Tipping on board

[Skyrules]

I could be wrong about this, but I have a feeling the tipping is now 'deemed' at $10 a day per person, including children. This is for the Sun Princess, in any case.

I am still not sure what to do in my own case but might consider what someone has suggested-see how the service is, and adjust at the end of the cruise accordingly.

My tendency at the moment is to think one lot of tipping should be adequate-$120 is still a lot of money. But I will see and if the service really is exceptional, then maybe raise the bar a little.

There are only 2 of us but I think if we had been going when our 3 children were small and with us, i would have found $50 a day an enormous amount to come up with.

I guess it depends on how much money people can afford.

 

Not sure about Sun & Dawn Princess, but on Pacific Dawn & Pacific Sun it's now $7.50pp per day, but only for passengers over 12 years of age.

[robinsoncruisers]

Not sure about Sun & Dawn Princess, but on Pacific Dawn & Pacific Sun it's now $7.50pp per day, but only for passengers over 12 years of age.

We are going on the Dawn Princess and the tipping is $10 per person over 13 years and over per person per day.

 

Which works out to be $360 for the three of us for our 12 night cruise. We will most certainly be reducing it or wiping it off all together and will tip people who give us good service. This is on top of all the tips to the waiter and bar staff which they add on automatically for every drink. Way too much in my view.

 

Each to their own but good service is part of the job in any customer service role and should always be expected with our without a tip!:)

[margrey]

Whew so many different options,

 

This is what we did, after about the 3rd day we decided to take my auto tips off and leave my husbands we then gave cash to our cabin steward and our waiters, the 3 days were refunded onto my account and i did not notice any difference in the service we recieved, that is what i intend to do this next cruise:)

 

Marg

[DICKY BEACH]

We are sailing out of Sydney for 28 days to Tahiti in 10 days time and I've been reading all of the above with great interest. I had not, until now, decided how we would handle this but have decided to remove the tipping and do our own thing. I know that the people we tip will have to put the money into the pool but at least they will know how much they are appreciated. I doubt I will tip as much as Princess would like to take, $560, but a few hundred put directly into the hands of the people who give us good service will I hope be appreciated.

Frank

[Kruzein]

The 2 cruisers that we have done on the PD, we removed the auto tips and given the money to the cabin steward, food and drink waiters both on deck and in the restaurants. :D

 

We have never noticed a reduction in service because of this, if anything it is the opposite and you make friends as well with the crew.:)

 

Lisa

[windings]

We took tips off my A/C but left it on hubbys. Then tipped over & above what I would have paid auto tipping to our cabin steward who was lovely. Didn't realise he would have to hand it all in or risk losing his job. At least he would have got the difference to keep. You would all be shocked if you knew what wages they were on. These guys work for tips basically. I reckon cruise lines need to just add the tips into the cruise price to start with, then everyone wouldn't be concerned about the whole tipping fiasco.

[MargnGrah]

I reckon cruise lines need to just add the tips into the cruise price to start with, then everyone wouldn't be concerned about the whole tipping fiasco.

 

Thats not a bad idea.......only then you would have people complaining that the prices had gone up too much........can't please all of the people all of the time.......

[sailawaysally]

Not sure about Sun & Dawn Princess, but on Pacific Dawn & Pacific Sun it's now $7.50pp per day, but only for passengers over 12 years of age.

 

 

It was $7.75 on W828 cruise!!!!!!!!:eek:

[kazda]

It was $7.75 on W828 cruise!!!!!!!!:eek:

 

We were on cruise W828 and it was $7.50 per person per day. I'm just looking at my bill now to confirm this and it definately says under 'Hotel Chg' $7.50

[sailawaysally]

We were on cruise W828 and it was $7.50 per person per day. I'm just looking at my bill now to confirm this and it definately says under 'Hotel Chg' $7.50

 

 

You are right, hubby looked at $7.75, he saw it so often and thought it was the tipping, but no, it was my cocktails!!!:D

[Lizard©]

Is that per day?

 

Yep Sonyac, $7.50 per person per day.

I reckon it's good value for everything that's done for you. :)

Lynda.

[Lizard©]

I really hafta finish reading the thread before I reply :o :rolleyes: :D

[NSWP]

Just a word of caution if you go over to the Princess board on CC and raise the issue of dropping/reducing auto tips (automatic wage subsidy, because that is what it is) be prepared for a hammering from those 'born to tip' as it were.

 

I can tell you on Sun Princess last June/July, round OZ, the Aussies were lined up from day one, adjusting the AWS.

 

;) :p

[staceymrow]

I dont have any copies of my receipt printouts from my cruises, so can someone confirm with me if the daily tipping charge is charged for the amount of nights or days you are on board? If it was days, surely they wouldnt charge for the day of disembarking??

