Select dining Gratuities

[maxsales]

If you select select dining Celebrity requires that you prepay gratuities. So if you find the service once on board less then stellar, or even acceptable, can you request a refund of the gratuities that you have paid?

 

Has any one tried this? Just curious.

[sandancer]

That's an interesting question. Wonder if they would insist on you moving to traditional dining if you request to have the gratuities refunded. Also, the pre-paid tips are for your room attendant and assistant as well as dining room staff. Can't imagine a situation where the service from all staff would be so bad that you would want to withold tips.

[PartyAllDaTyme]

I would assume you can't request a refund, or that would defeat the purpose of charging up front. I very much doubt you'll have such terrible service that you'll even consider wanting a refund. If you do have a bad experience, speak with the maitre d', and I'll bet they'll do something to make it right. Remember, you have different waitstaff each night, so if you get one clunker, it's unlikely to repeat.

[maxsales]

That's an interesting question. Wonder if they would insist on you moving to traditional dining if you request to have the gratuities refunded. Also, the pre-paid tips are for your room attendant and assistant as well as dining room staff. Can't imagine a situation where the service from all staff would be so bad that you would want to withold tips.

 

I don't want to with hold tips from anyone. I would just like to be able to control the process a little more.

 

I was just wondering if anyone had tried to have prepaid tips removed. My gut feeling is that they couldn't refuse if you insisted. After all these are "gratuities" which by their very nature are voluntary.

[sandancer]

I was not suggesting that you would withold tips, merely pointing out that it is not only the dining room staff involved in the pre-payment of tips. I know that if you don't pre-pay and the tips are added to your shipboard account you can ask to have them removed. We were told by several of the waiters on the Equinox that they are given a list of all cabins where the tips have been removed. I see what you mean by tips being voluntary but I still think X would be very reluctant to refund the pre-payment. We always choose Select and they insist that it is a condition of booking Select to pre-pay the tips.

[cb at sea]

If you find the service to be less than good, then you should speak to whoever is in charge of that employee, and get it straightened out! Don't suffer in silence! Get it corrected, and tip accordingly!

[Denny01]

I don't want to with hold tips from anyone. I would just like to be able to control the process a little more.

 

I was just wondering if anyone had tried to have prepaid tips removed. My gut feeling is that they couldn't refuse if you insisted. After all these are "gratuities" which by their very nature are voluntary.

 

I realize this is going to get into a back-and-forth of 'I'm not going to withhold tips', but I don't understand what the point is of wanting to know if you can have the prepaid tips removed, but you aren't going to withold tips. What do you mean you want to 'control the process'? You either pay the gratuity or you withold it and don't.

 

You can have the gratuities removed from your OBC when you use traditional dining, but since you are prepaying and paying at Final payment a few months before you get aboard, the Line isn't going to return your payment or give you 'credit' for it.

 

But do explain what you'd plan to do if you could...whats the point if you aren't going to 'stiff the staff'? The only thing I can think of is you want to personally hand them your gratuity. Your dining waitstaff will already know you tipped them, your room steward will know because it comes out in a list for them, and so on. And you can get envelopes from the Front Desk and add tips as you wish.

 

Enjoy the excellent service you will get because you are so generous in providing gratuities to the hardworking staff.

 

 

Den

[Alsmez]

We had Select Dining and there were a couple of nights where our service was less than stellar. However, it was never bad enough that I would have complained, or not tipped in a land-based restaurant - so I certainly wouldn't have done the equivalent on board. It is nice to have a little more control over where your money is going but for me, I look at the suggested gratuity as the bare minimum that everyone deserves for their service, and I tip extra to specific people who provided over-and-above service. Unfortunately, if you turn off the auto-tip, you can't reward those special people - the tips you give them are required to be turned into the general pool.

[maxsales]

If you find the service to be less than good, then you should speak to whoever is in charge of that employee, and get it straightened out! Don't suffer in silence! Get it corrected, and tip accordingly!

