specialty dining package - (prepaid) gratuities

[StevenMar]

Hello, I'm planning to take the specialty dining package on my upcoming cruise. I have a few questions related to this...

1/ are gratuities included in the cover charge of the package and if not how much would be an appropriate tip? I remember getting a "$0" bill on my past cruises in the specialty restaurants

2/ in case I have the prepaid gratuities perk included in my booking, how does this match with the dining package?

 

Thanks for clarifying this!

[Miaminice]

Yes, the service charge is included in the cover charge.

 

The gratuities cover the crew, room attendant etc. but not the service charge on extras like specialty dining, drinks etc.

 

[jelayne]

Lately we have not been receiving a  $0 bill in the specialty restaurants.  Since service is normally excellent we will give the waiter and sommelier a cash tip.

[WAMarathoner]

We generally tip as we would in any restaurant, and we have the unlimited package for the next cruise... which is why we'll be taking off the $14.50 pp per day auto-gratuity.  Won't be using the dining room or buffet and prefer to tip our room steward directly (gift cards so they don't have to be turned in.)  In our experience, it is the better waiters who get the specialty restaurants.

 

Now wondering about the wisdom of the Ultimate Package, though.  Been on hold an ungodly amount of time trying to ask about it, but the website would appear that only two restaurants are now included -- one of which dh doesn't like.  Sort of wishing I had not bothered to do RCCL this time and remained with Princess.

[Alakegirl]

Are you sailing on Royal Caribbean?  This is the celebrity Board

[Guindalf]

3 hours ago, WAMarathoner said:

We generally tip as we would in any restaurant, and we have the unlimited package for the next cruise... which is why we'll be taking off the $14.50 pp per day auto-gratuity.  Won't be using the dining room or buffet and prefer to tip our room steward directly (gift cards so they don't have to be turned in.)  In our experience, it is the better waiters who get the specialty restaurants.

 

Now wondering about the wisdom of the Ultimate Package, though.  Been on hold an ungodly amount of time trying to ask about it, but the website would appear that only two restaurants are now included -- one of which dh doesn't like.  Sort of wishing I had not bothered to do RCCL this time and remained with Princess.

So all the people who work behind the scenes for you doing laundry, etc. get stiffed, right?

 

Nice. 

[StevenMar]

Thanks, I will keep the prepaid gratuities as one of the perks!

[WAMarathoner]

On 5/29/2020 at 4:25 PM, Guindalf said:

So all the people who work behind the scenes for you doing laundry, etc. get stiffed, right?

 

Nice. 

This has been beaten to death elsewhere (many times).  If those people were working for tips only, you would have a point.

Thanks for playing.

[Alakegirl]

They work for their salary and their portion of the tip pool, so if you remove the tips, you are stiffing them

[Guindalf]

8 hours ago, WAMarathoner said:

This has been beaten to death elsewhere (many times).  If those people were working for tips only, you would have a point.

Thanks for playing.

 

Gratuities make up part of their pay. Removing them stiffs the people who work hard for you.

 

And yes, it's been beaten to death elsewhere and will continue to be as long as there are ignorant people around.

 

Thanks for playing back atcha.

[Miaminice]

14 hours ago, WAMarathoner said:

This has been beaten to death elsewhere (many times).  If those people were working for tips only, you would have a point.

Thanks for playing.

And yet, as long as saving the daily grats is still important to some people, they will not listen to the true facts and explanations of what happens behind the scenes when they cut the auto gratuities. And why would they? After all, beaten to death or not,  it just comes down to pure greed. Congratulations for fighting the system 🙄

[cruisestitch]

WAMarathoner, I am curious how you “tip as we would in any restaurant”.

 

Normally, tips are determined as a percentage of the bill. How do you determine the cost of each meal?

 

Do you put a few dollars under your plate after each meal? Do you tip both the waiter and the assistant waiter?

 

If you won’t be using the dining room or buffet, where do you eat breakfast and lunch?
 

 

[terrydtx]

59 minutes ago, cruisestitch said:

WAMarathoner, I am curious how you “tip as we would in any restaurant”.

 

Normally, tips are determined as a percentage of the bill. How do you determine the cost of each meal?

 

Do you put a few dollars under your plate after each meal? Do you tip both the waiter and the assistant waiter?

 

If you won’t be using the dining room or buffet, where do you eat breakfast and lunch?
 

