total amount is $10.00 per guest, per day (our recommended guideline) as follows:

$ 3.50 Per Day Stateroom Services

$ 5.50 Per Day Dining Room Services

$ 1.00 Per Day Alternative Services: distributed to other kitchen and hotel service staff

What have you done in these cases??? I need details... PLEASE!!! I am a frist time cruiser... Yes, it shows, LOL!

Answer 1

you should tip the bar staff, their basic pay is $800 a month, £400 in Uk money!!!!

Answer 2

I have been on about 20 cruises with 4 different cruise lines and am familiar with this process.  The process is basically the same on all cruise lines and ships.  They all charge a $10 per day per person gratuity.  Some cruise lines will allow you to pre-pay the gratuity by just signing a form agreeing to the fees.  Others will give you a gratuity form after you have boarded the ship, usually a few days into the cruise.  In those cases the gratuities are charged to the on-board account that you set up at boarding.  Then at the end of the cruise your gratuities are charged to your credit card, or you can pay cash.

On some cruise lines like Royal Caribbean they will give you a voucher and envelopes to present to your cabin steward, waiters, etc at the end of the cruise.  This is so that you can give the servers a personal thanks.  You can also, if you want, add more to any of the envelopes.  Carnival may also use this same process; I know its parent company Princess did..

Answer 3

Some cruiselines such as Carnival have gone to this process of automatically charging the tipping (at the recommended rate) to your credit card.  Lots of people have no problem with it.

However, I do not believe it gives the extra incentive for the staff to give exceptional service if they all get the automatic tips.  I also would not "stiff" anyone staff member but if a staff member gave very mediocre service and talking to the head waiter or chief steward did not help, I would deduct something from his tip.  If this was on the automatic process, you have to go to the Pursar's Office and explain why you want to have a lower tip amount given to a staff member.  This takes time away from your leisure time cruising.

Anyhow, in your case, it will be done automatically.  Just remember, there is a 15% tip added automatically to any drink purchases you make.

Answer 4

They will charge you 10.00 a day and that will cover all tips. It will be added to you stateroom cost.

Answer 5

Youre reffering to "mandatory" tiping that will be either pre paid or charged to your account. You can change it if you really will but they want like you a bit for that. Its part off theyre wage we are talking about here. Also except to tip if youre ordering items from the room service. In adition to theese tips (that will be like $70 for a seven day cruise) except to pay a 15% tip bill for every item purcased with your sail and sign card. It will also ad a serious amount off money to your bill.

Other than that dont owertip, use it when youre asking for something special or is getting tip top service. Also feel free to ask if your uncertain about tiping. The pursers desk is the best place for that kind of questions. Good luck and enjoy your holliday! Johan. ps I am going on a four night cruise in just a week! ds

Answer 6

We go with the recommended amount.  If you want to tip more in the end you may.  We left an additional amount for our waiter as he was very attentive all week, but it's not neccessary.  Everyone we talked with use the recommended amount.

Answer 7

Like the first answer, it will be charged on your credit card at the end of the cruise and it is $10 a day per person. Now if you get exceptional service, you  can leave someone specific more money. At the end of the cruise, you can go to the persors desk and get tip envelopes if you wish. I did give extra once when the cabin cleaning person really did a lot more then necessary like making toys out of towels for us every night. really cool.

Answer 8

tipping can get super expensive really fast.  i just stuck with the recommended guidelines and had them add in the tip for me.  personally, i think tipping is a retarded process and should only be done when someone goes above and beyond [how it is in europe], but that's just me...

Answer 9

I agree with TinkerToy's advice.

Remember that TIPS means, To Insure Prompt Service. Tipping is always optional even though the cruise lines often make it look like it is required.

I always tip well for good service and ALWAYS tip them using the envelope method and tip a people personally reguardless if the cruise line collects the tips or not.

Remember that the cruise lines hires many of their service and cleaning employees from poorer countries and I just don't trust the cruise line to give the full amount of the tip to the employees. They may be keep something for themselves. I just tip the employee personally to avoid that and it makes me feel better in doing so.