Help! Additional Tips for Club Orange Staff

[BunnyLebowski]

I’m onboard the Rotterdam right now, last day is Saturday. How should I go about giving additional tips to the staff in Club Orange? There are at least 4 servers who attend to us plus the hostess and the maitre d’.  Do they each need their own envelope or can I give it to one of them to share? Any advice is greatly appreciated. 
 

Note: we are being charged the daily gratuities, this is in addition to those. 
 

The Rotterdam is a gorgeous ship and we’re on a wonderful itinerary in Norway. Celebrity Elite, first time sailing on HAL won’t be my last. 

[0106]

We were on the Rotterdam in February for 10 days, ate all our breakfasts in CO and dinner there 8 of the 10 nights.  We asked to be seated in the same section with the same waiter every meal.  We received extraordinary service.  I gave additional tips to the waiter $20, his asst. $10, beverage runner $10 and hostess $10.  They all worked as a team; they quickly learned our likes and dislikes;  we were served quickly and could not have had a better time experience.  I did not tip the maitre d because he did nothing to add to our service.

 

Additionally, I sent a message using the Navigator app every evening, highlighting one of the people who worked in CO.  I complimented the person by name and listed the specific things they had done to improve my experience on HAL.  Those comments make a big difference to the crew.  Several of them thank me profusely.

[BobbiSox]

I wish all of the concerned tippers on this board were around when I was working for tips decades ago. It's always interesting to me to find a post where someone is so concerned with tipping the 'proper' amount, over and above the mandatory tips which are already automatically charged. It's so generous of those 'over-tippers' who need help deciding how much to 'over-tip'. 

[BSinPNS]

Totally impressed during our 21-day cruise with the service and professionalism in Club Orange.  We tipped Edgar, his assistant, our waiters (Arif and Bonny) plus the always smiling assistant waiter (Galih) who kept us well supplied with fresh OJ in the morning individually using envelopes provided by guest services. Wrote an individual note to each on the envelope.  Also commented to the Food and Beverage Director and wrote comment on Navigator app.  Edgar has a well oiled professional operation in CO where they all work together.  We are early diners and often heard Edgar talking to the crew before opening about teamwork and other bits and pieces.    

[*Miss G*]

There are far too many individuals in Club Orange who work as a team for me to tip each one separately.  I now give one envelope with a written note and additional gratuities to the Maitre d’ as we leave from our last breakfast.  I am lead to believe that, since they work as a team, they probably also share as a team.  Along the way I also send praises via the “Let Us Know” on the app, as well as on the follow-up survey.

 

 

3 hours ago, BobbiSox said:

I wish all of the concerned tippers on this board were around when I was working for tips decades ago. It's always interesting to me to find a post where someone is so concerned with tipping the 'proper' amount, over and above the mandatory tips which are already automatically charged. It's so generous of those 'over-tippers' who need help deciding how much to 'over-tip'. 

 

The OP never asked anything about monetary amounts.

[Haljo1935]

Hey @law chick glad you're enjoying your cruise!!

You can give them $$ individually or give it to Host or Maitre D' for them to distribute, either is acceptable. 

I've had 1 experience where I purposely did not give it to Maitre D' as he was noticeable "mean" to his staff and we had no interaction w/him outside of observing his unacceptable treatment of the staff and did not want to give him anything above the regular grats. So, we gave directly to our servers that trip.

Edited August 24, 2023 by Haljo1935
Additional comment

[kazu]

47 minutes ago, BSinPNS said:

Totally impressed during our 21-day cruise with the service and professionalism in Club Orange.  We tipped Edgar, his assistant, our waiters (Arif and Bonny) plus the always smiling assistant waiter (Galih) who kept us well supplied with fresh OJ in the morning individually using envelopes provided by guest services. Wrote an individual note to each on the envelope.  Also commented to the Food and Beverage Director and wrote comment on Navigator app.  Edgar has a well oiled professional operation in CO where they all work together.  We are early diners and often heard Edgar talking to the crew before opening about teamwork and other bits and pieces.    

 

I had Edgar & Arif on the Koningsdam.  They were fabulous.

 

It would be fabulous if they were on our Rotterdam cruise 🤞 

 

I think I will ask on board how it works as last time I didn’t have the same waiter every night.  I would have thought tips are similar to the Pinnacle Grill where they are split.

[BSinPNS]

Edgar goes home to Manila in early October and Arif shortly afterwards.  Edgar will be back to R-Dam just before Christmas.  

[Nodakboiler]

We gave individual envelopes to the 2 cooks and then a single envelope with equal amounts for the additional 7 staff, mainly because when I asked the boss how many staff he had he didn't include the cooks and we felt they did a fantastic job.

[kazu]

20 minutes ago, BSinPNS said:

Edgar goes home to Manila in early October and Arif shortly afterwards.  Edgar will be back to R-Dam just before Christmas.  

 

Thanks for the info.  Bummer, sounds like Edgar will be off.    Maybe Arif will be on for our October 7th sailing 🤞 

[nw gardener]

Also highly recommend to leave comments on the Navigator app.  We did after our first day of dining in CO on the Koningsdam in June and the manager  (Dani), thanked us so much for doing that.  Those comments go a long way! We also tipped our servers $20 each at the end of the cruise. 

[sciencewonk]

We gave one large tip to the Maitre 'D (the woman in uniform with the most stripes on her epaulet) and asked her to divide it among the staff who worked so diligently to give us a memorable cruise.

[BunnyLebowski]

Thank you to everyone for your helpful replies! It’s so useful knowing the variety of ways that others handle this sort of thing. I ended up doing one envelope for the entire staff at CO plus an additional envelope for our favorite waiter, the one who spent the most time with us.

 

We had such a good time on the Rotterdam. Our first time on HAL and it was our best cruise in years. Can’t wait to plan another one.