New to Cruising, how much too Tip

I know this has been covered many times but my questions are associated with the Haven suites in particular.

OK I am new to cruising and will be travelling in a Haven Spa Suite (H9) on the Escape departing Miami on 16/12/2017. My trip already covers normal gratuities but I would still expect to tip above and beyond this for exceptional service.

 

So here are my questions.

 

How much should I tip my Butler, should this tip be spread across the days, at the start of the cruise or the end.

How much do I tip the concierge, again should this be at the start or the end of the cruise.

Do you tip at the speciality restaurants or is this covered by the prepaid gratuities.

Who else should I be tipping.

Specialty restaurants are covered by the prepaid gratuities

 

Your butler is not part of the daily gratuities (DSC) We tip approx. $10 per day per person if he is doing a good job and go up and down from there.

 

If your room steward does a fantastic job you may want to tip him but its not necessary

 

I think there is a haven butler that works the courtyard-if you use him you should tip-I have no idea how much as I don't use him.

 

Night butler that serves you when your regular butler is sleeping-I tip 5 bucks whenever he delivers anything.

 

You should tip the Concierge if you use him/her. Concierge helps with reservations for shows and dinners, keeps you informed of the special perks you get as Haven etc. He lets you know about tendering etc for Haven and will take you to the pier most days.

 

Have a great time!

Unless you use the butler often for room service and make alot of special requests, $10 per person per day is high IMO. We don't tip anywhere near that amount. We usually don't have room service and don't request anything special so $20 a day for just dropping off a plate of snacks in the afternoon seems out of proportion when the butler is in our suite a few minutes at the most each day.

Unless you use the butler often for room service and make alot of special requests, $10 per person per day is high IMO. We don't tip anywhere near that amount. We usually don't have room service and don't request anything special so $20 a day for just dropping off a plate of snacks in the afternoon seems out of proportion when the butler is in our suite a few minutes at the most each day.

i don't know if you can privately message me but I'm curious what you tip, i don't want you to have to defend yourself to cc posters. We are like you maybe 1 dinner in room never breakfast and a request for juice in the room once for the week. I thought I was appropriate but may have under tipped my butler, I didn't know 10 pp was the norm. i always see the room stewards performing way more duties then a butler does for us.

Your DSC covers the cabin attendant, waiters, ass't waiter and head waiter. You can tip the butler and concierge based on what they do for you. I think $10 pd is bit much, also.

Tipping is very personal and depends on what the crew member does for you, how well they do it and, of course, your budget. The first time I cruised in a suite, I asked the same question and got answers from tip $35 to $500 for the week. I dug through all the posts and came up with what I felt was a fair starting point (I can go up or down, based on services and service). I tip the Butler $10 per person per day, the Concierge $5 per person perday. I tip the Butler and Concierge once, at the end of the cruise. I do tip $5 per person at the specialty restaurants, but many don't. Same with Cabin Steward, if they do an exceptional job, I will tip additional. Keep in mind, that the person you are tipping will be appreciative of whatever amount you choose to tip.

Tip them whatever you feel comfortable with tipping them.

 

Nobody on CC can tell you what makes you comfortable. Some ask for more from their butler, some as for little or nothing. Some butlers are great, some...not so great.

 

You will read posts from people who tipped nothing for the week. Some people tipped hundreds for the week. When you go to a land-based restaurant, you tip based on the service that you received. What the table next to you tipped is irrelevant. Same here.

i don't know if you can privately message me but I'm curious what you tip, i don't want you to have to defend yourself to cc posters. We are like you maybe 1 dinner in room never breakfast and a request for juice in the room once for the week. I thought I was appropriate but may have under tipped my butler, I didn't know 10 pp was the norm. i always see the room stewards performing way more duties then a butler does for us.

