Tipping the Guides with TC

[redzinner]

Has anyone tipped their Adventure Guides with a traveler's check yet?
I read in the ABD provided trip booklet that they will accept the checks but wondered if anyone has done it that way. I'm supposing this is acceptable for all tours, domestic and foreign.
Seems like the easiest way to carry the 'extra' money.

[awatt]

Travelers checks are becoming more difficult to cash. Less places accept them. So the guides can use them but it is harder for them to use.

[Bobo912]

Are guests provided with an envelope or card to put the tip in? If not, I thought I would buy cards before I leave and I'm making my last (I hope) supply run to the store today.

[AndreaJ]

yes, envelopes are provided - they are stapled on the last page of your daily itenerary booklet that you get at the welcome/reception dinner. However, we bought cards and wrote a special thank you to each of our guides and enclosed cash. Hope that helps!

[Bobo912]

Thanks, it helps alot.\! If I forget to pick up cards today, I'll know I'm covered and I won't have to stress out over it. :)

[jenbadeaux]

Did most of you tip your 2 guides equally? Or if one went above and beyond, did you tip him toward the higher end of the recommended amount? For our family of 6, tipping on the scale of $5-$8/guide/day is $240-$384 PER GUIDE. As this is already an expensive trip, and even more so with 4 kids, we will out of necessity need to tip to the low end of that. But if one of them is exceptional, is it appropriate to give him a little extra? Or should we keep it even?

[AndreaJ]

We tipped our guides equally - they were both wonderful!!

[glassslipper2004]

So should we tip in cash, or (can't imagine how) is there a way to do it with a credit card? I hate to bring a bunch of extra cash just for that, with my luck I'll just lose it.

[3pirates]

We tipped in cash....got it out of the ATM on the last day. The fees aren't horrendous taking money out of ATMs. But, we did have a bit of a scare. We had taken cash out 3-4 times during the course of our trip and had no problem. On that last day our bank decided we shouldn't be withdrawing money in Italy (even though they were informed ahead of time and we had been doing so for a week):rolleyes: It took an hour of being passed around and $65.00 in International roaming charges to resolve the matter. (Yes, we got that money back from the bank later.) Then we were able to get cash. I was thinking that was a close call. Anything else we needed we probably could have gotten by with a credit card....not tips for the guides. I wondered if I were to go again whether I would have just paid the guides in travelers checks. I'm sure they know where they can get them cashed.

[Bobo912]

Did you tip in local or US currency? Any idea if the quides have a preference?

[glassslipper2004]

I'm thinking maybe I'll bring enough traveler's checks to cover the lower amount in the range, and then can use cash to make up the difference.

I can't believe the trip is getting so close- I'm going to have to do things like the call the bank soon, to let them know we are going to Italy, and also to see if we can get a 4-digit pin number. As it stands now both my husband and I have 6-digit pin numbers which I am told don't work in Italy. Hmmm.:confused:

[redzinner]

I wondered if I were to go again whether I would have just paid the guides in travelers checks. I'm sure they know where they can get them cashed.

I think I'm there too. If a tour is full at 40 people and say each person gives a guide $50...that's $2000! If it's all in cash, a guide will have to bank it anyway. Seems to me banks would cash a travelers check but don't know that for sure.

I wonder if the guides will take Disney Reward Dollars! ;)

[glassslipper2004]

Anyone know where the tip guide info is? All this talk makes me think I should just get to a bank and be done with it, get traveler's checks and some euros...

[redzinner]

Anyone know where the tip guide info is? All this talk makes me think I should just get to a bank and be done with it, get traveler's checks and some euros...

In our Viva Italia book it's on page 22, in the section General Adventure Information - Gratuities

"PER GUEST/PER ADVENTURE GUIDE/PER DAY - $5-$8 USD

Example:
For a 9-day adventure, the Adventure Guide gratuity per guest, per Adventure Guide: $45 - $72 USD.
A family of 4 For a 9-day adventure: $180 - $228 USD per Adventure Guide.
For two guides, this is a total of $360 - $576 USD
Adventure Guides will accept local currency, US Dollars and signed travelers' checks."

