shore excursion gratuities

[breezepark]

I know Regent is a 'no tipping' cruise, but are tips expected by the operators of the shore excusions or are they included in the rate paid to them by Regent?

[Bearnaise]

I know Regent is a 'no tipping' cruise, but are tips expected by the operators of the shore excusions or are they included in the rate paid to them by Regent?

Good question. I figured the Alaska excursion operators expected tips (and they often had tip jars present for exactly that purpose) so we tipped, but it's my understanding that tipping is a no-no all over French Polynesia so I'll likely refrain from tipping the excursion operators on my upcoming PG cruise. How tips are handled on Med or Asia cruises is anyone's guess. Anyone?

[rocsailor]

While on the HAL Pacific rim cruise 65 days, When we went on a HAL sponsered excursion most passingers tipped the host 2 american dollars pp. This seemed fine with the host. However we noticed many did not tip at all. I guess it's up to the persons felling on tipping:cool:

[Boo Boo]

While on the HAL Pacific rim cruise 65 days, When we went on a HAL sponsered excursion most passingers tipped the host 2 american dollars pp. This seemed fine with the host. However we noticed many did not tip at all. I guess it's up to the persons felling on tipping:cool:

 

This is an interesting thread...

 

This will be our first Regent cruise, but we have done quite a few RCCL/Princess/HAL cruises etc... and quite a few excursions - normally in the Caribbean...

 

We have noticed that a lot of people don't tip (which I was surprised at - thought Americans just about always tipped?). Those who did tip, we didn't see how much they tipped. We normally tipped $10 a person (i.e. $20 from the two of us): anything less seemed a bit mean.... especially if we were on a $100pp excursion.

 

Are we hugely over-tipping? About $10pp seemed about right...

 

Boo

[mariners]

Regent has stated that tips for services on a shore excursion are a personal matter and left up to the individual. When a meal is included in a tour, the tip for that is included in the price, but it does not include the tip for the guide. We have almost always tipped but the amount depends on the number of people on the tour, the length of time of the tour, etc. We do not tip if the guide is terrible - no commentary, simply took our tickets and then proceeded to sit at the front of the bus and talk on his cell phone. We still tipped the driver of the bus as he tried to call out places we were passing and did a fantastic job of keeping us safe on hairpin turns and through multiple areas of road construction where it appeared to me that local drivers were trying to run us off the road.

There are also locations where tipping is not part of the culture. Alaska would not be one of those places and I'm sure the tour operators there expect tips.:D

[cruiseej]

Boo, that sounds about right to me. Depending on the length and cost of the excursion, I generally tip either $5 or $10 per person.

 

On some excursions on our recent Mariner cruise, it seemed pretty natural to offer a tip: to the pilot on our Misty Fjords flightseeing trip, who offered to take pictures of each of us in front of the plane at the end of the trip. On others, there really was no clear opportunity to offer a tip, such as on our glacier helicopter trip in Juneau; we were passed from bus driver to ground handler to pilot to ground hander to bus driver smoothly and efficiently, but there was no logical time or place for a tip, as our pilot moved on to prepping for his next flight as soon as we exited the helicopter. On some excursions, it's a little tricky to figure out who to tip: on our Juneau evening whale watch trip, the crew of the ship didn't seem positioned to be looking for tips as we left -- but our bus driver, who took us to Mendenhall Glacier, then to the boat, and then back from the boat to the ship, turned out to have a great personality and we felt it appropriate to tip her. (The bus driver was a young woman named Sarah Palin -- really! She had a blown up copy of her driver's license to prove she wasn't putting us on, and some very funny stories about how her namesake's rise in fame has impacted her life.)

 

-- Eric

[poss]

Eric-- I'm curious to know whether your "aged p's" (as Dickens referred to them in one of his novels-- our kids have taken to calling us that on occasion) did the long, 3-excursion Juneau day with you? Also: Did you feel Mendenhall was more or less redundant after all the other glaciers you'd seen that day, or did you especially enjoy the difference of this time being on land? (I.e. would you just as soon have gone whale-watching without the Mendenhall stop?)

I hope you're enjoying your land part of your trip as much as you enjoyed the cruise part.

[NCCruzQueen]

As a general rule, I tip the ship's organized guides $5 for a half-day tour and $10 for a full day. This is contingent on the quality of the commentary and guide's services. The driver gets $1-2.

[newlondon]

While in Europe, on both Regent and Silversea, we tipped the shore excursion guide 10 euro for a couple. I would say 75% of our fellow passengers gave something. Obviously we did not tip the cruise line escort.

[cruiseej]

Eric-- I'm curious to know whether your "aged p's" (as Dickens referred to them in one of his novels-- our kids have taken to calling us that on occasion) did the long, 3-excursion Juneau day with you?

 

Poss, my parents did two of the three excursions we did in Juneau -- the early morning Tracy Arm trip and the evening whale watch trip. They didn't do the helicopter trip with us because they had done one on their previous trip to Alaska (not a cruise) 17 years ago and felt they didn't need to do it again. But as I've noted, that helicopter excursion to the glacier, on a very beautiful summer day, was one of the highlights of our cruise, and I know they would have enjoyed it.

