Don't shoot the questioner!!!

[prov3v56]

When traveling with small children, ages 1 and 5, do you also tip the same amount for them as adults. This is the first time that I will be traveling with children and I wasn't sure what the standard is for tipping. Any advice would be appreciated.

Thank you.

 

[tvguy]

Yes, the tip is per person, no matter the age.

Interesting about the other states with sub-minimum wages for wait staff.
But tips are where it's at, I have worked with a couple of folks who made $40-$50k a year working part time as waitresses.....so at the right restaurant, it can be a very well paying job.

NCL has one ship that is American flagged, and they do pay minimum wage, $5:15 an hour. It is also is a "Freestyle" ship.....no assigned dining rooms, no assigned tables, eat in any dining room any time you want, different wait staff every meal. A $10 a day charge per person is added to your room account and is pooled and divided among the staff.
Service apparently is so bad that NCL has had to refund money for both fares and tips.

 

[CheapMom]

I would not agree that you would tip on an infant the same as an adult. A 1 year old who sits at the table... makes a mess in the stateroom...- I would say yes- tip at least the minimum- but I would not feel required to tip fully for a babe in arms.

 

[rae519]

Some great advise here - don't feel obligated to tip for your infant, IF your infant didn't require any services from the dining room staff or stateroom person. But if you have a small toddler who was quite the opposite, then you should tip accordingly.

It's hard to say how much to give extra for services - I think any amount that is given with a generous heart is enough.

Rae

 

[tvguy]

If you are bringing a 1 year old to dinner, I can see adjusting your tip, but I suspect unless this is a very neat 1 year old that needs little attention from the wait staff, I might be inclined to tip more than the standard amount.

 

[aprilgail2]

The stateroom host is still emptying that diaper genie every day for your baby....Our host made sure that genie was emptied every day.

 

[markºoº]

You must be in Texas. It is the only state I am aware of that allows a sub-minimum wage for those who get tips. Here in California, the minimum wage for everyone statewide is $6.75. Some San Francisco are communities have "living wage" laws that require $10.25 an hour if you also offer health insurance, and $11.50 if you don't.

Interesting about the other states with sub-minimum wages for wait staff.
But tips are where it's at, I have worked with a couple of folks who made $40-$50k a year working part time as waitresses.....so at the right restaurant, it can be a very well paying job.

Actually I think California is in the minority regarding this issue. Most states, including Wisconsin, have a separate minimum wage for those in the service industry that receive tips. I actually think I would be less inclined to tip if I knew the server was receiving a higher base wage.

That said, the people on board ANY cruise ship that are in positions that receive tips DO RELY on those tips as the primary source of income.

 

[ivanova]

Our head server both this year & last year were great ... Lord help us when we get a not so fantastic dining manager, we might know what to do!!

I think the head server suggested amount is $3.75 per person for the 4 night cruise ... last year we rounded it up to $5 per person (he came to our table EVERY night and took care of DH's nut allergy issues) ... this year we paid the head server $15 per person because he actually stood in for our server who was injured the 2nd day of our cruise and was not able to work the 2nd, 3rd or 4th night of the cruise.

We also significantly increased our assistant server's tip because he stepped up to the plate when our server was out also.

 

[edith76]

Missmulan, Maybe the person left cash tips for the stateroom host - lets hope so, anyway.

 

[cruisenewbie2004]

Our TA actually made a point to tell us that for our two small children to tip half the required amount, such that two small children = one adult tip.

 

[Horace Horsecollar]

Our TA actually made a point to tell us that for our two small children to tip half the required amount, such that two small children = one adult tip.

That's in line with the suggested tipping guidelines of some other cruise lines.

But DCL's suggested tipping guidelines do not make distinction between adults and children. That makes sense, considering the high percentage of children on DCL cruises -- and the fact that children often require more effort for the servers and hosts/hostesses than adults.

 

[Footnotegirl]

Minnesota and Michigan also do not require minimum wage for people who serve tables. Even in states that do require minimum wage for servers, minimum wage is simply put not enough to live on. Servers also tend to have to 'tip-out' to numerous other people in the establishment (bartenders, secondary servers, bus boys, even cooks at some places), so they don't even get all your tip (and are taxed as if they get tipped at least 7% on every tab, whether or not they actually do). Which is not to say that if you get poor service anywhere you shouldn't withhold tip. Indeed you should, and you should also complain to management.

None of which really has much to do with Disney Cruises per se, but I think that the suggested tip is definately the required for absolutely average service. If you get better service, you should definately tip more, and unless the service was bad enough that you felt you should complain to guest services and the like (as we did with our Palo server for dinner) then you shouldn't really tip less.

With the number of children on the ship, and how they are treated (as far as I've seen) as full passengers requiring and deserving of the same level of service that the adults get, I think it's just fine that it be assumed that you would tip the same amount as for an adult. That's children though, not perhaps babes in arms. However, I can also see tipping less to the dinner servers if you're like the friends we took our last cruise with, who's son only ate meals with us once and insisted on doing all the rest of them in the club.

 

[jrabbit]

I'm really looking forward to our repo cruise. But I'm "concerned" about the size of the tip at the end of the cruise. For two weeks it's going to be a heafty amount (and yes I'm prepared to pay more than the recommended amount as we usually do.) We've just never been on a cruise for two weeks in one stretch. I wonder if DCL will have a "revised" recommended gratituity schedule for those two cruises.

 

[Horace Horsecollar]

We've just never been on a cruise for two weeks in one stretch. I wonder if DCL will have a "revised" recommended gratituity schedule for those two cruises.