[awatt]

I think you will find the guides are EXCEPTIONAL, based on the 2 ABD trips we've taken. They really dogo above an beyond,all day, every day. We did not think twice about tipping the upper end of the suggested amount. They earned every penny.

[PrincessFi]

I was one of those people that before my trip that thought it was ridiculous to have to tip the guides in addition to what we paid for the trip. In the end I wished we had more funds to give our guides. We went over the recommended amounts and still wanted to give them more. One thing to remember is the length of the season these guides will be in their tour countries. They can not use Disney Dollars, Travelers Checks are hard to use and they will be charged some type of exchange fee. It is most beneficial for them to be tipped in the local currency. Although they are provided housing for the few days they are off in between tours, they are not provided a salary so they depend on those tips as income to help them survive. Believe me you will generously want to give and will be embarrassed if you don't.

[InstImpres]

Believe me you will generously want to give and will be embarrassed if you don't.

Is this a personal thought or was there an awkward situation for someone in your group?

[awatt]

They can not use Disney Dollars, Travelers Checks are hard to use and they will be charged some type of exchange fee. It is most beneficial for them to be tipped in the local currency.

That is what I was trying to convey in my first response to the OP. Using TC means you actually are giving them less than you intended because there is an exchange fee.

[ggadiel]

Do most people bring a lot of extra cash or do they use an ATM in Paris? I really do not want to bring that much extra cash and do not want to pay the outrageous ATM fees. That leaves only travelers checks which will be no extra fees for me.

[awatt]

We brought extra cash. We used our credit card for shopping and dining, and not much extra cash was needed for that sort of thing. So we had plenty of cash left over at the end for tipping.

[sayhello]

I hit the ATM the last full day. My bank doesn't charge ATM fees, so it was just the fee from the foreign ATM. To me, it was better than shlepping all that cash around all week. I figured, unless I had brought cash, it was either I pay the ATM fee, or the guide pay the Traveler's Check fee.

Sayhello

[AndreaJ]

We were able to have our last hotel (Dromoland Castle) give us euros, and they just charged our credit card. We did not have any convenient ATM's around by the last day of our tour.

[glassslipper2004]

Bumping. For some reason, not all the threads on this board seem to alert me when new posts are posted. I get lots and lots of alerts of posts on the Tie-dye T-shirt thread (I made some really cool Mickey head t-shirts almost a year ago) but don't always get the ABD notices. :confused3

[2RGR8]

When tipping the guides do you give them US Dollars or Euros? On the Knights and Lights tour I understand you have one guide in London and another in Paris. How do you handle the tipping for that situation?

[KLondon]

Actually.... you'll have 2 ABD Guides with you for the whole tour. You'll also have local (expert) guides in London and Paris. You only need to worry about tipping the ABD Guides - the others are taken care for you by ABD.

You can tip in US dollars or local currency. On the London/Paris tour, we actually tipped with a combination both US and Euros. On the Costa Rica tour, we tipped in US dollars only.

Hope this helps.

[grumpy-1]

I called ABD and asked what form of tipping would be the easiest for the guides. They told me that the guides would accept any form .... US currency , travelers checks, or Euro's. But it is the easiest for them if the tip is in Euro's

[AndreaJ]

On our trip to Ireland, we tipped in euros.

[StaceyA]

Did most of you tip your 2 guides equally? Or if one went above and beyond, did you tip him toward the higher end of the recommended amount? For our family of 6, tipping on the scale of $5-$8/guide/day is $240-$384 PER GUIDE. As this is already an expensive trip, and even more so with 4 kids, we will out of necessity need to tip to the low end of that. But if one of them is exceptional, is it appropriate to give him a little extra? Or should we keep it even?


does each tour have 2 guides always, or do some trips have more then 2?

[Skylarr29]

does each tour have 2 guides always, or do some trips have more then 2?

I think all trips have two guides. We have been on two adventures and both times we had two guides.

We tipped in Euros to both guides on our Flavors of France trip.

