How much to tip butler/concierge?

I've been reading old threads about tipping the butler and concierge. This will be our first cruise and I'm still learning how all of this works. From what I understand you pay a flat "tip" rate (service charge) that covers a certain list of personnel. That doesn't cover the butler/concierge though, right?

For those of you who have cruised in an NCL suite+, how much did you tip your butler and concierge? Do you tip the same amount even if you don't really use their services? Is there a certain amount that is considered a standard per day? We will be tipping at the end of our 5-day cruise.

Again, I'm new to cruising and don't want to leave a tip that would be considered insulting, but I think without this board I wouldn't have known to tip quite as much as some have mentioned in previous threads.

Thanks in advance!

Kim.

The easy and short answer is that the thread you referred to has the answers you seek. I don't mean to be rude or disrespectful but this exact subject has been discussed in depth there.

We tipped our concierge nothing. We never could reach him. Our butler rec'd 100.00, the assistant 75.00, and our steward got 100.00. The steward is in the tip pool but that wasn't enough for the service we were provided.

We plan on tipping the same way this year provided we get the same high level of service we rec'd last year.

Hope this helped

Everyone has a different opinion, I will just give you my standard based on a 7 day cruise, 2 people. Some people i'm sure will call my tips too low, oh well. :)

Butler: $100

Concierge: $20-$60 (based on level of service)

Room Steward: $20 (since they are also paid from the tip pool)

Kim,

first of all enjoy your cruise and feel free to ask questions anytime you want. We were all new to cruising at one time. We haven't had a suite so can't answer that question, but I think around $100 is standard, the conc, is up to you, depending on what he/she does for you. We have tipped nothing up to $50.00. Of course your cabin steward is covered in the normal tip pool, but if the job he/she does is good consider an extra $20 probably.

Nita

As others here and on other threads have said, it depends on service received. The simple ones are the stewards and waiters. Something extra is always appreciated, and I have only one time felt extra wasn't deserved. Waiters on NCL ar tipped extra on a meal basis, stewards, end of cruise. Butler...I start at $10 per person a day and adjust based upon service. Concierge about half that.

Al

Thanks everybody! I really appreciate the replies. The tip amounts mentioned here seem more reasonable. I do think I read a thread where people were tipping $400+ for their butler and I was wondering if that was expected. That's quite a bit of money! :)

First of all.. I agree with Nita. You feel free to come on here and ask any question you want to. That is what the board is about and I can not understand someone being rude to you for asking a legit question, I don't care how many times it has been asked in the past.

Some may say we tip to low, but I am comfortable with our tipping rates, so I don't care what they think.. LOL.

We always budget at least $10.00 per day each for the butler and for the concierge. Then, depending on how much we use them (we hardly ever use the butler) we might increase the tip. We use the concierge a lot more than the butler so we tend to increase his/her tip more often.

Room stewards are in the tipping pool, so anything extra for them is not necessary, but we always seem to get such great service from them we try to give them at least $20 or $30 extra for each of them at the end of the cruise.

Dining room wait staff are also in the tipping pool (Daily Service Charge), but if we get really good service, we will leave them an extra dollar or two from each of us. If we are dining in the Speciality restaurants, we will tip them 20% on our bill when we sign for it. Sometimes due to comps from the casino or the Hotel Director, etc, we will get dinner for free in a speciality restaurant and if so, since there is no bill to sign, we will just leave a nice cash tip.

You will find people with many different ideas on what is the right amount to tip, you will just have to decide for yourself what you feel comfortable with. I hope you have an amazing time on your first cruise.

First of all.. I agree with Nita. You feel free to come on here and ask any question you want to. That is what the board is about and I can not understand someone being rude to you for asking a legit question, I don't care how many times it has been asked in the past.

Thanks so much for the info on tipping and thanks to you, Nita and the others for making me feel welcome. I really appreciate it.

On Celebrity the recommended tip for the butler is $3.50 per passenger per day. The Celebrity butler seem to combine what NCL conceriege and butler into one person.

I think its probably more appropriate to pay on how often you use them and possibly as service is rendered. Also an extra generous tip for special events (lets just say we've kind of had some get togethers where our cabin got a little messy but the butler came through with also sorts of good things ;)).

$10 per person/per day is way to high as a floor unless you are in a Garden Villa. Sorry, but I just can't fathom that. I could be proved wrong on our cruise next month.

And even if you use the search it Kim it may not come up exactly with what you what you *want* to know....I know because I have been trying to find specific answers to certain questions and I finally just gave up and posted the question. There is some good information with the wonderful people here in CC. I find it usually is best for me to just ask the question. People can always skip the thread if they have seen the subject before. BTW, Welcome!:)

FYI-for a weekend cruise, we tipped the Butler $80 (he was amazing!) $50 for the concierge (who we never thought we would use...HA!) and $25 to the room stewardess. All were very appreciative and we tipped on the last night.

