Do You Tip For Kids???

[casanova]

Do you tip the same for kids ages 3 and 5 as you do for adults?

[YOW]

Nah I tip more. The way I figure, if the kid's only 3 or 5 and is already working on a cruise ship, he probably needs that money pretty badly. ;)

[LARGIN]

the tip should be the same...

[ell52]

Yes - the reason being that your cabin steward still has to make up the room for 4 - whether occupied by adults or children. The same reasoning applies to the dining room. Some might argue that children eat less, but the service to them would still be the same - and in our experience, the dining room staff often bend over backwards to accomodate little ones.

 

ell :)

[ell52]

Any suggestions on tipping the folks who work the kid's program?

This is totally discretionary and determined the same way you would for, say, the Maitre d'. ie. How good was the service; did the kids have a good/great time; how often did they go to the program?

[LARGIN]

This is totally discretionary and determined the same way you would for, say, the Maitre d'. ie. How good was the service; did the kids have a good/great time; how often did they go to the program?

Not discretionary.. Per the Princess Website..

 

TIPPING

During your cruise, you will meet many members of our dining and accommodations staff in a variety of locations as they provide you with extraordinary service for all your dining and stateroom needs. Princess makes it easier for you to reward excellent service onboard all Princess vessels.

 

A gratuity of $10 per passenger per day (including children) for dining and stateroom personnel is automatically added to your shipboard account on a daily basis. Princess feels certain you will find the services onboard exemplary and, should you wish to make any adjustments, you may do so by contacting the Purser’s desk onboard. Note: A 15% gratuity is automatically added to your bar charges and dining room wine account.

[ell52]

Largin, I was talking about the children's program - i.e. tipping the kid's program staff is discretionary. (I was referring to the quote above my response.)

 

I thought I was quite clear in my previous post that the OP should tip for the children. :confused:

 

ell

[lesleyfb]

When I was on the Dawn Princess recently passengers with children went to the pursers desk and reduced the gratuities for their children by half. No problem.

[ToplessPony]

Tipping IS still discretionary. You just go to the pursers office and ask them to adjust the amount if you feel you need to. Princess does not force you to tip! That said the first time we took our kids on Princess 2 years ago we did not think it would be worth the full tip for both of them and planed to half it. We looked at a few other lines and at the time many of them only suggested half tips for the kids. Just a quick note on our thinking. Yes there is 2 more beds to make up but the room itself is the same size and we pick up constantly behind the kids. The bathroom was no more dirty the floor was always picked up etc and when it came to food they ate in the buffet or the kids club for almost all their meals. Well that was our thoughts BEFORE our cruise. Things changed quickly once on board. WOW were those kids spoiled! Every staff member we ran into doted over them like they were their own kids. Made the kids feel very special. We ended up leaving on the regular tip and tipped above to a couple people. Also we filled out 3 or 4 of the comment forms commending a couple of the buffet staff and bar tenders for the exceptional way they treated the kids.

 

This is just the general staff not the kids club. The kids club was even another notch above. They both feel in love with the staff there and could not wait to go every day.

For tips to the kids club we felt no pressure to tip them but we ended up giving each kid $40 to use for tips in the kids club. They both wrote a little note of thanks and chose who they wanted to tip.

 

Scott

[Nitemare]

When I was on the Dawn Princess recently passengers with children went to the pursers desk and reduced the gratuities for their children by half. No problem.

Anyone can reduce tips for any reason and Princess will give you no problem. Doesn't mean you always SHOULD reduce your tips -- you should tip according to the service you receive.

[LARGIN]

Largin, I was talking about the children's program - i.e. tipping the kid's program staff is discretionary. (I was referring to the quote above my response.)

 

I thought I was quite clear in my previous post that the OP should tip for the children. :confused:

 

ell

You were clear.. I wasn't.. Sorry... :)

[meab]

when we cruised with our daughter, and she was only 4 months old, we did not tip the dining room staff on her behalf, but we did tip the cabin steward half tips. at that time, she didn't make any mess or cause any major extra work. even though he made up a crib for her, she ended up sleeping in the bed with us anyhow.

 

as she got older, we adjusted those amounts, ie as she started eating table food and being a "real person" at dinner, then we tipped the dining staff accordingly as well.

 

now she is 3 1/2, and we plan on tipping the $10/day (or more), because she does take advantage of everything in the dining room and she requires more cleaning up after in the stateroom as well! however, for our 6 month old, we'll probably reduce his tips for the same reason as above.

 

hope this helps.