 

Its the norm IF you USE your butler. If hes just dropping off snacks I would probably tip 1/2 of what I suggested. But why aren't you using your butler?? :confused:

Its the norm IF you USE your butler. If hes just dropping off snacks I would probably tip 1/2 of what I suggested. But why aren't you using your butler?? :confused:

It was my first cruise in a suite and i guess i didn't do my research. He was never around, I fell into the trap of having a neighbor take up all the butlers time. They would order 3 meals a day in room and he would always be there. I should have realized something was up when we didn't see him the first day and the room steward commented on it. When we did see him he never explained his services just hear is some fruite , we didn't know to take the phone with us to call him either so it seemed pointless to walk to our room call a butler to get us something that we are walking past to get to our room.

It was my first cruise in a suite and i guess i didn't do my research. He was never around, I fell into the trap of having a neighbor take up all the butlers time. They would order 3 meals a day in room and he would always be there. I should have realized something was up when we didn't see him the first day and the room steward commented on it. When we did see him he never explained his services just hear is some fruite , we didn't know to take the phone with us to call him either so it seemed pointless to walk to our room call a butler to get us something that we are walking past to get to our room.

 

Now you know! The butler is a big part of getting a suite! :D

You will find the most vocal on here really like to tout their 'generosity'. Just go with the standards you already pay and you will be fine. If people stand out reward them above and beyond that. Don't think the standard is leaving the steward an extra $100 at the end of the cruise just because some say it is.

 

The butler will not be part of the DSC so tip accordingly. $5 a day may be fine for the normal service but if you start ordering meals in cabin you may want to increase it.

i don't know if you can privately message me but I'm curious what you tip, i don't want you to have to defend yourself to cc posters. We are like you maybe 1 dinner in room never breakfast and a request for juice in the room once for the week. I thought I was appropriate but may have under tipped my butler, I didn't know 10 pp was the norm. i always see the room stewards performing way more duties then a butler does for us.

I don't know of any way to privately message you so I'll try to answer your question without being specific. When we first sailed in suites I read all the tipping threads to get an idea what was appropriate. It seemed $10 PP/PD was the norm. Back then that was almost equal to the DSC. On that first cruise we didn't use the butler much at all. I think we had 1 breakfast delivered. We didn't use (or see) the concierge at all after embarkation, although we gave him a tip on the last day. I'm sure we tipped more than we needed to for the services we used. We decided that tipping based on services we received made more sense.

 

If you stay at a hotel and order room service they usually add on a service charge of 18-20%. Then you tip the delivery person a few dollars. The butler comes in once a day, drops off a plate of snacks and checks the coffee machine. There's no way we can justify $20 a day when the room steward gets nowhere near that from the DSC. (BTW, we tip the steward extra too.)

 

I much prefer going to a restaurant over dining in the suite so we don't request room service unless we have an early shore excursion. We don't host parties in our suite. We don't ask for special treats or snacks. We enjoy suites for the extra room, the priority embarkation, the private dining room, etc. It's nice the have the butler and concierge available if you need them but we don't tip just because they're there.

 

I much prefer going to a restaurant over dining in the suite so we don't request room service unless we have an early shore excursion. We don't host parties in our suite. We don't ask for special treats or snacks. We enjoy suites for the extra room, the priority embarkation, the private dining room, etc. It's nice the have the butler and concierge available if you need them but we don't tip just because they're there.

Thank you, our butler even suggested not having dinner in the room because it wouldn't be as warm. The reason i booked the suite was for the bigger balcony and room size as well.

I know this has been covered many times but my questions are associated with the Haven suites in particular.

OK I am new to cruising and will be travelling in a Haven Spa Suite (H9) on the Escape departing Miami on 16/12/2017. My trip already covers normal gratuities but I would still expect to tip above and beyond this for exceptional service.

 

So here are my questions.

 

How much should I tip my Butler, should this tip be spread across the days, at the start of the cruise or the end.

How much do I tip the concierge, again should this be at the start or the end of the cruise.

Do you tip at the speciality restaurants or is this covered by the prepaid gratuities.