 

That's exactly my point! You can't tip accordingly if the tips have been prepaid and cannot be returned.

[Alsmez]

That's exactly my point! You can't tip accordingly if the tips have been prepaid and cannot be returned.

 

Unfortunately, you can't tip accordingly if you DON'T use auto-tip, either. If you have your auto-tips removed, all of the tips you give to individual employees will go into a pool and be distributed as Celebrity sees fit.

[maxsales]

I realize this is going to get into a back-and-forth of 'I'm not going to withhold tips', but I don't understand what the point is of wanting to know if you can have the prepaid tips removed, but you aren't going to withold tips. What do you mean you want to 'control the process'? You either pay the gratuity or you withold it and don't.

 

You can have the gratuities removed from your OBC when you use traditional dining, but since you are prepaying and paying at Final payment a few months before you get aboard, the Line isn't going to return your payment or give you 'credit' for it.

 

But do explain what you'd plan to do if you could...whats the point if you aren't going to 'stiff the staff'? The only thing I can think of is you want to personally hand them your gratuity. Your dining waitstaff will already know you tipped them, your room steward will know because it comes out in a list for them, and so on. And you can get envelopes from the Front Desk and add tips as you wish.

 

Enjoy the excellent service you will get because you are so generous in providing gratuities to the hardworking staff.

 

 

Den

 

Okay so maybe I will restate the point. When you select select dining you are forced to prepay not only dining gratuities but all gratuities.

 

If you were to take this farther and assume the staff knows , which they would, that you have prepaid and can't get them bback it puts you in a position where you have no choice but to tip for inferior service.

 

It just doesn't seem right that you are forced to prepay with no redress except a complaint.

 

I was just curious if anyone had tried to get these prepaid gartuites credited back.

 

I am also curious as to why, when anyone asks a question about gratuities it is assumed they are "cheap" and want to stiff the stafff? My personnal past practice has always been to tip in excess of the recommendation, especially for good service. I plan to continue that practice.

[3418ahl]

I think tipping on board is a very complex system. If you withhold tips for dining, for example, that would impact your waiter, your busboy, and perhaps also staff in the kitchen, just because one may have done a poor job.

 

If you withhold tips for your cabin steward, the poor person who cleans the toilet, who changes the towels, who vacuums the hallways, etc. may not get tipped.

 

Many people behind the scenes who are doing chores for you that you may not be aware of are affected.

[Alsmez]

 

It just doesn't seem right that you are forced to prepay with no redress except a complaint.

 

I was just curious if anyone had tried to get these prepaid gartuites credited back.

 

 

I agree, not being able to get your tips back if the service sucked is a bummer. I actually asked the question of our travel agent out of curiosity when I booked Select Dining, and he said he didn't know - none of his clients had ever requested a refund of their pre-paid tips. He did say that he assumed X would do something in the way of compensation, though, as apparently they are known for trying to keep people happy.

 

However, I understand WHY they (likely) can't give them back, and why they do the whole auto-tipping thing in the first place. In Select Dining, you may never have the same waiter twice. I can't remember the amount per day that goes to the waitstaff, but say for the sake of argument that it's $5 of the $11 that you pay. Maybe half of that would go to your waiter, another dollar to his assistant, $.50 to the bussers, and so on. It would be a difficult task indeed for X to remove $2.50 from one particular waiter, especially if say 25% of the people in select dining had an issue with their particular waiter. Headache extraordinaire. Now, if every single person who benefited from your auto-tip, from your steward down to the person who washes your windows, was undeserving - then I could see making the case for a refund. However, if that happens I think you have much bigger problems than your auto-tip!

[Gonzo70]

Think of the pre-paid gratuities as a service charge that covers the basic, expected service. In the unlikely event you receive poor service, you should immediately speak with a supervisor and the situation in all likelihood would be remedied. It would be an extremely, extremely rare situation that one would receive poor service, and continue to receive poor service after notifying someone in authority. The way you "control" the situation is at the end of the cruise you give a little extra cash to any of the hard working crew that went above and beyond and provided you with stellar service.

