Tipping the Maitre D

[Beejay4016]

IMO, yes. No need to bribe your room steward. You will get wonderful service and I don't see how any steward would not take it to mean that you think he won't do his job properly and professionally without being handed money first.

 

Thanks for that, Peaches; it makes sense to me. Australians are not people who are heavily into tipping to begin with, preferring only to tip if we feel that we've been given particularly good service, and so I'm glad you've cleared this up for me as it was something I didn't feel particularly comfortable with.

 

Cheers .. Bev

[serendipity1499]

I did read on one of the threads that you should tip your room steward $40 or so on day one as a way of ensuring (bribing?) really great attention during the cruise. I guess the original poster had come across a similar suggestion somewhere. Do these "No, no, don't do that" comments also cover the room steward? :confused:

 

I also disagree with that..We've been on more than 20 cruises & have never "bribed" err "tipped" in advance.. HAL crew wants you to enjoy your cruise & will do everything in their power to make you want to cruise on HAL again..

HAL charges a Service Charge, but on most ships we've had such wonderful service, that we normally will leave a little extra for those who have made our cruise so special..We enclose the extra in an envelope with a Thank you note & personally give it to each Steward & also Thank them in person on the last night of the cruise..Only in Speciality Restaurants do we leave an extra tip at the end of our meal each time..

The very important thing to do is to name the people on your comment card if you feel they have done a wonderful job of making your cruise extra special..

Cheers....:)Betty

[We_like_to_cruise]

We like to sit at a large table at fixed dining so we can meet a lot of new people, get to know them and share our daily experiences.

 

Of course that means the luck of the draw, and, well quite frankly, sometimes we are not that lucky :( Sitting as the "outsiders" with a large foreign family that would not converse with us was disappointing. Another time we were seated at a table for two, which we know is sought after, but was not for us.

 

So, on our last Princess cruise we made our way to the MDR on embarkation day to meet with the dining room manager. I thought a tip might be tacky, but did present him with a nice bottle of wine from one of our award winning Long Island vineyards. It seemed to be much appreciated by the gentleman. He asked us to see him the next evening just before dinner started.

 

Then, he personnally escorted us around the dining room and from a distance told us about the ages and relationships of the people at tables where there was room for another couple. We were able to select our own table, and at least if we didn't like it, we had "made our own bed" so to speak :D

 

Of course, everything worked out great, and we are still friendly with most of the great people who shared dinner with us!

 

Since I was on a low sodium diet, the manager also came to the table each evening to show me the menu for the following day. Once, he even ran after me in the lobby when we missed each other.

 

Of course, we gave him a tip afterwards, as we felt his services were well appreciated.

 

(On the other hand we have been on cruises where the only time you see the maitre d' / dining room manager is on the last evening when the tip envelopes come out for the dining room staff. That is completely different IMO)

[dakrewser]

If there's a problem with your tablemates (and you never know if there is until you actually sit down with them), then the DRM is- almost always - quite ready to move you to somewhere more to your taste. This has happened for us on HAL, Princess, Celebrity and more. No need to bribe the man to get a "better table" (as if this was a Vegas hot spot).

[Cruising-along]

 

(On the other hand we have been on cruises where the only time you see the maitre d' / dining room manager is on the last evening when the tip envelopes come out for the dining room staff. That is completely different IMO)

 

And this has been our experience every cruise. There's just something distasteful to me about that. We've never needed extra help from the dining room manager, but if we did, we wouldn't tip him up front, just as we don't tip anyone else before services are rendered.

 

On the other hand, I can't think of any cruise when we did not tip extra to our dining and cabin stewards at the end of the cruise. :)