Gratuities, does the employees actually get them?

[Illbcruzn4life]

46 minutes ago, Two Wheels Only said:

 

Pointing out a grammatical error is against forum rules....unless the error is really funny. 🤫

stop you are going to make me loose my lunch that I had in the dinning room. 🤪

[New2cruise2022]

47 minutes ago, Illbcruzn4life said:

stop you are going to make me loose my lunch that I had in the dinning room. 🤪

I think you meant to say “your going to make …”

[MSUjohn]

On 11/24/2022 at 1:20 AM, MoCruiseFan said:

So the salary of anyone who works anywhere you choose to spend your money is your business?  The answer is no and your premise is invalid.

actually son the answer is... YES it IS my business how and WHY i spend my money....i will not be party to grossly exploitative labor practices (if you are a business that uses third word migrant labor instead of domestic labor i REALLY wont support said business). 

 

i especially love the "and your premise is invalid" pseudointellectual LOLbertarian and handwave. 

[PATRLR]

9 hours ago, RocketMan275 said:

They want the DSC to be covered by the basic fare without an increase in the fare.

I would like to see the DSC included but I've never said nor would I expect the fare to not increase. 

[RocketMan275]

8 hours ago, PATRLR said:

I would like to see the DSC included but I've never said nor would I expect the fare to not increase. 

I think there are many (not you) who believe that the cruise lines should do away with charging passengers a DSC and pay for the DSC from their profits.

[gmbhardy]

On my next cruise I plan on asking some of the officers. Someone should know.

[PTC DAWG]

Y’all are funny.  

[gmbhardy]

8 minutes ago, PTC DAWG said:

Y’all are funny.  

Thanks. I try.

[ChiefMateJRK]

10 hours ago, RocketMan275 said:

I think there are many (not you) who believe that the cruise lines should do away with charging passengers a DSC and pay for the DSC from their profits.

Profits?  Are the cruise lines how profitable?  I must have missed the memo.

[DaggoB]

They will be profitable if If my wife gets to the casino!!!!!

[MikeACY]

It was a friendly conversation between us and the waiter, and my only concern is that the "Service Charge" is being given to the employees.  The waiter could have not answered my question..and I told them they didn't have to and I would respect that, but they chose to freely. IT is ridiculous to state that the service charge supports salaries. Isn't that what the cruise fare supposed to do? If that is what the cruise line is actually doing, then how about another service charge to support the Captains/Crew/Entertainment/maintenance/support personal, etc. After all, we all expect exceptional service from those employees and they should be compensated accordingly? OR isn't it the cruise line that supposed to do that?  Cruise lines have to "get on board" with All inclusive resorts that include EVERYTHING in their pricing, and we additionally tip according to the service we receive. I knew this was a sensitive topic when I started it, but I wanted to make sure the waiters are getting the actual gratuities. Or service charges, and the cruise line isn't taking a "cut" and cheating out of what they deserve. 

[MikeACY]

Here is a question....and this is just a question..

Many on this topic has stated that a crew members..ie Waiters sign a contract with a specific guarantied salary paid monthly, bi-weekly....etc..doesn't matter....but here is my question.

Let's say EVRYONE on board takes away the DSC from their account...which of course will never happen...but let's say it does...

Does the waiters still get their salaries based on the agreed amount in their contract? or is it reduced? 

[chengkp75]

19 minutes ago, MikeACY said:

Here is a question....and this is just a question..

Many on this topic has stated that a crew members..ie Waiters sign a contract with a specific guarantied salary paid monthly, bi-weekly....etc..doesn't matter....but here is my question.

Let's say EVRYONE on board takes away the DSC from their account...which of course will never happen...but let's say it does...

Does the waiters still get their salaries based on the agreed amount in their contract? or is it reduced? 

See my posts #29 and #31.