 

Thank you for this great response to yet another cheap skate who obviously hates auto gratuities on a cruise. Since he thinks he is in the RCCL forum he is just anther anti tipping troll!

Edited June 1, 2020 by terrydtx

[Cruise a holic]

If service is really excellent- we typical leave an extra tip in cash just for the waiter.

[Alakegirl]

Not the assistant waiter?  Not the headwaiter?  Do you slip it into your palm and shake hands? Do you do this daily or At the end of the cruise?

[cruisestitch]

To anyone who removes the auto tips I have a couple of questions. Do you apologize to your room steward and dining rooms staff for the demeritS which are placed in their recordS because of your actions? Do you speak to their supervisors to explain that they did nothing wrong, you just didn’t want to give them the autotips?  
 

To those who bring gift cards instead of the auto tip , have you ever been in a situation where you had a different steward partway through your cruise? Do you bring extra cards? In different denominations? How do you handle this if you have had two different stewards?
 

 

[Pinboy]

On 5/29/2020 at 3:58 PM, WAMarathoner said:

Won't be using the dining room or buffet and prefer to tip our room steward directly (gift cards )

 

How can you be on a cruise and not use the buffet or dining room ?  No breakfast, no lunch , no afternoon snack, no late night " peek " at the deserts ?   Nice try .

The Cruise lines had to add the Prepaid Gratuities as a perk or prepay when booking is because people with your " thinking " were stiffing the Staff.  

You might not be aware , and probably won't care --- When someone removes the Prepaid Gratuities during the cruise, their Room Steward, Waiter, Asst Waiter, are notified , yet they still must do their job for fear of you complaining.

Don't you think they would prefer cash instead of a gift card as a tip ?  

How would you like to serve people like yourself ????

Edited June 2, 2020 by Pinboy
Forgot a point

[HappyCamper49]

On 5/29/2020 at 7:25 PM, Guindalf said:

So all the people who work behind the scenes for you doing laundry, etc. get stiffed, right?

 

Nice. 

We like to tip our cabin steward on the last full day of our cruise.  We do likewise for our head server and asst. server in the MDR. I ordered a package of "Thank You" cards for cruise ship employees and put cash inside the card with a note of appreciation and slip into the envelope.  We have always chosen Celebrity's pre-paid gratuities as one of our perks, but feel that is not enough for those hard workers.

[jg51]

On 5/29/2020 at 3:58 PM, WAMarathoner said:

...  Sort of wishing I had not bothered to do RCCL this time and remained with Princess.

 

On 5/29/2020 at 4:23 PM, Alakegirl said:

Are you sailing on Royal Caribbean?  This is the celebrity Board

 

12 hours ago, terrydtx said:

... Since he thinks he is in the RCCL forum he is just anther anti tipping troll!

 

Actually, Alakegirl and terrydtx, I believe that WAMarathoner is  sailing on a Celebrity ship.  It was acceptable for WAMarathoner to refer to "RCCL," without having to mention "Celebrity."   How can this be true?  Like many people whom we have met, you apparently do not realize that the "umbrella corporation" (the "holding company") that owns Celebrity, Azamara, and Royal Caribbean International -- plus 2/3 of Silversea, and lesser shares of a few other lines -- is indeed "RCCL" (which stands for Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd.).  In other words, the  abbreviation for the specific cruise line that everyone calls, "Royal Caribbean," is "RCI," not "RCCL."

 

Regarding the withdrawal of automatic gratuities, there are valid arguments from both sides.  Those who are against withdrawal are insisting that a guest who dines only in specialty restaurants must tip MDR personnel who never serve them.  On the other hand, those who are in favor of withdrawal (in that situation) are not (automatically) tipping others who do serve them.  We have been in this situation twice, so we understand the dilemma well. 

 

The whole problem is caused by inflexibility on the part of Celebrity.  The cruise line will remove 100% of the auto-gratuities without any problem, but is unwilling (or technically unable) to remove 50% or 75% [or a specified dollar amount].  In other words, after auto-grats have been removed, a guest cannot tell Guest Relations, "Now please add in the following lump sum as a gratuity (to be shared by everyone except the crew in the MDR: $nnn.nn."  We tried to do this on two different ships, but the request was rejected as impossible. 

