Thanks for mentioning me in your post yesterday, I've spent the last day reading and getting caught on the entire thread and have a few thoughts.
As far as your original post, I totally get your logic behind it and even somewhat agree, why fork over a gratuity for service you haven't received yet? If it's a true gratuity, it should come after you can evaluate the service. I look at these as service charges and just pay ahead of time whenever possible, I really wish they would just put it as part of my cruise fare and getaway from the gratuity all together. I generally give cash to our servers and/or room attendants at the end of the cruise, but not always.
For example, on our 2nd cruise our Head Server noticed our kids not eating the dinner rolls, we told him they just weren't into "fancier" rolls, they like plain white dinner rolls. Every night after that, there was a basket of plain white dinner rolls on the table. Not only did we tip him extra but also made sure to mention this on the survey and a follow up email when we returned home. That is the kind of above and beyond service that I will pay extra more. That's the kind of above and beyond service I want my employees to do for my guests.
We've had servers on
DCL that we give nothing extra to because they did nothing to warrant it. When we were on the Wonder, Noreen, our room attendant was amazing, was so kind and thoughtful and took great care of us, she definitely got extra.
When I worked for Disney, none of us were allowed to accept tips, with the exception of the birthday party hosts. Disney didn't allow them to keep them for themselves though, they pooled them all together and then we did something all together with that money. I hated this with a passion! I think it doesn't give the full incentive to do your best, it screams of redistribution of wealth to me. As you can probably tell, I totally agree with your comment I quoted.
Overall, I'm not a fan of the gratuity on cruise ships, just charge me what you're going to charge me and be done with it. Let employees/CM's accept cash tips, regardless of position and move on. If it's "not fair" that behind the scene CM's don't receive tips, then they can work harder to get to a position that receives tips if they're good enough. And not everyone is good enough to get those positions, and that's ok.
And for what it's worth, none of the workers in my restaurant are tipped employees, they all make above minimum wage. However, if they receive a tip for something they keep it, no redistribution of wealth. Some dishwashers like not making extra and staying in the dish room and some want to be more in the spot light so they can receive tips. There are some nights, I really wish I could spend 4-6 hours in the dish room, never speaking to a guest. We pay higher rates so we can hire and keep better employees. If somebody doesn't meet our minimum standards, they don't last long.
I think, as someone suggested earlier, compose an email, don't remove then add later. That would be a waste of your time and would have less impact on the decision makers.
Nice topic and ensuing discussion.
