Tips & other Misc Questions

[kcashner]

Originally Posted by RMAMom

Is this in addition to the $12 per day, if I prepay the $12 tip what do I do with the envelope or do we not give one.

The $12 per guest per day is the total tip for the 4 tipped positions. SO....if you are on a 4 night cruise, your tips will be $48 (4 nights X $12) for each person in your cabin. You will get tip "coupons" in your cabin showing this tip. You place the coupon in the provided envelope and give it to the appropraite people (server, head server, assistant server, stateroom host). You can add more tip if you wish. You can also go to GS and reduce the amount of the tip if you wish.

If you choose to increase the tip, you can do it by going to GS and increasing the charged amounts or by adding cash to the envelope along with the coupon.

You get the coupons whether you pre-paid or charged it to your card of record on the ship.

[Namsupak]

Originally Posted by RMAMom

Is this in addition to the $12 per day, if I prepay the $12 tip what do I do with the envelope or do we not give one.

The recommended tip is 12 dollars per person per day period. There is not any extra unless you want to add some. It is kind of hard to understand till after you take the cruise but the way Disney does it's dining the tip goes to your Room Host, Head Server, Server, and Assistant Server. Your main dining experience is dinner in the main dining rooms. Since these are the people you will generally be having the most contact with they will generally handle most of your service.

So the question is when they are not serving you dinner where are they? Well they are doing breakfast and lunch service at one of the restaurants. The Breakfast and Lunch portion of your cruise is more up to you as you can choose to eat at several places or even up by the pool deck, or even have room service. So you may not even see "your" servers at these meal times. Most people do not tip at breakfast or lunch because the people that are serving you are being tipped by the families that they have during the dinner service and vice versa. From your server's point of view it is like a "you scratch my back I'll scratch yours." If everyone has great service then everyone gets a nice end of the cruise tip.

Room service is a separate team so you tip them accordingly, usually cash.

If you prepay the tips at the end of the cruise you will get the ticket receipts that they leave for you in your room and you place them in the envelopes to give to the cast members. They are just receipts, the funds have already been electronically given to the cast members. I tis customary to give the envelopes but if you don't its not a big deal as they will still get the tip.

[AudreyKThompson]

Hi!
What is charged to your room account at $12 per person per day are tips for the following people

Head Server ($2), Server($4), Assistant Server($2) -- they are your assigned dining team for dinner (and make up the personnel serving at lunch and breakfast as well, although they are not assigned specifically to you)
Stateroom Host ($4)

Other employees like kids club and guest services cannot accept tips personally- if you give them cash, it is pooled and used for cast parties.

Bar staff is tipped with the 15% included gratuity on the bill

Room service staff, Spa staff and porters you are expected to tip separately, so you will need cash for that.

You can pre-pay it on your room account, or talk to guest services to have the tips taken off and put whatever cash you wish in the provided envelopes to hand out the last night.
However, I always find it easiest to leave the $12 per person per night that charges to room account automatically and pay it with my bill. They provide tip vouchers to put into the envelopes that you hand out. and if need be you can add cash to the envelope along with vouchers.

HTH Happy cruising!!

[kcashner]

Originally Posted by AudreyKThompson

Hi!
What is charged to your room account at $12 per person per day are tips for the following people

Head Server ($2), Server($4), Assistant Server($2) -- they are your assigned dining team for dinner (and make up the personnel serving at lunch and breakfast as well, although they are not assigned specifically to you)
Stateroom Host ($4)

Other employees like kids club and guest services cannot accept tips personally- if you give them cash, it is pooled and used for cast parties.

Bar staff is tipped with the 15% included gratuity on the bill

Room service staff, Spa staff and porters you are expected to tip separately, so you will need cash for that.

You can pre-pay it on your room account, or talk to guest services to have the tips taken off and put whatever cash you wish in the provided envelopes to hand out the last night.
However, I always find it easiest to leave the $12 per person per night that charges to room account automatically and pay it with my bill. They provide tip vouchers to put into the envelopes that you hand out. and if need be you can add cash to the envelope along with vouchers.

HTH Happy cruising!!

Head server is $1 per guest per night, assistant server is $3 per guest per night.

[AudreyKThompson]

To OP-

Meals - I assume that we eat wherever we want for breakfast and lunch, but we are assigned a restaurant for dinner each night. Is this correct? Do we leave a tip on the table for our meals or is this included in the package price of the cruise?


You are assigned a MDR to attend each night. However you can always chose to go to the quick service venues available or room service instead--

You will not lack for food choice

[DisneyMommy04]

Glad you asked about this, I was unsure as well. But can now plan ahead.