Additional tipping?

[bbel]

I read this all the time and have done it but I'm just curious....are there actual DCL CMs here that have said it on the boards? Not that I don't believe you or anyone else but I've never read a post from an actual DCL CM just a lot of "I talked to the cm and this is what they said"

It totally varies from department to department. Ship to ship. The managers at the time.
In my department, on the two ships I worked on, the comment card thing got you a single clap in our weekly meeting. I know someone in my department on a different ship won a dining request for getting some of the most in a month.
Obviously having your name mentioned makes you more known for a promotion, but in my department there's very few promotion opportunities.
However, we got a lot of group recognition for our end of cruise scores, at a time we were getting recognition every cruise because we were smashing the (friendliness) scores, which for my department I found raised morale and made us a much better team.

 

[reimero]

Something about this bothers me. We always tip well, but I guess I see it as a reward for having provided service that was of value to us. Tipping in advance and the attitude of this head server feels to me more like I am buying their time from someone else. I know they only have so much time to get rooms made up or meals served and I don't think my ability to give a better tip should take away from the service some other family receives.

It was a little more nuanced than that. We didn't tip in advance, but the Head Waiter had remembered us from before. What was going on in this particular situation was that our server had 2 tables: us (the two of us, by ourselves - happy!!) and a very large table of something like 16. What was happening was that on the first couple of nights, the servers were giving the majority of their attention to the 16-top (which doesn't bother me), but that meant we were ordering late, getting served late and the food was coming out cold (which is NOT OK.) So we were doing a lot of sitting around and waiting and not getting out of dinner till after 10pm (which stinks if you want to see fireworks or attend an event in the Tube.) The Head Waiter was very good about dealing with it, but did inform the waiters that he had sailed with us before and that we did give good service an extra reward. So I don't feel we were buying preferential treatment. And we never raised the issue of tips at any time. This particular head server was very good and very well-respected.

 

[Lita]

I am absolutely planning to give a gratuity in the suggested amount. I was wondering if anyone gives tips to the stateroom host on a daily basis (as you would at a hotel or WDW) if the service is excellent?

We give them a nice tip at the end.