Rotten on the Rotterdam? (A question about crew appreciation)

[Fluoroman11]

I disembarked from the Rotterdam this morning. Yesterday, my wife went to guest services to see if an earring she lost had been turned in. The lady next to her came up and asked for a printed copy of her statement, and then requested that the guest services representative remove all of her crew appreciation charges. We were appalled. Is this typical? Do the rest of us end up paying more to cover these miserly types? (Sort of like costs going up at Home Depot because people steal at the self checkout, so you pay whether you are honest or a thief?)

 

I know that there is a very active thread about the declining quality of the cruise experience, but we have had truly excellent service on all of our HAL cruises. I have cruised with HAL for more than 20 years at this point, and that is one area that has not declined. 

 

For the record, we gave that lady a nasty look, though we refrained from saying, "Happy Holidays to you too!" 🙂

[Nickelpenny]

I have heard of people doing it though, as a relatively new cruiser, I don't know if it happens frequently.  I do know that it seems to be more of an American thing - tipping, that is - for instance, in Europe or Asia where it is not commonplace.  I once left a tip in a restaurant in China and they chased me down to give it back to me.  That said, I don't automatically give extra over the daily gratuities to many.  It has to be way beyond the expected for me to give extra.  I know that in itself is controversial but............

[Mary229]

It is sad that people are stingy, what can you do.  Yes, the rest of us bear the brunt of the misers.  🤷‍♀️

[tuolumne couple]

I have also been at the front desk for some innocuous reason and heard people requesting the same thing. I cannot imagine why and would never ever consider removing the crew appreciation. I appreciate all that they do. Did your wife find her earring?

 

[Fluoroman11]

So sweet of you to ask! They didn't find the earring, but it was more sentimental than expensive, so no harm done. She's equally happy with the duty free Scotch, I think.

[skatelady]

I have only been to guest services once on the last day of a cruise and there was a very well dressed woman having them change her crew appreciation to $5.  They asked "$5 per day?" and she said "No, total $5".  I was stunned, she didn't look like money was an issue.  To me it was stealing from the crew.   It was also a HAL cruise and in my opinion their crew is the best in the business.

[Banditswife]

I wish they would just make it part of the cruise fare.  I heard a woman say that they normally reduce their auto gratuity by about 1/2, then tip more than the other 1/2 to crew members personally.  I wonder if this works out the way they think it does.  Do those crew members receiving personal tips get to keep them? or are they required to include them in the tipping pool?

 

If a crew member goes above what we consider normal service, we tip extra.  But I always wonder if they actually get to keep it.

[PACD_JG]

That's why my charity goes to help animals, not humans.

[durangoscots]

10 minutes ago, Banditswife said:

I wish they would just make it part of the cruise fare.  I heard a woman say that they normally reduce their auto gratuity by about 1/2, then tip more than the other 1/2 to crew members personally.  I wonder if this works out the way they think it does.  Do those crew members receiving personal tips get to keep them? or are they required to include them in the tipping pool?

 

If a crew member goes above what we consider normal service, we tip extra.  But I always wonder if they actually get to keep it.

If you have left the crew gratuity in place, they do get to keep what you give the separately. If you removed it... they must turn in to the pool. Don't know what they do for a partial reduction.

 

 

[Banditswife]

10 hours ago, durangoscots said:

If you have left the crew gratuity in place, they do get to keep what you give the separately. If you removed it... they must turn in to the pool. Don't know what they do for a partial reduction.

 

 

Thanks.  we have never reduced our auto gratuity, they work so hard to serve us.  But I wondered about the extras we gave to our cabin stewards who went above & beyond on our last cruise.  We just gave them an extra $10 each & told them it was "extra."  I also wondered if they thought we had taken tips off because we were giving them a measly $10.

On another note,  when I told our cabin steward what a great job they had done, he said "remember the survey."  So I guess they get recognized by comments on survey.  We also recognized them on the "let us know" feature of the navigator- hope this helped to get the recognition they deserve.

Edited December 12, 2022 by Banditswife

[Heartgrove]

It is not every crewmember's fault if you had a bad experience. What about the crewmember running the evaporator producing the water for your shower? What about the crewmember that stacks the little white cloths in ther public? What about the security crewmember that keeps us safe? Some people!

 

On our recent Tranatlantic we had probably two of the best cabin stewards we have ever had on HAL.  Tipped them over and above what we normally do - and it was worth it!  At the same time I was surprised with the MSC cruise that we also went on during the same trip. MSC does not promote separate tipping for crewmembers and in fact discourages it. Is their pay scale higher? We did leave extra for our butler though. Instead MSC has different tipping scales for where you are cruising. In the US, the amount is similar to HAL. But in Europe it is only 10 Euro per day for all cabin categories.

[tuolumne couple]

2 hours ago, Banditswife said:

So I guess they get recognized by comments on survey.  We also recognized them on the "let us know" feature of the navigator- hope this helped to get the recognition they deserve.