On our Austria trip since we visited both Austria and the Czech Republic (2 different currencies) I discreetly pulled one of our guides aside when we were walking and asked what their preference was because I wanted it to be easy for them. One of our guides were going back to the USA right after the trip so we tipped her in US currency and the other guide said she preferred the Euros even though anything would be fine.

The guides work very hard and their tips are their paycheck. I know the trip is expensive but it isn't fair to skip the tips.

[StaceyA]

I think all trips have two guides. We have been on two adventures and both times we had two guides.

We tipped in Euros to both guides on our Flavors of France trip.

On our Austria trip since we visited both Austria and the Czech Republic (2 different currencies) I discreetly pulled one of our guides aside when we were walking and asked what their preference was because I wanted it to be easy for them. One of our guides were going back to the USA right after the trip so we tipped her in US currency and the other guide said she preferred the Euros even though anything would be fine.

The guides work very hard and their tips are their paycheck. I know the trip is expensive but it isn't fair to skip the tips.

believe me i would never skip on the tips, we will probably give more, but i wanted to know if there were just 2 or more. for some reason I was thinking there are 4.

We are going on Quest for the West so I know the answer is US CASH lol

Thanks so much!

[sayhello]

believe me i would never skip on the tips, we will probably give more, but i wanted to know if there were just 2 or more. for some reason I was thinking there are 4.I think someone mentioned recently that they had "4 guides" on their trip: the 2 guides, and 2 "shadow guides" who were learning the itinerary. Maybe that's where you got that idea. Normally, you have 2 guides on each tour, plus local naturalists/specialists. The naturalists/specialists are tipped by Disney, you only need to worry about the 2 Disney guides.

Sayhello

[StaceyA]

I think someone mentioned recently that they had "4 guides" on their trip: the 2 guides, and 2 "shadow guides" who were learning the itinerary. Maybe that's where you got that idea. Normally, you have 2 guides on each tour, plus local naturalists/specialists. The naturalists/specialists are tipped by Disney, you only need to worry about the 2 Disney guides.

Sayhello

You could be right...or it could be the local guides that I was thinking about as well.
Thanks for your help, I always find help here lol

[Skylarr29]

We had two shadow guides on our Austria trip as well but we didn't tip them. They were more guests though, they were not helping with the other guests.

And I wasn't implying that you were going to skip the tips ;) Before I went I didn't realize that the only compensation the guides received were tips. Others might not realize as well.

[StaceyA]

We had two shadow guides on our Austria trip as well but we didn't tip them. They were more guests though, they were not helping with the other guests.

And I wasn't implying that you were going to skip the tips ;) Before I went I didn't realize that the only compensation the guides received were tips. Others might not realize as well.

no problem ;) I actually didn't know that either, I would have thought they would be paid nicely through disney!

[eva]

no problem ;) I actually didn't know that either, I would have thought they would be paid nicely through disney!

I'm beginning to think that the guides for these types of tours are paid similarly to those on cruise ships. The majority of workers on cruise ships also rely mainly on tips.

We plan on tipping in Euros. For some reason DH wants to exchange about $1,500 (will equal about 1,000 Euros) before he goes. So I am sure we will have plenty left for the tips. For two people we are planning to set aside 100 Euros per guide. That would be about $150 per guide. For 9 days thats about $8.30 a day per guest per guide. Does that seem fair?

[Skylarr29]

$100 euros a guide is exactly what we did on both of our ABD trips.

[KLondon]

That sounds about right. The 'storybook' you get prior to your tour includes guidelines for tipping.

As for what Guides get payed by Disney - I agree that the tips are likely a large chunk of the compensation package. That said, I do know that Guides do get various benefits through Disney (e.g. health) and this is very unusual in the tour guide business.

[glassslipper2004]

Having just returned from a fantastic Viva Italia trip, I want to echo the posters who said not to use traveler's checks. I didn't listen, and had no luck getting a bank to cash them - I tried three places, they just refused. I wound up having the hotel cash them and it cost me 15% of their value. I decided to cash them anyway, not wanting our wonderful guides to have to deal with the hassle. So - lesson learned - don't bother with traveler's checks!