Fill Tip Envelopes before leaving?

[Macduffy]

I have my mousekeeping envelopes printed and ready to fill! Since there are 3 of us in the room I'm putting $3 a day (that's right - right?). Anyway... I would LOVE to fill my TS envelopes too but I'm not sure how much to put in them b/c we are 1) going for Free Dining and 2) I have no idea how much things cost.
Any suggestions? or should I just use my Key to the World card and charge it?

 

[eroilersgal]

Try allears.net for menus to ballpark your meal cost and calculate a tip. Go a liile high just to be safe. If the server deserves the extra, great it is there. If not, you can modify at the restaurant.

 

[bratmomma]

I did that. I went to allears and chose the most expensive things off the menus and based a tip on that. Because we are a party of 6, I know the gratuity will be 18%.

 

[daisyyy]

bratmomma.... what did you come up with? approximately per meal? We are also a party of 6... I know we probably are not all going to the same places, and we might have different ages in our party... but what did you estimate the average 18% gratuity will be based on what you found out on all ears..?? I've been stashing money in a jar just for this reason.. and mouse keeping / airport baggage handlers etc... so.. please tell....

 

[Debbie-TN]

I always like to fix my Mousekeeping envelopes ahead on time also. I prefer to leave cash for tips. If you have ADR's for buffets, you would be able to figure out the cost. Maybe for other restaurants, look at the menus here on the DIS and get a good idea of the cost. Ours always seems to be about $5 per person, per meal(less if you have kids).You could go ahead and have an envelope with small bills in it and put aside.

 

[coruth4]

I have a Grand Gathering in December and have the Dining Plan (free through a PIN Code!) and am pre-filling my tip envelopes also. We are lucky in that most of our meals are character meals or package meals (like Fantasmic & Candlelight Processional) so the meals are a flat rate & easy to figure the tip for.
I have also figured out the tip for the reaining memebers of our party and put sticky notes on each of the envelopes so that I can let everyone know how much the tip should be and it can all go into one envelope.
I love having all the expenses set aside and basically prepaid before going! We are doing the same with daily spending money & giving ourselves a pre-set daily spending allowance. No credit cards!

 

[JGoin]

What kind of envelopes are you leaving? Are you decorating them, or just putting "Housekeeping" on them?

 

[DaughteroftheKing]

What kind of envelopes are you leaving? Are you decorating them, or just putting "Housekeeping" on them?

themouseforless.com has cute envelope projects you can print on your home computer. You cut around the edge, add your tip, fold and tape shut. I made a different themed one for each day we will be there. They have Toy Story, Nemo, Classic Mickey, Winnie the Pooh, and plenty of others to choose from. The envelope says "For Mousekeeping, From ____" on it.

I will prefill mine with our tip so they are ready to go. I am planning $5 a day.

For dining at TS places, my best guess is it would be about $100 per meal (Me, DH, and DS), so 20% of that is $20. I'm taking enough $20 bills to cover all the TS places we are eating, plus an extra $15-$20 incase I estimated horribly wrong, OR the service is fantastic and we want to leave some extra $$ at places.

 

[bratmomma]

We are having 4 TS meals. CP, CM, 50's and HDDR. HDDR includes gratuity, so that one is taken care of. Two of the other three are buffets, so those were easy enough to figure. For 50's I chose the most expensive thing X4 (me, dh, mil, ds12) and the most expensive kids item X2 (ds8 and dd3). Added them up, figured 18%.

I got roughly $25 for tips per meal. One was $22 or $23 but another was like $27. I might plan $30, just to be safe.

My MIL is paying for our trip or we would never be going. Seeing that she is paying I feel the least we can do is cover the tips for TS meals, and anything else she wants that is above and beyond the DDP (which isn't much, from past experience). I had to look at how much it will be so I could budget because this will be a tight trip for us and I don't want to ask her to put out anymore $$ than she already has.

Now I have to figure how much the gas and tolls will be from Tamarac, FL to WDW so we can fill the rental back up and pay tolls along the way. Fun, fun! LOL

 

[DVCGeek]

I will prefill mine with our tip so they are ready to go. I am planning $5 a day.

Is that $5 each and every night of the stay or just $5 on the trash and towel and/or full cleaning days? Maybe I'm cheap but I've never left a $20 tip for a 4 night stay in a hotel and I usually leave "Do Not Disturb" on my door because I do NOT want housekeeping services. That was a perk in my book that DVC doesn't try and force it daily! Then again I am staying in studios; what size units do you do $5 / day for?

 

[bratmomma]

daisyyy...

for your party of six, are you counting your 1yr old?? If so, don't! I am almost positive that 1 yr olds can share off of your plate for free. My DD turns 3 next week, so we have to pay for her, and then adding my MIL makes 6.

On a side note, were are you staying? According to your ticker, I think you check in the day before we do! We check in on Sept 14 at POP. How about you?