 

A couple of good things to note about the "triple excursion day"... First, it was easy to do all three; there was no rushing or running or sweating about missing anything. I'm sure something could go wrong on any given excursion to delay your return to the ship, but all of ours ran like clockwork. We had time for a nice lunch on the ship after Tracy Arm and even a quick stop for a cappuccino onboard before the Mendenhall/whale watch trip. (We could have just stayed on the dock, but I think there was something we wanted to quickly drop or pick up in our cabin, and my wife decided 10 free minutes onboard meant there was time for a stop in the coffee bar!) The other thing is that we didn't know what we'd do about dinner that evening, since the excursion is listed as 5 pm - 9 pm, and the restaurants close at 9 pm. What we didn't realize -- either Regent doesn't have it in the tour description, or we simply missed reading it -- is that a full buffet dinner, including two drinks apiece, is provided on the whale watch boat. While the food didn't match Compass Rose, it was actually a rather nice little buffet. Our only problem is that whenever we started to get food or eat, we'd be interrupted by a whale sighting, and I kept running back up on deck! (What a wonderful problem to have!) We talked to the Regent tour director, er "destination services manager", and she said that the executive chef from the Mariner had gone on the whale watch the preceding cruise, and when he saw the buffet that was served, he proclaimed "this is great; with all this food, I don't have to keep a restaurant open late!"

 

Bottom line: for us, the three excursions that day were not stretch at all. They couldn't have been more different, and each one was worthwhile. If I was planning it again, I'd do it all again.

 

Also: Did you feel Mendenhall was more or less redundant after all the other glaciers you'd seen that day, or did you especially enjoy the difference of this time being on land? (I.e. would you just as soon have gone whale-watching without the Mendenhall stop?)

 

Mendenhall was nice, and it was different than what we saw in the morning in Endicott Arm. Could we have skipped it without major regret? Yes, especially because we also had upcoming day cruise excursions booked in Seward and Whittier to see more glaciers. But it basically added only an hour to the whale watch-only excursion -- about half of that on the bus and half at the glacier -- and for that minimal time commitment, I thought it was quite worthwhile. You also get there late in the afternoon, so there are relatively few people around; I imagine Mendenhall is crawling with people earlier in the day, so this is a great time to visit.

 

I hope you're enjoying your land part of your trip as much as you enjoyed the cruise part.

 

Enjoyed. Past tense. :( We got home Wednesday night. One good thing about doing the week on land after the cruise is that we didn't experience our typical post-cruise letdown and sadness, because we were still on vacation and running to do things every day. Our weather wasn't quite as good the second week, although we had almost no rain, just clouds several of the days, so I can't complain at all. As a result, we didn't get to see the mountain when we visited Denali, but we took a flightseeing trip which got us above the clouds and gave us some spectacular views of Denali and the surrounding mountains. And our boat trips in Seward and Whittier were both enjoyable; even though it was very cloudy and misty for most of our Price William Sound cruise, getting up very close to Surprise Glacier at the end was really a treat. So, yes, we enjoyed the land portion of the trip, too. Thanks for tracking our progress! ;)

 

-- Eric

[jina]

We also just got back from Mariner. We tended to tip $5-$10/pp depending on the length of the tour, and how much we enjoyed the guide. Unfortunately it seemed we were almost always the only ones tipping, other than the Tracy Arm excursion where the guide actually did a call-out for tips (they had a tip jar in the galley). We spent a few days with some friends who live in Cooper Landing (near Seward) and they know many of the summer workers who do the rafting tours up on the Kenai River and at the Kenai Princess Lodge. Most of the summer workers make minimum wage and depend on tips to survive, as they also often have to pay for their own room and board, and for example, a jar of peanut butter at the Fred Meyer in Juneau is rumored to cost $8 - so the guides really appreciate the tips, which are usually shared across all the folks related to the tour (galley workers, bus drivers, etc.). Too bad most people don't tip them.

[breezepark]

I saw someone on another thread talk about tipping the spa and casino staff on the ship. I would have expected the no tipping policy to apply everywhere on board. Any thoughts?

[Wendy The Wanderer]

I saw someone on another thread talk about tipping the spa and casino staff on the ship. I would have expected the no tipping policy to apply everywhere on board. Any thoughts?

 

I'm not a casino person so can't comment, but tips are definitely welcome in the spa. This is a separate operation from the rest of the ship.

[dfb]

I saw someone on another thread talk about tipping the spa and casino staff on the ship. I would have expected the no tipping policy to apply everywhere on board. Any thoughts?

 

Think about it as on a cruiseline that does not include tipping. For example, they will have a list of who gets portions of the daily tip that they put on your shipboard bill automatically. Those people essentially work hotel/restaurant services and every passenger will use their services as they occupy a cabin, eat and drink. Those same people are tipped in the tips which you prepay with your cruisefare on RSSC. The casino and spa workers will only have dealings with a small subset of passengers and their tips are not automatically included by any cruise line that I know. Those workers would be tipped directly by the passengers using their services. Just like the shore side personnel doing ship's excursions. Debbie

[cstrick]

I may be forgetful but I used the spa for massages on two RSSC cruises and on the last cruise I added a tip to the bill. When I got my statement at the end of the cruise they had added on an additional gratuity. I left it alone but maybe you should ask if they are supposed to do this.

[Wendy The Wanderer]

That's strange, since you sign a bill when you receive the service, and add an optional gratuity at that point. I shall definitely check next time!

[breezepark]

Think about it as on a cruiseline that does not include tipping. For example, they will have a list of who gets portions of the daily tip that they put on your shipboard bill automatically. Those people essentially work hotel/restaurant services and every passenger will use their services as they occupy a cabin, eat and drink. Those same people are tipped in the tips which you prepay with your cruisefare on RSSC. The casino and spa workers will only have dealings with a small subset of passengers and their tips are not automatically included by any cruise line that I know. Those workers would be tipped directly by the passengers using their services. Just like the shore side personnel doing ship's excursions. Debbie

 

Helpful way to think of it - thanks. Usually always ask at resorts if gratuities are included before tipping, as I have been burned before like the other poster. Some places make it clear, some don't.