 

Let's say a waiter signs a contract that says he will get $1200/month, of which $400 is base salary, and $800 is DSC contributions from the passengers.  If everyone onboard removed the DSC, then the waiter's salary would only be his base salary of $400/month, except that the cruise line has to step in and meet the mandated minimum wage of $675/month (so they kick in $275).  So, to answer your question, if everyone removed the DSC, the salary would go from $1200 to $675/month.

[New2cruise2022]

29 minutes ago, chengkp75 said:

See my posts #29 and #31.

 

Let's say a waiter signs a contract that says he will get $1200/month, of which $400 is base salary, and $800 is DSC contributions from the passengers.  If everyone onboard removed the DSC, then the waiter's salary would only be his base salary of $400/month, except that the cruise line has to step in and meet the mandated minimum wage of $675/month (so they kick in $275).  So, to answer your question, if everyone removed the DSC, the salary would go from $1200 to $675/month.

That would require everyone to remove it. Likewise, if most people don’t remove (which I assume most do not) that is $140/passenger on a 7 night assuming $20 per day is the rate. (It is higher for suites and Haven). If there are 4000 passengers, that is just over a half million dollars in collected service charges. If you assume a crew of 1700 that are all under a similar contract, that would be $330/crew member/week. Assuming 4 weeks per month, that is $1,320 per crew member for the month. Does NCL cap the compensation at $1200/month in your example? If capped, that would be a more than $500 excess in DSC per crew member. For 1700 crew, that would be almost $900,000/month in collected DSC not going to crew.
 

That is $900,000 beyond what was needed to bring the crew up to $1200/month. Nearly a million dollars captured from 16,000 passengers over the course of the month beyond the amount those passengers paid in fares. An extra $56 each and every passenger paid that might not go to the pockets of the crew. 

[RocketMan275]

On 11/20/2022 at 12:51 PM, RocketMan275 said:

I suspect that some cruise workers have grown quite adept at spinning sob stories to get more cash.

Periodically, some one will post a story about how some crew member told them they don't get any of the DSC and use that story to justify reducing/eliminating DSC.

[RocketMan275]

4 minutes ago, New2cruise2022 said:

That would require everyone to remove it. Likewise, if most people don’t remove (which I assume most do not) that is 

That is $900,000 beyond what was needed to bring the crew up to $1200/month. Nearly a million dollars captured from 16,000 passengers over the course of the month beyond the amount those passengers paid in fares. An extra $56 each and every passenger paid that might not go to the pockets of the crew. 

You're assuming that the crew is only paid the contractual minimum without any justification to support this assumption.

[RocketMan275]

On 11/20/2022 at 1:29 PM, YVRteacher said:

If you tip in cash, the person gets the tips.  If you add a tip to the paper slip the waiter will NOT get the tips and the money will go to NCL.

Do  you have anything to substantiate that claim?

[chengkp75]

1 hour ago, New2cruise2022 said:

If you assume a crew of 1700 that are all under a similar contract, that would be $330/crew member/week. Assuming 4 weeks per month, that is $1,320 per crew member for the month. Does NCL cap the compensation at $1200/month in your example? If capped, that would be a more than $500 excess in DSC per crew member. For 1700 crew, that would be almost $900,000/month in collected DSC not going to crew.

That is assuming that my figure of $400/month base salary, and my figure of $1200/month contracted salary are correct.  Frankly, I was picking numbers out of the air, for an example of how a crew salary could be affected by removal of DSC.  The base salary could be, and in the past, has been considerably lower.  By SEC rules, a line item marked as "gratuities" cannot be integrated into general revenue, just because the cruise line wants to.  These are considered "pass through" revenue, just like "port taxes and fees", though I see that this is a contentious subject this week as well.

