Do room stewards know that you prepaid gratiuties?

[HBE4]

I just realize that the last hockey game I went to, I only tipped the person(s) serving me food & drinks! It never occurred to me to tip the person that scans my ticket, the usher that pointed me in the direction of my seat,  the security guard keeping unruly fans in check, the players, coaches and trainers and all the other little, behind the scenes people - like the guy that mops the locker room - that make the game so enjoyable. 

 

Am I a bad person?

 

🤣🤣🤣 - mandatory laughing faces to show I'm joking. Or am I? 😄

Edited August 23, 2022 by HBE4

[HBE4]

In all seriousness though, in all the cruises I've taken, I never once concerned myself with how others spend their own money that they presumably work hard for. I don't like when people tell me how I should spend my money so I won't do that to others as well.

 

So feel free to over-tip, under-tip,  not tip, pre-pay, whatever. Much like shorts in the MDR on formal night, it will not affect my cruise experience. 🙂

[Ocean Boy]

1 hour ago, S.A.M.J.R. said:

So ask yourselves this... what difference does it matter whether your room attendant (or waiters) know if you've removed auto tips?  

 

If your answer to that is "none", why not just tell your attendant/waiter face to face you've removed the auto tips? 

Maybe an unforseen consequence of making "tipping" such an impersonal experience. It is no longer a face to face encounter.

[kirtihk]

3 hours ago, Scotico said:

They can do it all in one trip, but IMO they are horrible people for doing so.

They should tell their room attendant that they don't want any room cleaning, no fresh towels or bed linens all week.

They should also bring their own food and eat in their room.  No buffet, no dining room.

Yea right. They will be doing everything and nothing will stop them from  dining in the dining room or having their room cleaned. I warned them that this is how things are done with sailing out of the US.

This reminds me of a our relatives from Germany visit: they were charged 20% tip on their entire bill including the $250 bottle of wine.  They refused to pay  extra $50 (20% of $250) for something that had nothing to do with a service except a couple minutes of opening the bottle and pouring wine.  Besides, 20% on the rest of the very expensive bill was also shock to them!  No one in Germany expects to pay any extra amount anywhere for any service.

[CanHardlyWait4NextYear]

48 minutes ago, HBE4 said:

In all seriousness though, in all the cruises I've taken, I never once concerned myself with how others spend their own money that they presumably work hard for. I don't like when people tell me how I should spend my money so I won't do that to others as well.

 

So feel free to over-tip, under-tip,  not tip, pre-pay, whatever. Much like shorts in the MDR on formal night, it will not affect my cruise experience. 🙂

Exactly. Do your own thing. Try and treat people right, but in your own way. I'm doing my own thing. What you do or have on doesn't matter to me. AT ALL. Lol.

Edited August 23, 2022 by CanHardlyWait4NextYear
Typo

[Scotico]

Just got email from RCCL that daily gratuity went from 14.50 to $16.00 PP Per day and suite guests went from $17.50 to 18.50. 

[Ocean Boy]

5 minutes ago, Scotico said:

Just got email from RCCL that daily gratuity went from 14.50 to $16.00 PP Per day and suite guests went from $17.50 to 18.50. 

And just a couple weeks ago RCI was saying there was no increase even as it was showing up on reservations. Someone in IT apparently just flipped a switch two weeks too soon.

[Ret MP]

On 8/18/2022 at 11:54 PM, Vibe said:

Hope that you don't get the "urban dictionary: Jamaican Toothbrush"

Oh man, that stinks!

[whyrlygig]

Gratuities are part of the cruise culture and everyone knows it.  One doesn't have to like the way it works but taking it out on the hard working staff just makes you a really awful person.  

[Spif Barwunkel]

5 hours ago, kirtihk said:

This reminds me of a our relatives from Germany visit: they were charged 20% tip on their entire bill including the $250 bottle of wine.  They refused to pay  extra $50 (20% of $250) for something that had nothing to do with a service except a couple minutes of opening the bottle and pouring wine.  Besides, 20% on the rest of the very expensive bill was also shock to them!  No one in Germany expects to pay any extra amount anywhere for any service.

