Role of room steward

[Monica887]

In reading all the tipping threads, there's a lot of talk about individuals doing the bare minimum vs going above and beyond. 

 

We really don't ask for much, if anything at all. Extra towels maybe. On occasion ice. Years ago, if I asked for ice on day 1, they would give it to me or ask throughout the week, but not so much anymore. 

 

So when it comes to a room steward, what do you see as bare minimum, and what do you see as above and beyond? 

[MagnoliaBlossom]

Make the bed, replace towels, clean the bathroom, restock coffee supplies.  If it’s a sooty ship and cabin, wipe down the balcony, ice.

 

I tell them up front to skip the towel animals, it takes up cabin space and is a time drain on the poor steward.   In December our steward said he had 24 cabins on that sailing, but some weeks he has more.   These poor guys are so stretched.  We are tidy people so we try not to make anything harder on them than possible.

[debenson0723]

As long as my dishes are removed (I seem to accumulate them), the bed is made and I have fresh towels, I am a happy camper.  I am tidy also and don't need that much service.  Once a day is fine with me and sometimes I don't even need that.  I travel often on business and have gotten used to the 'once every 3 days' of housekeeping that has become typical from many of the big chains.

[gmbhardy]

We will survive on one service a day also but it was nice to return to a refreshed cabin at the end of the day. We will miss that.

[BirdTravels]

2 hours ago, Monica887 said:

In reading all the tipping threads, there's a lot of talk about individuals doing the bare minimum vs going above and beyond. We really don't ask for much, if anything at all. Extra towels maybe. On occasion ice. Years ago, if I asked for ice on day 1, they would give it to me or ask throughout the week, but not so much anymore. So when it comes to a room steward, what do you see as bare minimum, and what do you see as above and beyond? 

I don't quite understand "bare minimum". We tip our room steward for doing a good job... not leaving trash cans full,,, not taking wet towels off the floor and putting them back on the rack. Just like we tip our hotel housekeeper for making up our room, or our local diner waiter for brining us our coffee and toast this morning. Just like we tip the bartender onboard for making us the drink we requests or the bar waiter who brings it over to our table. Yup, it is there job, but we show our gratitude for their service. 

 

For us, an example of above and beyond is a room steward who takes the time to learn our names and greets us any time they see us. In December, our steward say "hi" a half dozen times a day. And one that say "do you need anything else?"... even when the answer is always "no". We always tip our room steward $5-$10 per person in room per day of cruise. Someone who makes an effort goes to the upper end or more of that range. 

[zzdoug]

I tend to give an extra tip to show appreciation if I have made a mess that I would like the steward/housekeeper/attendant to clean up, and especially if our kids are staying in the room with us, which makes the mess that much bigger.

 

With regard to addressing guests by name, I suspect this is a job requirement on certain cruise lines; I have mostly cruised on Carnival in the past and I think I recall that just about every attendant on their ships has called me by my name at nearly every interaction.  That doesn't mean it shouldn't be appreciated, because it is a skill that requires practice.  In any case, I don't feel the need for the S/H/A to learn my name and in fact I get a little weirded out by it when they use it every time they address me over the course of the week. 

 

However I very much appreciate them keeping to themselves my dirty little secrets that they may discover in the course of providing service to me in my private space over the course of a week, and not making fun of me when I am at my Ugly American worst.

Edited February 4, 2023 by zzdoug

[uneamie]

The only thing I am anal about is keeping my ice filled and leaving new coffee filters. That is all I really want, oh and clean towels at least after 3 days. Thing is......the past several cruises we've had, they don't fill the ice bucket when they come in to clean. You have to track them down when you go back to your cabin. I really wish they would let us fill our own ice like we can do in a hotel. I thnk on our May cruise I am going to leave a sticky note on the ice bucket....."please fill". As for tipping. We always leave about $50 on a 7 day cruise sometimes more. 

[GeezerCouple]

8 hours ago, uneamie said:

The only thing I am anal about is keeping my ice filled and leaving new coffee filters. That is all I really want, oh and clean towels at least after 3 days. Thing is......the past several cruises we've had, they don't fill the ice bucket when they come in to clean. You have to track them down when you go back to your cabin. I really wish they would let us fill our own ice like we can do in a hotel. I thnk on our May cruise I am going to leave a sticky note on the ice bucket....."please fill". As for tipping. We always leave about $50 on a 7 day cruise sometimes more. 

 

By all means leave a note with what you would like/appreciate.

That makes their job easier; no guessing whether someone wants the ice bucket filled or someone is really annoyed that the stupid ice bucket keeps being filled... 😉 

 

We give a short letter to the Butler (we usually get suites these days) and the Steward.  We introduce ourselves, signing off with nicknames, as one of us has a somewhat long first name that is often mis-pronounced anyway.

 

For the Butler, it involves comments about our likely use of room service, including how we are almost always flexible in case we request a time that is extra busy, so "just let us know", etc.  Also the kinds of snacks we enjoy, so other snacks don't show up only to be wasted.  Importantly, we emphasize a food allergy one of us has.

 

For the Steward, it's mostly about please leave extra bath linens each day, and also how if the "privacy" sign is on when you come for an afternoon/evening service (which apparently might be relegated to history?), then no need to return later... consider it done for the day.  The last thing we want is them needing to keep checking while they are servicing other rooms or even afterwards.

 

Because the Butler letter is a bit longer, when we hand it to them, we mumble some general greetings and thanks, and suggest that they read it "later, because things are so busy the first day".

Invariably, they return later that day or early the next day, with our letter and a pen, and thank us for writing it out, and then ask a couple of questions.

 

We also keep some post-it notes with us, and we'll leave out a message, such as to the Steward that we don't need anything the rest of the day, or if we DO want ice (we usually do not) or such.

 

We don't know how they remember names (NOT a strong point of ours, alas), and also any requests, especially verbal requests, given how many cabins they each have.

 

GC

[BarnCat1]

I remember always leaving $40-$60 to our room stewards on past cruises except for one, we barely saw him, he barely interacted with us when we did, and he wasn't around the morning of debarkation. We like to personally hand an envelope to them and thank them. We are planning again to do the same, depending on the service.

 

We have one specialty dining which we will leave $10-$15, again depending on the service.

 

If we stay at one bar for a while, we'll tip, if we're just getting a drink and moving on, we don't.

 

I do like an occasional towel animal, but don't need one every day.

 

[ggTexasGal]

1 hour ago, BarnCat1 said:

I remember always leaving $40-$60 to our room stewards on past cruises except for one, we barely saw him, he barely interacted with us when we did, and he wasn't around the morning of debarkation. We like to personally hand an envelope to them and thank them. We are planning again to do the same, depending on the service.

On our most recent cruise (January), we never met our room steward.  We saw him daily, and he was efficient (as far as we could tell), but he was busy all day long!  I would not ask for towel animals under the circumstances we encountered.