Geez is the NCL turning into the snobby HAL Board? (lol)

My wife and I had the same questions on our Jewel Cruise last Jan - Prev we had only had a butler on a X cruise since we've sailed Princess quite a bit (no Butlers or Con's)

The X cruise suggested $3.50 to $4.00 per pax per day - Over 10 days that would have amounted to $70-$80 over the cruise - However other

than wake us up well before we wanted to and deliver breakfast (which IMO is a service on X anyone can have) - we had no need for a Butler.

So we left $40.00 (right or wrong)

However on our 9 day cruise on the Jewel - despite our preconceptions that we had no real use for either a Butler or a Concierge - our Butler

was SUPERB - Perhaps the 2nd time 'round with one - we established better ground rules re our lifestyle etc in advance and this gentleman could do no wrong for us - we 'overtipped' (?) leaving him $120.00

Ditto the concierge (who was actually just a admin fill-in for Alex) whom

was constantly taking care of any need - be it reservations - fixing excursion(s) (to avoid long lines at the desk) etc - we left him $200.00

Point being - sure you can walk in with a guildine - Butler $4.00 per day per pax - Concierge $2.50 per day per pax - but in reality your personal exp will most likely guide you to leave what you think is fair - depending of course on your economic ability and the level of service/help given

Hope this helps and enjoy your cruise

my family leave son the POA over X-Mas

jc

toronto

On Celebrity the recommended tip for the butler is $3.50 per passenger per day. The Celebrity butler seem to combine what NCL conceriege and butler into one person.

Our butler on Celebrity did nothing like the butlers and concierge on NCL have for us. I agree completely that tips should be commensurate with use, and for us, those butlers (well all but one) and concierges have gone well above and beyond and earned our tips. We generally tip about $150 to the butler and $100 to the concierge, but have gone as high as $250 each for amazing service or when we have more than 2 people. If you use the butler for breakfast daily and maybe a few other services, I think $100 for 7 days is approppriate. We have had butlers find us a tiny screwdriver and batteries on Christmas Eve, find a dining table for my balcony (and then it rained all week lol), and bring us all kinds of nice surprises, like all the daily puzzles with my breakfast when he saw I went to the library to pick them up everyday. The concierge service may or may not warrant a large tip, but ours always has. Once, in an OS, our "free booze" went dry (oh the shock of it!). I contacted the concierge to see the cost of some replacement bottles, and the next thing I knew, they were in my cabin, free of charge. On another ship, the conc stopped by my cabin at least twice daily, helping me out immensely on a cruise where I was the only adult. On yet another cruise, my bar setup showed up with a substitution I cannot drink. The concierge returned after the first port day with a bottle of my original choice, she bought it personally on shore. I could go on and on. They have *almost* always been stupendous and worth every penny.

Robin

Our butler on Celebrity did nothing like the butlers and concierge on NCL have for us. I agree completely that tips should be commensurate with use, and for us, those butlers (well all but one) and concierges have gone well above and beyond and earned our tips. We generally tip about $150 to the butler and $100 to the concierge, but have gone as high as $250 each for amazing service or when we have more than 2 people. If you use the butler for breakfast daily and maybe a few other services, I think $100 for 7 days is approppriate. We have had butlers find us a tiny screwdriver and batteries on Christmas Eve, find a dining table for my balcony (and then it rained all week lol), and bring us all kinds of nice surprises, like all the daily puzzles with my breakfast when he saw I went to the library to pick them up everyday. The concierge service may or may not warrant a large tip, but ours always has. Once, in an OS, our "free booze" went dry (oh the shock of it!). I contacted the concierge to see the cost of some replacement bottles, and the next thing I knew, they were in my cabin, free of charge. On another ship, the conc stopped by my cabin at least twice daily, helping me out immensely on a cruise where I was the only adult. On yet another cruise, my bar setup showed up with a substitution I cannot drink. The concierge returned after the first port day with a bottle of my original choice, she bought it personally on shore. I could go on and on. They have *almost* always been stupendous and worth every penny.

 

Robin

Again, the never ending debate. Its not just how much to tip but also whether the conc/butler are great or dudds. There have been several threads regarding this and frankly since we are going on our first NCL cruise - we'll find out.

I will say that on Celebrity we've had butler's that ranked between A and C in terms of service (4 cruises with butlers). We tipped based on service using the recommend amount as a floor.

I had a butler for 7 days on the Sun in August and adored him!

Aside from his normal duties for the suite here is what he did "extra" for us (2).

Coffee, juice, danish 5 mornings

Full Breakfast in suite one morning

Boxed lunches for 3 to take on excursion early one morning

Escort to front of line for one early excursion

I tipped him $200.00

Our concierge did nothing except escort us off the ship last day. I left her 20 and was sorry I left her anything at all after I found out all that she "should" have done for us.