Interesting. Your relatives must be an exception. By culture, Germans are the best tippers in the world followed by Americans, quite a few percentage points behind. You always cover for them, I'm sure.

Edited August 23, 2022 by Spif Barwunkel

[Seville2Cabo]

9 hours ago, Scotico said:

So I have family coming here from S. America who are not accustomed  to leaving tips (if they did it's a few dollars for the waiter and that's it).  It is frowned upon where they are from.  It is 4 of them and they are looking at shelling out $500 in tips.  I informed them of this.  They let me know that they will only give what they think they deserve and that's it (Will be a lot less that $500).  Can they just remove all automatic gratuities at the beginning of the cruise or must they go every day to remove the daily gratuities?

I've had South America as a sale territory and traveled there on vacation.  Tipping is the norm, but not to the "US" level.  So they should be used to tipping.  

[Morecruisesplz]

20 hours ago, ReneeFLL said:

Your attendant friend can say what they want to, but I don’t believe it for 1 minute. Ok, Royal knows who removes gratuities and who doesn’t because it’s all computerized. Does Royal pass this on to the attendants? I don’t think so unless there’s a problem. Why would they? Makes sense to ask the passengers first to see why they are being removed. If the passenger says there’s a problem then I can see why a supervisor would talk to an attendant and say the gratuities are being removed because of it.
If there isn’t a problem why would GS even bother telling the attendant? Makes no sense because there is nothing for the attendant to try to fix. As Judge Judy would say, “If it doesn’t make sense then it probably isn’t true.” That’s my opinion which to me sounds more logical. 
 

Then what happens when you remove tips but tip cash? Does the cabin steward still act upset or do they admit to mgmt that they received an envelope full of cash? And, does RCL follow up with guests who remove tips to see why or do they just go on disparaging and passing out the names of those guests who remove tips?

[Morecruisesplz]

12 hours ago, brillohead said:

They can do it all in one trip, but IMO they are horrible people for doing so.

They should tell their room attendant that they don't want any room cleaning, no fresh towels or bed linens all week.

They should also bring their own food and eat in their room.  No buffet, no dining room.

Wow!

[trajan]

7 hours ago, Scotico said:

Just got email from RCCL that daily gratuity went from 14.50 to $16.00 PP Per day and suite guests went from $17.50 to 18.50. 

Interesting but I never go by the recommended amount. Have had cruises where I tipped way more than that, one cruise where I tipped nothing. Each case it was based on the quality of service I received and that’s how tipping is supposed to work. 

[Morecruisesplz]

10 hours ago, S.A.M.J.R. said:

So ask yourselves this... what difference does it matter whether your room attendant (or waiters) know if you've removed auto tips?  

 

If your answer to that is "none", why not just tell your attendant/waiter face to face you've removed the auto tips? 

Do you do so in a restaurant if you receive poor service? I think not.

[bmc alabama]

What do you think of the Virgin Voyages way of handling it?  No tipping at all.  They include everything up front in the cruise fare.  No 18% on drinks either, it’s included in drink prices.

[crazyank]

7 hours ago, Spif Barwunkel said:

Interesting. Your relatives must be an exception. By culture, Germans are the best tippers in the world followed by Americans, quite a few percentage points behind. You always cover for them, I'm sure.

Simply not true.  Germans are definitely not the best tippers in the world.

[DirtyDawg]

1 hour ago, crazyank said:

Simply not true.  Germans are definitely not the best tippers in the world.

There was a survey done in around 2013 that found that 69% of Germans surveyed said they always tipped while on vacation, compared with 57 percent of Americans (other countries surveyed ranked lower). Germans were the highest out of the countries surveyed. Many media reporting this concluded therefore that Germans were the best tippers in the world. That would only be true, if for example, the Germans and the Americans both tipped the same amount. But of course there would be a big difference in the interpretation of this data if the 69% of Germans only tipped 10% vs. the 57% of Americans if they tipped 20%. The expected tip from the Americans would be far greater than from the Germans.  But it looks like that question wasn't asked or analysed.