 

[jerseygirl81]

On our last trip for months I put aside $5 and singles. We gave $5 for mousekeeping and for meals I looked at the menus and figured out what I thought everyone would eat and I added a little extra for any add'l things ordered or excellent service. I would write the name of the restaurant on the envelope so when we left in the am I would put out a tip env. and grab the one for the restaurant. I often ended up with extra cash from the meals which was handy to have. Planning this ahead of time was the best way to do it when you're running to the parks or to a dinner ressie. Just make sure you don't pack it in your suitcase and put them in the hotel room safe, till you need them. Linda

 

[amberg@eastlink.ca]

for kids 3 and under they do eat off your plate. ds is two and will be eating(if he eats at all) off our plates.

i feel like a smuchk! we wer there in 05, and never tipped, didn't know you were supposed to...but then again i never saw a mousekeeper. we weren't lucky to get an animal thingy....

so do you just do them up then leave them on the table when you leave for the day?

 

[Macduffy]

What kind of envelopes are you leaving? Are you decorating them, or just putting "Housekeeping" on them?

I found the Creative DISigns board and used some wonderful Mousekeeping envelopes the DISigners created!

 

[Debbie-TN]

for kids 3 and under they do eat off your plate. ds is two and will be eating(if he eats at all) off our plates.

i feel like a smuchk! we wer there in 05, and never tipped, didn't know you were supposed to...but then again i never saw a mousekeeper. we weren't lucky to get an animal thingy....

so do you just do them up then leave them on the table when you leave for the day?

I always just leave the envelope on the table. I have always left a tip at the Disney hotels, but that wasn't true years ago. My daughter worked at the front desk at a Holiday Inn for several years. She asked housekeeping if they got tips and they all said no. She says it's just a Disney thing. Do you leave tips at other hotels? I do now.

 

[amberg@eastlink.ca]

I always just leave the envelope on the table. I have always left a tip at the Disney hotels, but that wasn't true years ago. My daughter worked at the front desk at a Holiday Inn for several years. She asked housekeeping if they got tips and they all said no. She says it's just a Disney thing. Do you leave tips at other hotels? I do now.

thanks! nope, but this will be the first time away since we had kids! altho when we did travel to jamaica (ten yrs ago)we made sure to leave new trial sizes of shampoos and stuff.

 

[brekin67]

I also have my mousekeeping envelopes stuffed and ready. We eat dinner at the places where the meals cost about $20-$30pp with drink. There are 4 of us, so my TS envelopes are ready to go with $25 in each of them. We are always close to the 15-20% with this amount. Hope that helps.

 

[daisyyy]

daisyyy...

for your party of six, are you counting your 1yr old?? If so, don't! I am almost positive that 1 yr olds can share off of your plate for free. My DD turns 3 next week, so we have to pay for her, and then adding my MIL makes 6.

On a side note, were are you staying? According to your ticker, I think you check in the day before we do! We check in on Sept 14 at POP. How about you?

I was counting the 1 year old, (to be on the safe side).. I have read mixed feelings here on whether or not they will count the baby in the total. Some say they will,???(so we'll have the automatic gratuity added in because with him, we're six..) We're doing CM, GG, Biergarten, OHana, Teppan Edo, 1900 PF, Sci Fi & CP.... so, it looks like most of our TS meals he will be able to share. Generally we would leave at least 18% anyway.. but I like the option if the service was poor to give 15%. I don't mind, the tip is figured out for me... ( DH & I always look at the bill and say.. ok what are we supposed to leave? (no math major here).. and then I always hope I figured it out right.... )

We're staying @ POR (trundle bed).. so we all fit in one room (more or less) ... we're arriving on 9/16. Can't wait!

oh.. on another note.... I also read some where here on the DIS that when you give the CM your hotel card to "pay" for your meal.. on free dining... you might want to tell them ahead of time that you intend to pay the tip in cash... Or.. give them one of the kids cards that doesn't have charging privledges.... (sp) Because some people complained that they left cash for the tip.. (no proof).. and then at the end of the week, noticed their room was charged the tip again.. (intentionally.. don't know)... but it could happen... either way, I was planning to use one of my kids cards to pay for the meals.. and that way they cant charge the tip... (unless of course you want to charge the tip back to your room, then you can give them a card that has the room charge on it)... I'd like to use cash, and have it ready in my tip envelopes. (it was so much easier a few years ago when the gratuity was included in free dining)..

 

[mickeyplanner08]

The best way to avoid the double tip is to use your child's KTTW card to "pay" for your dinner. If you don't put charging privileges on your 9 year olds card, then they can't charge the tip to the room....one of the best "tips" I got from the DIS!

 

[DaughteroftheKing]

Is that $5 each and every night of the stay or just $5 on the trash and towel and/or full cleaning days? Maybe I'm cheap but I've never left a $20 tip for a 4 night stay in a hotel and I usually leave "Do Not Disturb" on my door because I do NOT want housekeeping services. That was a perk in my book that DVC doesn't try and force it daily! Then again I am staying in studios; what size units do you do $5 / day for?

I plan on doing $5 each day (we arrive on a Sat afternoon and leave on a Friday afternoon. So I will leave $5 on Sun/Mon/Tues/Wed/Thurs and Fri when we leave in the morning.

We're staying at Pop.

That's just me personally, and I felt like we had enough $$ for souveniers and we can do with $30 less for souvenirs. In the future when we go back, we may be pinching the pennies even harder just to be able to get there and our tipping (and souvenirs) will cut down to darn near nothing.

Whatever others choose to do is groovy .

I did really like the Mousekeeping envelopes so it can be pre-made and ready to go.