Hope this helps.

Happy sails:)

PS: make sure you ask your concierge to see to it you get to go to the Chocolate Buffet early to take pictures. Our's "forgot"! It's part of their job. Have fun:)

Our butler on Celebrity did nothing like the butlers and concierge on NCL have for us. I agree completely that tips should be commensurate with use, and for us, those butlers (well all but one) and concierges have gone well above and beyond and earned our tips. We generally tip about $150 to the butler and $100 to the concierge, but have gone as high as $250 each for amazing service or when we have more than 2 people. If you use the butler for breakfast daily and maybe a few other services, I think $100 for 7 days is approppriate. We have had butlers find us a tiny screwdriver and batteries on Christmas Eve, find a dining table for my balcony (and then it rained all week lol), and bring us all kinds of nice surprises, like all the daily puzzles with my breakfast when he saw I went to the library to pick them up everyday. The concierge service may or may not warrant a large tip, but ours always has. Once, in an OS, our "free booze" went dry (oh the shock of it!). I contacted the concierge to see the cost of some replacement bottles, and the next thing I knew, they were in my cabin, free of charge. On another ship, the conc stopped by my cabin at least twice daily, helping me out immensely on a cruise where I was the only adult. On yet another cruise, my bar setup showed up with a substitution I cannot drink. The concierge returned after the first port day with a bottle of my original choice, she bought it personally on shore. I could go on and on. They have *almost* always been stupendous and worth every penny.

 

Robin

Wow Robin.. what an amazing Concierge that was to go ashore and get that for you. We have always found we used the concierge more than the butler. I will say our butler on the Pearl a couple of weeks ago, Amet, was adorable and so willing to help us with anything, but we just didn't need him. We had asked him earlier in the week if he could sneak and get us a dessert that was offered in Lotus Garden. At the time we had no plans on eating there but their dessert, Warm Bananan Pancakes, sounded so good to me. He told us to just let him know when we wanted them. Well.. we ended up eating in Lotus Garden after all and had them.. Yes.. they were as good as they sounded.. LOL.. Anyway.. my point in posting this is that on the last day of the cruise he called us to see if he could bring us that dessert. He wanted to be sure we had them before the cruise was over. I thought that, out of all the hundreds of requests he gets for him to remember that, was just so sweet of him. To me, just for that, he earned his tip. And believe it or not.. we had to practically twist his arm to get him to take the tip we gave him. He just kept saying "but you didn't let me do anything for you".. Much better than the last butler we had, which was on the Star. Our first butler on the Star was amazing as well.

Wow. This is the first time I have been "flamed" on CC. My apologies to Kim if I came across as rude. That was not my intention. I was only trying to point out that there was a detailed source of info to answer Kim's question.

Please accept my humble apology for any misunderstanding.

I firmly believe there are no stupid questions.

Enjoy your suite Kim!!

Wow. This is the first time I have been "flamed" on CC. My apologies to Kim if I came across as rude. That was not my intention. I was only trying to point out that there was a detailed source of info to answer Kim's question.

Please accept my humble apology for any misunderstanding.

I firmly believe there are no stupid questions.

Enjoy your suite Kim!!

Thanks! And no worries! All is good. :D

I had a butler for 7 days on the

Aside from his normal duties for the suite here is what he did "extra" for us.

 

Coffee

Breakfast

Boxed

Escort

 

I have been searching the site for the duties of a butler. We leave shortly for a Celebrity, Australia-New Zealand, and will have a butler for the first time. What are the duties of a butler? I read that some people missed out, not knowing what to expect. I don't know if we will get a presentation on the services we may expect. Anyone who can point me to the appropriate threads or give me the "tour" of the butler's duties? :confused:

I am sorry to interject, but I think it is confusing if you discuss the butler on NCL and Celebrity on the same thread. Their duties might be completely different.

I am sorry to interject, but I think it is confusing if you discuss the butler on NCL and Celebrity on the same thread. Their duties might be completely different.

I kind of agree with you... but.. I have no problem answering the question but only as it relates to NCL. As Got2 mentioned, may be completely different on X.

The best way to think of it is the butler takes care of any and all things you need or desire inside your stateroom, and the concierge takes care of anything outside your stateroom.

For instance, the butler will even unpack and put away your clothes for you. I would never want that done for me, but they will do that. They will arrange special cocktail parties or bring you meals from specialty restaurants if you so choose. They aren't able to do that with Teppanyaki, but I do think they can from all the others.

The concierge can help you get your priority tender tickets, or arrange a tour for you if you want one onboard the ship, make all of your reservations for you for the specialty restaurants, etc.