 

For this reason, we think that it is OK for a guest that dines in specialty restaurants every night to withdraw auto-grats, as long as he/she tips the stateroom steward fairly (and tells the steward's supervisor why auto-grats were withdrawn).  In case the guest does not know how much to give, the steward or his/her supervisor will explain the proper amount.  (We know this from personal experience, having been, on many different "X" ships, at sea for almost a year out of the last twelve years.)  It is true that other crew members who served the guest may be going without a tip that they deserved ... but that is more the fault of Celebrity than of the guest.

 

[If anyone who unfairly criticized WAMarathoner (for either reason ["RCCL" or tips]) will now choose to criticize us, they should be aware that their comments will be a waste of their time, as we will not be stopping back to read them.]

[cruisestitch]

Questions:  How can you dine only in specialty restaurants? Do you not eat breakfast and lunch?  (Just in case you do come back, jg51)

Edited June 2, 2020 by cruisestitch

[Miaminice]

9 hours ago, jg51 said:

In other words, after auto-grats have been removed, a guest cannot tell Guest Relations, "Now please add in the following lump sum as a gratuity (to be shared by everyone except the crew in the MDR: $nnn.nn."  We tried to do this on two different ships, but the request was rejected as impossible. 

 

I beg to differ... 
On our last cruise on Edge I noticed that no auto-grats were charged. I had not prepaid them and I hadn´t opted to remove them.

So I went to guest relations asked and made sure they know that I am willing and asking to pay the tips. 
Well, it turns out it had to do with a change in their system. I had booked in Germany and by German law, auto-grats are prohibited. Nothing new, but now they had decided not to charge them any more. Anyway I wanted to pay the grats! So they gave me a form, entered the complete sum, I signed... as easy as that. 

 

There´s also a form where you can specify which department should get the tip etc. 
I used that one when we "donated" unused OBC to the staff.

Edited June 2, 2020 by Miaminice

[Pinboy]

9 hours ago, jg51 said:

(and tells the steward's supervisor why auto-grats were withdrawn).  In case the guest does not know how much to give, the steward or his/her will explain the proper amount.

Excellent-- so, you tell the Supervisor " I will tip the Room Steward " , but,  "I'm not be tipping you " . 

Such a nice thing to do.

 

9 hours ago, jg51 said:

their comments will be a waste of their time,

Not much going on anyway, but, makes me feel better . 

Anyone, like you , that can afford to spend the money to stay in a suite , eat ONLY in Specialty restaurants , which is impossible , and " justify ??? " to themselves to stiff Staff that are there to serve them , but are not in direct contact with, are not welcome at my table.  

 

 

[WAMarathoner]

16 hours ago, Pinboy said:

How can you be on a cruise and not use the buffet or dining room ?  No breakfast, no lunch , no afternoon snack, no late night " peek " at the deserts ?   Nice try .

The Cruise lines had to add the Prepaid Gratuities as a perk or prepay when booking is because people with your " thinking " were stiffing the Staff.  

You might not be aware , and probably won't care --- When someone removes the Prepaid Gratuities during the cruise, their Room Steward, Waiter, Asst Waiter, are notified , yet they still must do their job for fear of you complaining.

Don't you think they would prefer cash instead of a gift card as a tip ?  

How would you like to serve people like yourself ????

We have the Unlimited Dining Package for our next cruise and will only be eating in specialty restaurants, so no MDR.  We're not breakfast eaters.  Don't use the buffet anyway because too many trashy people scratch their butts and then serve themselves.  We tip well in the specialty restaurants just as we would here.  We make sure our steward is well taken care of.  Visa gift cards are better than cash because we've been told the gift cards don't go into the tip pool so he gets the full amount.

 

I would LOVE to be serving people like us - we don't require much and we well reward good service.

[WAMarathoner]

On 6/1/2020 at 5:44 AM, cruisestitch said:

WAMarathoner, I am curious how you “tip as we would in any restaurant”.

 

Normally, tips are determined as a percentage of the bill. How do you determine the cost of each meal?

 

Do you put a few dollars under your plate after each meal? Do you tip both the waiter and the assistant waiter?

 

If you won’t be using the dining room or buffet, where do you eat breakfast and lunch?
 

 

Usually $20 per meal.

 

And, yes, I forgot that this was not the RCCL board when I posted that.  Our next cruise we're doing Unlimited specialty restaurants, so it's different.

[PTC DAWG]

So you only eat one meal a day on many days?