Gratuities during an Overland?

[DoggyDaddy]

We are thinking of doing a five day overland excursion on an upcoming cruise. Will we be automatically charged the $14.50 gratuity on the days we are off the ship? 

 

DD

[freestyling]

I believe you will still be charged the gratuities. We were when we left the ship for 3 days durning a S.America cruise. We were not on a HAL excursion so I don’t know if that makes a difference. We also had to get prior approval. 

[CATandSQUID]

On a land/sea cruisetour we were not charges gratuities. Were given info on our docs on who tip and how much (suggested).

[sandiego1]

4 hours ago, DoggyDaddy said:

We are thinking of doing a five day overland excursion on an upcoming cruise. Will we be automatically charged the $14.50 gratuity on the days we are off the ship? 

 

DD

Yes, we did 3 overland excursions on the 2019 WC and were charged the ship gratuities while we were off the ship.

[DoggyDaddy]

Can we lower our gratuities by $xxx or by yyy days at The Pursers Office? 

 

DD

[freestyling]

Yes u can

[wyobean]

So, do you get Mariner credit for those days? Just curious...

[catl331]

14 hours ago, CATandSQUID said:

On a land/sea cruisetour we were not charges gratuities.

That's different from leaving the ship for a period while having a room on board that isn't occupied. While you were on land the ship cabin probably was occupied by someone else who was paying the HSC.

Edited July 15, 2019 by catl331

[Tampa Girl]

9 hours ago, wyobean said:

So, do you get Mariner credit for those days? Just curious...

 

Absolutely, if it is an overland trip of your making.  I don't know about these land/sea cruises, however.  The staff cannot rent your cabin and must still see that it is clean.  

[catl331]

26 minutes ago, Tampa Girl said:

I don't know about these land/sea cruises, however.  The staff cannot rent your cabin and must still see that it is clean.

I presumed that CATandSQUID was talking about an AK Cruise-Tour. On those the cabin is generally occupied by someone else while you are on the land part.

Edited July 15, 2019 by catl331

[DoggyDaddy]

Cruise credits will not be an issue as this cruise will give us our four star status. The $6,000 overland, thru HAL, will give us 20 cruise, a nice start for our five star status.

 

DD

[GeorgeCharlie]

A few years ago, on a cruise with HAL, we did a 3-day private overland tour. On our return to the ship I noticed we had been charged for daily gratuities while we were gone. But when querying our room attendant, he mentioned he does not get paid for the days we were away. Guest Services confirmed staff would not be receiving gratuities for days we were not on the ship and they cancelled the charges.

[DoggyDaddy]

T hank you for the info, GeorgeCharlie. We are hoping for a promotion where we will get a "gratuities included" deal, and this all would be a mute point. However in that case, we might give the room attendant some extra as it would not be his fault that we will not be there for the entire cruise. In this vein, what do people give the room attendants as an extra gratuity on a per day basis?

 

DD

 

 

[GeorgeCharlie]

1 hour ago, DoggyDaddy said:

T hank you for the info, GeorgeCharlie. We are hoping for a promotion where we will get a "gratuities included" deal, and this all would be a mute point. However in that case, we might give the room attendant some extra as it would not be his fault that we will not be there for the entire cruise. In this vein, what do people give the room attendants as an extra gratuity on a per day basis?

 

DD

 

 

4

4

 

We usually give the room attendant an extra $100 and the assistant $50 per cruise, rather then a particular per day rate.

 

One time we had an older attendant which we enjoyed several lengthy conversations with. He had been an attendant for over 30 years and he mentioned a few things which surprised us. 

 

Apparently on average, most people do not give extra tips and the ones that do only give a extra $10, or $20 per cruise.

 

Also, on longer multi-segment cruises (including World Cruises) it is not uncommon for people to cancel the normal daily gratuities the ship charges after the first segment. After cancelling, some of them may give the attendants an extra $20/week to share! He said he has had cases where on an 80-day cruise he only received 14 days of regular gratuities from half of the cabins he was responsible for.

 

Also, he had an interesting point regarding gratuities being the main source on income for many of the staff, rather then the company just paying the higher wage to begin with. Apparently, the staff do much better in net income with gratuities, as most of the countries the staff come from do not tax gratuities and have very high taxes on foreign earnings. 

 

Edited July 17, 2019 by GeorgeCharlie