 

Of course, the Germans, whose country ranks better in teaching math vs. America might have figured out that all they had to do to claim they were the best tippers was to address only one side of the equation. Heck, those American media outlets will buy it because they're clueless about probabilities and expected values. 😉 

[soapbxking]

On 8/18/2022 at 8:42 PM, Vibe said:

The cabin stewards work very hard and deserve the gratuities. Please don't remove them. 

sad thing (my opinion only), is that they all get equal grats.  It truly is the only way ot do it I know, but some are so much better than others.  So yes, we leave extra for them 🙂

[ReneeFLL]

On 8/23/2022 at 9:04 AM, rudeney said:

… Specifically, I am talking about the rumor that cash tips have to be pooled when received from guests who removed gratuities.  If that is true, then the crew has to know if gratuities have been removed or not so they know to keep cash tips or to hand them over.  Now, I'm not saying that is a fact, but it's been tossed into tipping threads here for years, so there it is! 

There were a lot of threads about this about 5 years ago. Normally I would never ask, but my curiosity got the best of me after reading so many of them. I asked my cabin attendant when I handed her the envelope if it had to be pooled or if she got to keep it herself. She said it was all hers so I was happy about that. I don’t know about if guest remove the gratuities if it has to be pooled. I don’t remove them and that I didn’t ask her. 

 

10 hours ago, fredmdcruisers said:

Then what happens when you remove tips but tip cash? Does the cabin steward still act upset or do they admit to mgmt that they received an envelope full of cash? And, does RCL follow up with guests who remove tips to see why or do they just go on disparaging and passing out the names of those guests who remove tips?

I don’t know since I don’t remove them.

[S.A.M.J.R.]

9 hours ago, fredmdcruisers said:

Do you do so in a restaurant if you receive poor service? I think not.

So you wait until the last day (or near the last day) to remove auto gratuities?  

 

I might have had ONE time in my life where a restaurant didn't do enough to at least get the basic tip.  If you're getting bad enough service to justify not tipping on more than one cruise, you either have REALLY bad luck or your standards are too high for the cruise line you chose. 

[Spif Barwunkel]

5 hours ago, DirtyDawg said:

There was a survey done in around 2013 that found that 69% of Germans surveyed said they always tipped while on vacation, compared with 57 percent of Americans (other countries surveyed ranked lower). Germans were the highest out of the countries surveyed. Many media reporting this concluded therefore that Germans were the best tippers in the world. That would only be true, if for example, the Germans and the Americans both tipped the same amount. But of course there would be a big difference in the interpretation of this data if the 69% of Germans only tipped 10% vs. the 57% of Americans if they tipped 20%. The expected tip from the Americans would be far greater than from the Germans.  But it looks like that question wasn't asked or analysed.

 

Of course, the Germans, whose country ranks better in teaching math vs. America might have figured out that all they had to do to claim they were the best tippers was to address only one side of the equation. Heck, those American media outlets will buy it because they're clueless about probabilities and expected values. 😉 

As Richard Dawson used to say, "Survey Says." Except for that place at that time, the survey results serve no purpose. Kind of like tipping threads, today.

[DirtyDawg]

20 minutes ago, Spif Barwunkel said:

As Richard Dawson used to say, "Survey Says." Except for that place at that time, the survey results serve no purpose. Kind of like tipping threads, today.

The sponsoring firms, usually a travel company or credit card company get cheap publicity when their name is mentioned in the articles but that's really about it. 

[BecciBoo]

daily gratuity went from 14.50 to $16.00 PP Per day and suite guests went from $17.50 to 18.50. 

 

We got the email about rising Grats so we called and added the Grats onto all our invoices...so all of them got the old grat rate not the new one.  So if you have cruises booked without the grats included,  you can add paid grats now and get the lower amount on your future cruise.  This included one we have in 2023 too! Just as long as you add them on before Sept. 7th.

[ALKID]

22 hours ago, rudeney said:

 

You may need to help them understand that different countries have different customs.  Visitors are expected to follow the customs of the country they are in; the country is not expected to bend to the visitor's customs.  RCCL is a USA-based company and thus follows the customs of the USA, including the expectation to tip the crew.  

The company is not ncorporated in the US.  The ships are not flagged in the US.  Most employees are not from the US.  Why would one think it is necessary to follow US customs.  Seems like just the opposite.