Again, it might be different on X, but that is a simple version of how it works on NCL. I hope you have a blast on your cruise. Some day we hope to give X a try.

Hi,

We've never done any cruises before so the questions may be silly.

1. When do you tip them? Do you tip them right after each service? At the end of the each day? Or the last night?

2. How do you count the days? E.g. we signed up for a 4 day cruise on Sky. It's actually 4 nights and 5 days. Do you calculate the tips for 4 days or 5 days?

We are flying out tomorrow morning. Any quick response will be much appreciated.

Thanks a lot.

Here is what we did.

Since we always had breakfast in the room we tipped the buttler in the AM for the most part. It wasn't for breakfast, it was based on how trashed the suite was after all the party people left :D. Seriouisly, on a 7 day cruise we extensively used the butler 4 times for parties or in room dining outside of lunch.

I had a charming 2 hour lunch with lovely ladies one afternoon - before you go there one was in her 70s and the other in her 90s. And the butler treated them like Royalty. He was tipped approrpriately the next morning.

The party things were some what similiar. He would make sure we had ice/mixers/glasses. Next morning (after the coffee and breakfast we needed) we would do the tip.

Final morning was final tip for the Butler. We chatted for almost 1/2 hour. If you ever get Denny on NCL he's a great guy and did a great job.

I'm sure you are going to ask what we finally tipped him total. All that I will say after the room trashings he got about $100 each time (essentially a $5 tip for everyone that stopped by). And a nice final trip. Also, Alex the stateroom attendent got a nice "stretch" tip given he was included in the mandated tip pool.

Sorry to say the Conceierge we hardly every used or saw. When we first got on and called to make reservations he was a bit surly. OK, its busy I can sort of understand that - or not. Any way, we really didn't make use of him beyond the first night. I had some $ for him the last day but apparently he was to busy getting the new guests on (vs. the escort off for us - but there was a big SNAFU in NOLA that day). We also finagled out own bridge tour with the CD and then had to wait. He brought some of the Suite folks and I think was totally embarrased since he didn't bother inviting us.

Alright, I've blathered enough. What do you really want to know :p?

George and MaryBeth,

My wife doesn't like to have food in the living space so we are probably not going to breakfast in our suite.

Since we don't know anybody and my 14-year-old son likes the out door activities, I don't expect any party either. We will mostly be outside on the beach, in the gym, or watching some shows.

I really can't think of anything for the butler to do besides one or two room service calls for late night snacks.

What would be a good baseline amount to tip the butler for a 4-night cruise? I will add to the amount if he/she does something extra.

Same question for the concierge. I gather that yours didn't do much for you. If he did, would you tip him on the spot or daily?

Thanks.

George and MaryBeth,

 

My wife doesn't like to have food in the living space so we are probably not going to breakfast in our suite.

 

Since we don't know anybody and my 14-year-old son likes the out door activities, I don't expect any party either. We will mostly be outside on the beach, in the gym, or watching some shows.

 

I really can't think of anything for the butler to do besides one or two room service calls for late night snacks.

 

What would be a good baseline amount to tip the butler for a 4-night cruise? I will add to the amount if he/she does something extra.

 

Same question for the concierge. I gather that yours didn't do much for you. If he did, would you tip him on the spot or daily?

 

Thanks.

This was our first cruise on NCL so trying to figure out the "rules" was not clear. We have had a butler on Celebrity and I seem to remember it was recommended (or now auto-tipped) at about $3.50/pp/day. Also, even the most inate things ask. Maybe you don't want to eat in the cabin, but would like coffee/cuppucino/juice delivered every morning? Maybe a cheese tray or whatever at night. He also brought a large edition of the Miami Tribune every morning (cost about 4 bucks a day and the printers quit working halfway through the cruise). One thing that is cool about NCL is they have about a dozen full page international editions of papers for the same $4. You can even get a local edition, but the cost was more than we pay for a month at $18 per day ;)

I can't really give you any more than I have already on the butler. We used him extensively and tipped appropriately.

The Conceriege was something new for us on NCL vs. Celebrity and we really didn't have much need for him (at least on our cruise). We don't do much in the way of shows, the restaraurnts were always easy to get into and we had pre-planned our shore excursions. The "extras" that he claimed to have done for us such as priority tender tickets, invitation to officers cocktail ... On Celebrity that's just standard suite stuff, you certainly don't pay extra for it.

We did have a tip for him at debarkation but he was nowhere to be found. Probably just as well since it probably less than he would have liked.

The easy and short answer is that the thread you referred to has the answers you seek. I don't mean to be rude or disrespectful but this exact subject has been discussed in depth there.

Have you ever noticed that when a poster says he/she doesn't mean to be rude or disrespectful, the statement that follows is usually rude and disrespectful? 'Nuf said.:p

Welcome to Cruise Critic, OP. Most of us will be kind to you.