Yes, I'm sure Disney will provide suggested gratuity guidelines to passengers on the 14-night cruises -- with amounts that are double those of the 7-night cruises.

 

[missmulan]

Missmulan, Maybe the person left cash tips for the stateroom host - lets hope so, anyway.

i hope so! i left cash (the suggested amount x 4) for all four CMs.

considering the prices that disney charges for their products, services, merchandise, food & beverages, the gratuities for the CMs are really affordable. c'mon....$25.75 for a 7 night cruise per person? that comes out to a little over $4 a night!

i recently came back from disneyland and right near the dumbo ride is a hot dog & chips cart. okay....$7.75 for hot dog & small bag of chip.

 

[crisi]

To whomever asked how much more people overtip.

For our 4 day cruise, the suggested tip for the server was just under $60. IIRC we tipped $100. We also tipped our excellent assistant server the same, despite his suggested tip being smaller ($43) - so we more than doubled his. He really seemed to make an effort to make dining enjoyable for the kids - and worked as hard as our server.

The recommended tip for the stateroom host was $57 - we tipped her $65. She was good, but not exceptional. The rest of the tips were rounded up to the nearest $5 - as we gave cash in an envelope and dollar bills seemed cheap.

By the way, Minnesota law now does require minimum wage to tipped positions. $4.90 for small employers (less than $500,000 a year in gross receipts) $5.15 for large employers.

http://www.dol.gov/esa/programs/whd/state/tipped.htm

 

[ivanova]

I'm really looking forward to our repo cruise. But I'm "concerned" about the size of the tip at the end of the cruise. For two weeks it's going to be a heafty amount (and yes I'm prepared to pay more than the recommended amount as we usually do.) We've just never been on a cruise for two weeks in one stretch. I wonder if DCL will have a "revised" recommended gratituity schedule for those two cruises.

I'm working on the assumption it'll be 2x the amount of a 7 day cruise, so that's what I'm going to budget for (with extra budgeted in for "excellent" service).

This reminds me of something.... We were on the 11/14 Wonder and talked to several CMs about the repo cruises & sailings out of CA. A lot of Wonder CMs are hoping to move to the Magic when they re-sign their contracts.....but every CM told us that servers & stateroom hosts on the Wonder do not want to move to the Magic because they think they will actually lose money in overall tips. The way they explained it is like this....

Working on the Wonder the 3 day and 4 day suggested tips for each position added together equal the suggested tips on the 7 day Wonder ... but the "rounding up" or increase in tips (for excellent service) is greater on the Wonder than on the Magic (because you have two different guests on the Wonder tipping you, versus the same guest on the Magic).

If on each cruise maybe a guest simply "rounds up" to the nearest $5 or $10. it works out to
3-day 4-day 7-day
Server $15 $20 $30 -- more $$ on the Wonder
Assist Server $10 $15 $20 -- more $$ on the Wonder
Head Server $5 $5 $10 -- same
Stateroom Host $15 $15 $30 -- same

It is potentially possible for servers/stateroom hosts on the Wonder to make more money in tips working two cruises in a week than servers/stateroom hosts on the Magic working only one cruise in a week. So servers/stateroom hosts aren't all that gung-ho to move to the Magic next summer (there's a potential on the 2 week repo cruises that their tips might be less than 4 cruises in the same time period on the Wonder).

 

[ohiominnie]

I'm really looking forward to our repo cruise. But I'm "concerned" about the size of the tip at the end of the cruise. For two weeks it's going to be a heafty amount

I looked into the Repo cruise. It wasn't the amount of the tip at the end that concerned me, it was the amount of the actual cruise fare. Guess when we book cruises we need to consider all the money that will be going out...cruise fare, transportation, parking at the port, transfers, excursions, buying cruise wear, sticking the dog in the kennel, souveniers, paying the people who come and watch the cat and house, parking at the airport, alcoholic beverages, jackpot bingo, and, yes...TIPS!!

 

[rae519]

I looked into the Repo cruise. It wasn't the amount of the tip at the end that concerned me, it was the amount of the actual cruise fare. Guess when we book cruises we need to consider all the money that will be going out...cruise fare, transportation, parking at the port, transfers, excursions, buying cruise wear, sticking the dog in the kennel, souveniers, paying the people who come and watch the cat and house, parking at the airport, alcoholic beverages, jackpot bingo, and, yes...TIPS!!

I laughed but in a good way, ohiominnie! It was the three dogs and cat in the kennel that bit my budget. They offered a program where they would do extra for you animal. I ASSUMED it was a weekly fee, but it was a daily fee and we were gone two weeks. OUCH! Really bit me HARD!!!!

Thanks for the laugh!

Rae

 

[Limmer]

We also tipped extra for our wait staff and stateroom hostess. Could not imagine receiving better service. We tipped each of them approx $15 more (two people in the room). We just took all of our remaining US $ (excpet for $5 in singles to tip bus driver) and divided it up. The only thing we tipped UNDER was out head waiter. We had a table for 10 and not one person at our table could tell us his name and we had not seen him once, not even tip night! I think we gave him $5 total. We tipped everything in cash because at the time we were not sure if Disney charged a service fee to the staff for charged tips. Probably they don't, but we wanted our team to get every penny.
We also gave our stateroom hostess all the extra "stuff" I had packed. Unopened shampoo, toothpaste, facial cleanser, soap and tampons. (Why I brought two of everything I cannot explain except to say it was my first vacation and I WAY overpacked). I asked her if she could use them or if a friend could and she seemed very appreciative and told us these things were very expensive for them to pick up.