Edited December 10, 2022 by chengkp75

[spanishguy1970]

On 11/20/2022 at 3:55 PM, mianmike said:

 

We've been tipping ever since we've been cruising.  Years ago, after hearing rumors that crew doesn't get to keep tips we asked numerous crew members if they kept the tips and we were assured they personally keep the tips.  A long time ago we stopped asking.  We want to reward exceptional crew members with an additional tip. 

we do too. We leave our steward or favorite waiter an envelope with cash at the end of the cruise. 9 time out of 10 we find a great waiter or waitress and we ask to sit by their section at dinner time, on this last cruise we met a very attentive great waiter. Once upon a time we used to wonder if the staff would get any cut of the daily service charge, we don't anymore. We try to award the ones that give us great service. 

[New2cruise2022]

2 hours ago, RocketMan275 said:

You're assuming that the crew is only paid the contractual minimum without any justification to support this assumption.

It was written as hypothetical on the hypothetical presented earlier. This isn’t an exercise to plot a course to the moon. It is full of assumption and gross representations just to gauge the magnitude of the charges across the sample size. It is not intended to be an accurate representation because we are not privy to the information to move outside of assumptions. 

[New2cruise2022]

1 hour ago, chengkp75 said:

That is assuming that my figure of $400/month base salary, and my figure of $1200/month contracted salary are correct.  Frankly, I was picking numbers out of the air, for an example of how a crew salary could be affected by removal of DSC.  The base salary could be, and in the past, has been considerably lower.  By SEC rules, a line item marked as "gratuities" cannot be integrated into general revenue, just because the cruise line wants to.  These are considered "pass through" revenue, just like "port taxes and fees", though I see that this is a contentious subject this week as well.

I assumed your numbers were not a look into the actual contracts. But the process of crew compensation is something you seem more knowledgeable about than anyone else on CC. My math problem was merely an exercise how the funds accumulated from the DSC are not small change and would extend beyond the hypothetical. That being said, if the DSC could generate $2-3M per month, per ship, it could be a $25M/year capture. If all of that went to crew compensation, a ship with 1700 crew could average $15K in compensation per crew member. 

[RocketMan275]

7 minutes ago, New2cruise2022 said:

It was written as hypothetical on the hypothetical presented earlier. This isn’t an exercise to plot a course to the moon. It is full of assumption and gross representations just to gauge the magnitude of the charges across the sample size. It is not intended to be an accurate representation because we are not privy to the information to move outside of assumptions. 

Does $15K per crewmember seem to be out of line to you?

Edited December 10, 2022 by RocketMan275

[New2cruise2022]

2 minutes ago, RocketMan275 said:

Does $15K per crewmember seem to be out of line to you?

I didn’t comment on $15K either way. I presented it as an average based on volume. We know the capacity of the ships and the crew sizes based on what is published. We know the DSC charges. 
 

Some will pay them. Some will not. Some will continue to cruise with NCL. Some will not. 
 

And people will always come on CC to make assumptions, share assumptions, and explore assumptions. Communicating is a challenge for any company. As is often pointed out on CC, NCL is perceived by many to be deficient when it comes to communicating. This failure is why the DSC remains embroiled in controversy. 

[New2cruise2022]

I think @RocketMan275 likes a good bone to pick on an online forum. Glad I could throw something his way to gnaw on for a few hours. 

[RocketMan275]

4 minutes ago, New2cruise2022 said:

I didn’t comment on $15K either way. I presented it as an average based on volume. We know the capacity of the ships and the crew sizes based on what is published. We know the DSC charges. 
 

Some will pay them. Some will not. Some will continue to cruise with NCL. Some will not. 
 

And people will always come on CC to make assumptions, share assumptions, and explore assumptions. Communicating is a challenge for any company. As is often pointed out on CC, NCL is perceived by many to be deficient when it comes to communicating. This failure is why the DSC remains embroiled in controversy. 

Not so.  Every cruise line in Cruise Critic is facing the same criticisms.  I understand full well that folks are hurting due to the inflation caused price increases.  There's no reason to single out NCL.

2 minutes ago, New2cruise2022 said:

I think @RocketMan275 likes a good bone to pick on an online forum. Glad I could throw something his way to gnaw on for a few hours. 

Didn't work.