Who else should I be tipping.

there are no set rules, it is up to the individual. Here is what we normally do: tip the concierge based on how much he/she is used. The only thing any of them have done for us is help us get reservations for specialty dining and maybe assist us getting off the ship for tours a little faster. Sometimes we do not tip, other times we give them about $20.specialty dining rooms, we leave between $5 and $10 in cash for the wait person if he/she is really good. Normally they are. Otherwise we tip our cabin steward usually between $20 and $30 depending on the service and length of cruise. If we find a bar we really like we will leave an extra $1.00 each time we order. But none of this is necessary. some tip much more than I am mentioning and some less or not at all.

Unless you use the butler often for room service and make alot of special requests, $10 per person per day is high IMO. We don't tip anywhere near that amount. We usually don't have room service and don't request anything special so $20 a day for just dropping off a plate of snacks in the afternoon seems out of proportion when the butler is in our suite a few minutes at the most each day.

totally agree. I am surprised anyone would tip $10 per day per person to the butler or anyone else for that matter. This is why I say, tipping is up to the individual to decide.

Thanks for your advice, I am a regular in Vegas which is big on tips, so I will deal with it in a similar manner. I will just stick with the following $10 a day for the butler, unless they do something extra for us. A little extra at the end of the cruise for the steward say around $30 and probably $30 - $50 for the concierge at the end of the trip depending on what they have done for us. Bar restaurants etc will be based on my mood\service at the time.

 

I am normally reasonably generous when on Holiday

 

One further comments on tips, I know us Brits get a bad rep for tipping but we should not all be tarred with the same brush.

Tip them whatever you feel comfortable with tipping them.

 

Nobody on CC can tell you what makes you comfortable. Some ask for more from their butler, some as for little or nothing. Some butlers are great, some...not so great.

 

You will read posts from people who tipped nothing for the week. Some people tipped hundreds for the week. When you go to a land-based restaurant, you tip based on the service that you received. What the table next to you tipped is irrelevant. Same here.

 

I think your approach is spot-on. Every cruise is different; every service team is different; every cruiser has different means with which to reward good service; and your utilization of the service team will likely change based on your experiences. The only metric I would propose is "be generous" to those that go the extra mile to make your cruise more memorable!

No one should tell YOU what to tip

 

But it is ok to ask what we tip. I am pretty much in line with Arizona but I tend to tip a little more to the Concierge but I tend to ask for a few things. When I cruised on the epic my first megaship there were assistant concierges that we tipped too.

 

I had previously cruised with just 2 in a but on my last cruise there were three of us so we would tip $10 per person per day for the Butler for the first two and five per day for the third person for a total of 25 and for the concierge likewise.

 

That was pretty much because the three of us did the same things if three people were all asking for separate requests then of course I would've made it 10 a day each.

 

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

For what its worth....

 

I ALWAYS give the Butler / Cabin Steward a $20 on the very first day. It sets a tone. I have Never been disappointed. I then tip a total of $10 / day (so another $50 at end of week) I have always have had superb service. Shoes shined without asking, suit pressed. Coffee every a.m at 6 when I woke up.

 

I do the same / similar at the pool bar where I spend most of my time and the casino. $20 at the start - Cash Money, and I NEVER have to fight crowds of 4000 people for a cocktail. Never wondering where the waitress is in the casino. They search me out. They save me a seat at the pool bar. Works like a charm.

Interesting thread. I've never been on a cruise yet, the first one is coming up in a little over a month so I have no experience, hence why I've read this thread. To me, $40 per person, per day is excessive. My two kids will never ask anything of the Butler or Concierge. They don't eat refined sugars as found in mainstream chocolate or hard candies so unless they can bring healthy snacks, we'll ask that they refrain from leaving such things in our cabin. Dining in the suite seems counter intuitive to me, I'm looking for the dining out and full cruise experience. Now tipping the center that watches the kids? Hell, I'll likely tip them what some here tip the Butler! They will be working for it!

 

Like others have said, for us, the Haven was mainly for the space, access and expedited movement to and from the vessel. The Butler is a nice extra we may use but no where near being worth $300 for a week.