[bplazo]

If you select select dining Celebrity requires that you prepay gratuities. So if you find the service once on board less then stellar, or even acceptable, can you request a refund of the gratuities that you have paid?

 

Has any one tried this? Just curious.

 

So, why would you want to remove the tip if the service is acceptable? I do not even know why people give tipping a thought. I always go on a cruise with the expectation that the service will be good and so far I have never been disappointed.

[ORV]

O

 

My personnal past practice has always been to tip in excess of the recommendation, especially for good service. I plan to continue that practice.

 

 

What an amusing thread, it seems from your statement above you have nothing to worry about. All is good, enjoy your cruise.

[Denny01]

....I am also curious as to why, when anyone asks a question about gratuities it is assumed they are "cheap" and want to stiff the stafff? ......

thank you for responding, so I will to your question: No, I personally don't think people who ask questions about gratuities are cheap.... some questions are to understand the system, some people want to be able to 'stiffing the staff' for many reasons: what they think are legit poor service, punish some waitstaff for one error or oversight in service, or not enough groveling. We've all been around people who seem to react at what most of us would think are minor slights, and the autotipping doesn't allow them to react the way they want.

 

I personally consider the gratuity level to be minimal and meets what I'd call acceptable, non-noteworthy service. If i receive better service, which has happened on all my cruises except for one dining experience, then I add to it. Thats how I handle it all.

 

As to cheap: I traveled a lot with a good friend who always tipped barely 10%. Now he was cheap. And I made sure we always had individual checks because I didn't want to make up for his undertipping, but that doesn't make me cheap.

 

My guess is some people are bothered by prepaid gratuities because it is a 'control' thing, a term you used. I understand that, and it isn't being cheap, but it is interesting.

 

Den

[2SeaWithMe]

As per customer service and staff on my last sailing...cash tips that are given after tip removal are not pooled. Never, ever.

[mafig]

Since the OP is a Travel Agent, perhaps he is asking this question so if a client brings it up, he'll have an answer. Is this the case?

[maxsales]

Since the OP is a Travel Agent, perhaps he is asking this question so if a client brings it up, he'll have an answer. Is this the case?

 

Partially. However basic curiosty comes into play as well.

 

It just seems strange that one class of diners, select, is forced to prepay and others are not. If as stated previously all tips are pooled, it should not matter if you prepay or not.

 

Select dining is singled out and there doesn't seem to be a really good reason why. All dining on NCL is of the select nature and they do not require prepaid tips.

 

I also agree that if you tip in cash those tips are never pooled. Further I was told by a bartender that any addirion tip added to a check in excess of the 15% is paid to the individual and not pooled.

[jfe724]

Once again, someone asks a perfectly legitimate question and must suffer the comments from the superior people who apparently feel compelled to question the OP's "real" motivation. I recognize that I will be castigated by those same people for providing my input, but let me give you what I consider to be a very practical and honest reason for asking about the pre-paid tipping rule for those who choose "select" dining with Celebrity. In October, we were "select" diners on the Mercury. Accordingly, we pre-paid all of the gratuities, including the dining staff. On the first night in the MDR, we received quite sub-par service. Just a few specifics, because I know some will ask "How bad could it have been - you're just a complainer..." : We had to wait a long time to receive our initial glass of water. Waited long time for main course, which turned out to be the wrong meal for me. Quality of the food when it did arrive was poor (cold). Waiter never returned. Had to "catch" an employee to get a water refill, etc. Consequently, we never returned to the MDR - and ate all of our remaining meals on this 11-day cruise at the buffet on Lido Deck. We asked customer service if any of our tip money would be provided to the dining staff up on the Lido deck and we were told "No, that is completely separate and they do not receive any of the tip money that we had pre-paid". We didn't "stiff" anyone - didn't even ask for a refund of our tip money. But because of this policy, somebody received 10 days worth of tips for a service they did not provide and we did not receive. I understand that there are many diehard Celebrity devotees who will be unable to believe this and will be compelled to defend their cruiseline.