I start collecting names when I get on board  in addition to mentioning them in the completed  survey, I will write special notes to the department heads recognizing crew and departments. I know they appreciated it. I always get notes back acknowledging it.. and though I have always done this, honestly, I am so thankful to be back on board I think I go as above and beyond as they do to let them know how much I appreciate it. We took three cruises this year to make up for lost time during covid and have three more booked for the next two years. It feels good to be back to getting pampered and we could not do it without crew, naturally.

[cbr663]

It's great that you had an enjoyable experience on the ship.  It is also quite possible that the passenger removing the tips did not and the removal of the tips was warranted.

[jimmy2x]

44 minutes ago, cbr663 said:

It's great that you had an enjoyable experience on the ship.  It is also quite possible that the passenger removing the tips did not and the removal of the tips was warranted.

If you don’t have a good time on a Holland America cruise, its your own fault. 

[Gail & Marty sailing away]

5 minutes ago, jimmy2x said:

If you don’t have a good time on a Holland America cruise, its your own fault. 

I agree with you.

[Seasick Sailor]

We just embarked Rotterdam yesterday. We've already seen crew members from last year and they all remembered us. 

 

A shame, shame, shame that someone would remove crew appreciation. 

 

These crew members work very hard and deserve the tips they receive. It makes me sad.

 

We love Holland America. We are inches away from 5 star so have been pretty loyal members through out the years. 

[Sir PMP]

Probably a Canadian😀

[DFD1]

While we almost never use the main dining room and do not benefit from the services of the dining room staff, we would never consider adjusting them out of the daily crew appreciation amount.

 

However, I'm not thrilled with the constant increases in the daily amount of the gratuity...if that's what you call it now. I've always suspected it was a move on HAL's part to shift some of the payroll burden to the passengers through the daily gratuity charge, but I may be wrong about that.

 

We really don't care. We just want HAL to survive financially. We always enjoy our time on the ships.

[trixiee]

29 minutes ago, Sir PMP said:

Probably a Canadian😀

Get lost, eh!  😉

[HALcruiser2001]

On 12/11/2022 at 6:43 PM, Nickelpenny said:

I have heard of people doing it though, as a relatively new cruiser, I don't know if it happens frequently.  I do know that it seems to be more of an American thing - tipping, that is - for instance, in Europe or Asia where it is not commonplace.  I once left a tip in a restaurant in China and they chased me down to give it back to me.  That said, I don't automatically give extra over the daily gratuities to many.  It has to be way beyond the expected for me to give extra.  I know that in itself is controversial but............

 

It is common place in Europe and Asia to "round up" and to tip at cheap non-fast food sit down restaraunts.   In 35 years of travel to both, it is what locals do.    Never had anyone chase me down even with locals in party business and tourist travel.  If it's on the credit card, they cannot return it easily.

 

5% is common. 10% is really great.   On business trips where I frequent places it is 10% in EU and Asia....guess what? Always amazing service.

 

It is NOT considered mandatory though.

 

The biggest difference is EU and asia considers service in most restaraunts a profession.   Also tipping etiquette varies by country.

[sfocruiser]

20 hours ago, Sir PMP said:

Probably a Canadian😀

 

Whats the difference between a canoe and a Canadian?  Canoes tip.   (I'm half Canadian so allowed to poke fun) 😉

[Hlitner]

Tips (I strongly dislike the "crew appreciation" term) are always a hotbed issue here on CC.  We are generous tippers and have never removed auto tips (we often tip above and beyond when service is good).  That being said, there are many folks who come from non-tipping or low tipping cultures.  And there are certainly cruisers that will have issues onboard and want to punish everyone within sight.

 

However, my long-time issue is that the mass market cruise industry has created this tipping mess.  When Princess first moved the Sun Princess to Sydney, Australia, they quickly realized that the auto tip model would not work in that country.  So they did the logical thing which was to increase prices and eliminate auto-tips.  On most luxury cruise lines there is no tipping (we have had tips refused by staff on Seabourn) as its included in the price.  And therein lies the very simple solution of doing away with the tipping models and simply including that in the cost of the cruise.   And for those in North America (the only place that has a firm tipping culture) that would disagree I wonder how they would react if all the airlines suddenly increased prices and called it "crew appreciation."  

 

Hank

[highscar]

When the crew appreciation is included in the booking I still add it to my bill.    

[Mary229]

I have always assumed that the tipping model is tax advantaged from one angle or another.  Whether the tax advantage is to the line or to the crew I can’t guess .  I can imagine either scenario 

Edited December 13, 2022 by Mary229

[RuthC]

7 hours ago, Mary229 said:

I have always assumed that the tipping model is tax advantaged from one angle or another.  Whether the tax advantage is to the line or to the crew I can’t guess .  I can imagine either scenario 

It's a tax advantage to the crew. In the countries of at least some of them wages are taxed, but tips are not. 
I have no idea if there are any tax advantages to the company or not.