Tipping on excursions - drivers, guides, etc

I did a search on this and could not find any answers. What do you tip the drivers and guides on the private tours you book? I am specifically asking about the Carribean but would be interested in knowing other areas as well. Say the tour is 5-6 hours and the cost per person was $80-100. And the driver and guide were with you the whole time. $10? $20 each? What about the guides at the 'stops' along the tour?

I want to have a guide to what to expect so that I can go above if I want or just hit the 'average' based on our experience. But I don't want to think I am going above and yet just hitting average or below average, if that makes sense. Thanks for the help.

I've never gone over $10 total for the two of us for one person. However, I have given the driver $5 plus tip the guide maybe $10. Depends on the length and how many persons were involved in giving the tour. No right or wrong. Just whatever you feel you would like based on what you received.

I usually do $5 per person for a driver, if different from the tour guide, and $10 per person for the tour guide, if it is a good tour. I've been on some tours over the years, which were horrible and I didn't tip a dime to the tour guide.

For us, if it is a group tour, we usually tip $5 for the driver and $5 for the guide.

For a private guide, we tip 15% total between the guide and driver.

Just want to say....my husband is not a moderate tipper (I'd tip more)...

BUT he pays attention to what other's give and it's usually nothing or less than him. He gives $5 for the 2 of us on a half day tour.

This may not make much sense but whether I am alone or with my wife I tip the same. $5 to the driver, each way and $5 per person on the excursion (like a catamaran snorkel trip I give $5 to each crew member.

But tipping is always an individual thing.

I usually tip the driver (if it is a separate person) $5. For the tour guide it depends on how long the tour was. I recently took a 1 hour tuk tuk tour and gave the guide $10. For a recent 3 1/2 hour tour I gave the guide more.

BUT he pays attention to what other's give and it's usually nothing or less than him. He gives $5 for the 2 of us on a half day tour.

I've seen that; we did a whale watching tour in AK and none of the other people on the boat left a tip except for us. They were really good to.

What about a private air tour $1500 of Mayan ruins? Pilot? Guide? Drivers? 15% ($230) split how? Or tip less since the majority goes to the aircraft owner? It is 6 hours.

We usually try to Tip 15%, min $10.00. For a private tour we may do more is the provider was exceptional.

I've tipped as high as $50 for 2 of us on some tours, driver's depending on the trip $5 - $10, although the driver who was running way late for pick-ups, and screwed up the entire day in Juneau got nothing from anyone on the trip.

We tip about $10.00 for a long tour (over 4 hours) and $5 for the part day tour plus an additional $5 to the driver if he/she is not the tour guide. When we were in Canada we did a 10 hour tour and I think we were the only ones who tipped. I was a bit shocked as not all the tours bus was filled with Canadians.

I read multiple articles before we cruised to the Southern Caribbean for our late 2017 cruise out of PR. It is customary to tip 20% of the cost of an excursion, per person. We tend to tip anywhere from $15-30 total for couple while on an NCL excursion (cost $65-80 p.p.) but we typically do activities on our own or book a private excursion.

Over our ten years of cruising, we also watch others closely. Most do not give a tip to the excursion host/driver/captain. I do feel this has lead to lengthier and pushier talking about tips before the excursion has ended.

Tipping needs to be budgeted into the overall cost of your cruise vacation. Going against what is customary for the area one is traveling in, is a slight insult to its people and customs in my opinion. You can find out information about the area by doing a Google search and reading several articles to gather information. Or simply go to your local library and check out a few travel books or explore their data bases about travel.

We have been cruising for awhile now and the truth is that tipping whether on board or off the ship is really up to you and how or what your service was...We have done the Caribbean many times and have done a lot of excursions, $20.00 bucks for both of us always seemed right to me, exceptional service (very rare) got more..."Solicited tips" are not appreciated and I have put the $$$ back in my pocket when it happened...When zip lining we did give each "guide" $20.00 as they helped us both but at different times...Just depends on what they do and you..Be comfortable with yourself and tip as you feel...

Rob:cool:

We'll have three of us doing three ship tours -- one is a visit to ruins, one is a short island tour, one is a stop at a nature reserve (monkey's/birds). These have costs of about $75, $55, and $65 pp. If we think the guide was good we will tip $20 for the three of us. If we think the guide was OK, we will tip $10 for the three of us. Not sure if we really don't like the guide what we would do as that hasn't happened yet. // We typically have not tipped both driver and guide. Sometimes, though, they are the same person. Each of the tours we are talking here runs between three and four hours (nothing super long).

We notice that we usually tip more than other people and that quite a few people don't tip.

It's really up to you, what you tip, if you tip! We don't go by "percentages"...that gets a bit much! I think about $10 for the 2 of us is the most we've ever tipped when we did excursions. Now, we simply research our ports, and do stuff on our own. Much cheaper all around, and the day fits US!

Tip what you can afford. Anything will be appreciated!