[mferranti]

Once again, someone asks a perfectly legitimate question and must suffer the comments from the superior people who apparently feel compelled to question the OP's "real" motivation. I recognize that I will be castigated by those same people for providing my input, but let me give you what I consider to be a very practical and honest reason for asking about the pre-paid tipping rule for those who choose "select" dining with Celebrity. In October, we were "select" diners on the Mercury. Accordingly, we pre-paid all of the gratuities, including the dining staff. On the first night in the MDR, we received quite sub-par service. Just a few specifics, because I know some will ask "How bad could it have been - you're just a complainer..." : We had to wait a long time to receive our initial glass of water. Waited long time for main course, which turned out to be the wrong meal for me. Quality of the food when it did arrive was poor (cold). Waiter never returned. Had to "catch" an employee to get a water refill, etc. Consequently, we never returned to the MDR - and ate all of our remaining meals on this 11-day cruise at the buffet on Lido Deck. We asked customer service if any of our tip money would be provided to the dining staff up on the Lido deck and we were told "No, that is completely separate and they do not receive any of the tip money that we had pre-paid". We didn't "stiff" anyone - didn't even ask for a refund of our tip money. But because of this policy, somebody received 10 days worth of tips for a service they did not provide and we did not receive. I understand that there are many diehard Celebrity devotees who will be unable to believe this and will be compelled to defend their cruiseline.

This Celebrity diehard has no trouble believing your story. The evening of sailing day can be very hectic. And a mixed-up or cold order can happen anywhere.

[smtcan]

We have enjoyed Select Dining on three recent cruises. At one dinner we had very poor service and we spoke to the Maitre D' about it. He said that he was glad we had mentioned it, and would make sure that we had better service in future. I don't know what he did, but from then on our service was exemplary. Maybe we were just lucky to be at tables with better wait staff, or maybe he had 'flagged' us, but whatever the reason we were very happy. Don't suffer in silence, or walk away from the MDR. Express your complaint politely and without being judgmental and I'm sure you will get good results.

 

I suspect that the reason Select Diners are asked to prepay gratuities is specifically to prevent them being removed.

 

Sheila

[PS90]

I think tipping on board is a very complex system. If you withhold tips for dining, for example, that would impact your waiter, your busboy, and perhaps also staff in the kitchen, just because one may have done a poor job.

 

If you withhold tips for your cabin steward, the poor person who cleans the toilet, who changes the towels, who vacuums the hallways, etc. may not get tipped.

 

Many people behind the scenes who are doing chores for you that you may not be aware of are affected.

 

That may be very true, but (maybe I'm hard-hearted) ultimately it is Celebrity's fault if they are employing even one inferior crew member. It should not be the "job" of the cruise pax to pay all their tips in full, if they were treated poorly, just because some other crew member may indirectly end up getting stiffed in his portion of the tips.

 

If that happened, especially when many pax are reducing their tips due to one specific crew member - then the other crew members, such as the toilet cleaner you mentioned, should be mad at either the poor crew member, or Celebrity for hiring that person, not at the pax that received poor service.

[maxsales]

Once again, someone asks a perfectly legitimate question and must suffer the comments from the superior people who apparently feel compelled to question the OP's "real" motivation..

 

Thank you This was a straight forward question with no hidden meaning. I was just curious if anyone had ever requested to have their prepaid gratuities credited back to their account, and if so were they successful.

 

On the surface this seems a simple question but then the responses take it in an entirely different direction and it becomes an issue as to why someone is "cheap" and out to stiff the crew.

 

Is it possible that Celebrity knows the level of service in select dining will be less then that provided by fixed dining? If so they are insuring their own (Celebrities) interests by collecting non cancelable tips. Service personal on cruise ships are not paid a wage and their compensation is solely from tips. If the tips drop below a certain level Celebrity will have to make up the shortfall or risk lossing crew.