[CruiseW827]

I dont have any copies of my receipt printouts from my cruises, so can someone confirm with me if the daily tipping charge is charged for the amount of nights or days you are on board? If it was days, surely they wouldnt charge for the day of disembarking??

It isnt charged the day of disembarking. On our 10 night cruise it was $75 per adult.

[wombat50]

here is a blog site of a person who has worked on princess ship for a long time, i think he is now a IT manager on them now, on his site he covers all aspects of things on board a cruise ship, from what the crew do and their conditions and also how the passangers are, is good reading below is his comments on tipping on board. he also did a contract on the pacific sun

 

''It is also true that some crew get paid very small wages. HOWEVER! They are positions that get paid out of the gratuity pool, and the gratuity pool pays them very well. In fact most people who are part of the gratuity pool ( as an officer I am not part of it) get paid MORE than I do, and I get paid pretty well.

 

NOW WAIT! Before you start going on and on about how it's unfair and the company should pay a fair wage and the passengers should not be expected to pay gratuity and etc.. There is an entire economic WORLD involved here. Yes, sure, the cruise line could raise the wages of fifteen thousand crew and then pass that cost onto the cruise ticket and then nobody could afford to cruise... there are many little and big things to consider BEFORE you start calling the cruise lines evil for paying some crew low wages and cutting them a BIG share of the gratuity pool. I am NOT an expert on the finances of the cruise lines, but I know it's not an evil practice. There is no Mr. Burns sitting at a desk rubbing his hands together and counting gold coins and muttering "excellent" every time a passenger pays a gratuity. Maybe they could pay a bit higher wages, maybe they are trying to save cost on a passenger ticket.. maybe allot of things. But it's not bad practice. Those crew in the gratuity pool are HAPPY to be in it, they make good money. I wish I WAS IN IT!! I have four children! A room steward normally makes more than me! Yes, they work long, long hours and they work very hard, and they are trying hard to earn your gratuity. They DO earn it. But I believe the gratuity system works and keeps costs down and the crew makes more money on that system than they would if the cruise lines raised wages and eliminated passenger gratuity. If you asked any crew member would he rather a higher salary or gratuity pool system? There is no doubt what they would choose.

 

Now keep in mind, if you DO ask your room steward that question... you might get a sob story answer. It's actually against company policy for this to happen, and it is very rare, but crew have been known to make their lives and wages sound relatively...um.."pathetic" in order to inspire higher gratuity. I am not saying this will happen to you, and on Princess it hardly ever happens, but it could. If you just stick to either the recommended tipping guidelines or just leave the automatic tipping (in operation on all Princess ships and other major cruise lines like NCL) in place you can sleep easy knowing you did the fair thing when it came to tipping your people.''

 

here is his site

 

http://crewoffice.blogspot.com/2006_03_12_archive.html

[MargnGrah]

Wow after reading this I now think that maybe we are just better to let them take our $7.50 each per day and split it between all the workers on board. I will really have to think about what to do before our next cruise.:)

[Guest xywolap]

There is an entire economic WORLD involved here. Yes, sure, the cruise line could raise the wages of fifteen thousand crew and then pass that cost onto the cruise ticket and then nobody could afford to cruise... there are many little and big things to consider BEFORE you start calling the cruise lines evil for paying some crew low wages and cutting them a BIG share of the gratuity pool.

http://crewoffice.blogspot.com/2006_03_12_archive.html

 

15000 crew wages... >>The wages would be spread across thirty thousand odd passenger ticket sales "per cruise" .. and it is already being paid by the passengers who auto tip. Those who choose to not tip or tip very little are another subject.

 

Using auto tipping or directly tipping means all the $$'s end up in the pot in the end for all anyway. I doubt that many who directly tip would give more than they would by using auto tipping? (naturally, the reason for not using it) So under the current system we have a known "preset amount" already, then why have it as an extra on the price of the cruise? If you pay it in your cruise cost up front the total cost of your cruise will not increase 1c over what you are eventually paying now if you select the full auto tip recommended amount.

 

They may as well have a seperate charge for wear and tear on the carpet per cruise per passenger?? There's no end of things that are now included in the cost of the ticket that could be seperately itemised as an extra, just like tipping.

 

When you look at a cruise you always have to go and seek the fine print to find out "exactly" what the price stated includes because the pricing method currently used to advertise is open to a simple but effective form of trickery. Cunning TAs will leave out port charges, taxes and tipping information, etc. just to lure the gullible into thinking they have discovered the "bargain buy". This is not a respectable way to do business and when you look around there are TA's that do not need to resort to this level of selling, but still provide good deals.

 

Having lived and worked in the mighty land of the "born to tip" for a few years I can assure you that the end result in customer service is far better here using our system; why? I don't know, but it is. It is never perfect everywhere but what is? For me it just feels more comfortable knowing the price paid is the price expected and you won't have someone begging for extra $$'s at the end. Seems more civilised to me? :)