First cruise...explain gratuities please

[kiford]

When doing this, you'll receive vouchers for your prepaid gratuities to hand out the final morning, the same time you would have handed out your cash tips.

Whether you pre-pay or not, the process is the same - it's charged to your account. Prepaying only puts a credit on your onboard account for the amount of the gratuities. If you want to hand out cash instead, you can, but you have to go to Guest Services and have them remove the tips and then pay in cash. Waste of good deck/mojito/pool/lounging time IMO. If you want to increase the gratuity you can go to Guest Services and have them revise the amount or put additional cash into the voucher envelope.

At the end of the day, the CM gets the gratuity either way but with the voucher it goes directly to their account rather than having to take cash to be deposited and you don't have to: (a) go to Guest Services, and (b) make sure you find the CM to give it to them. This way, if they are busy on the last night or day and you don't see them, you know they'll get it. We often don't get to see our head server or stateroom attendant before we leave so I like the security of knowing they'll get it. Likewise, if we decide to increase the gratuity, we usually go to GS so I don't have to worry about cash not getting to them.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

Prepaying only puts a credit on your onboard account for the amount of the gratuities.

Sort of. You pre-pay gratuities by contacting DCL pre-cruise and the gratuity cost is added to the cruise cost. That way you pay for it before the cruise. And it doesn't get charged at the end of your cruise.

Yes, it's onboard credit, but it's already paid for. Saves a little "sticker shock" at the end of the cruise for some people.

 

[rhinodadz]

You may also want to make allowance for additional gratuities to your stateroom host/server/asst server. We've only had one cruise so far where we haven't given an additional gratuity to at least one of those individuals for going above & beyond expectations. For those we give cash in the envelope on the last night.

 

[undertheradar]

Depending upon your stateroom type, we tip more for concierge suites. Hard to understand that DCL charges the same daily tip for stateroom host in a standard stateroom, as it does for a Royal Suite.

 

[GeneralTso]

We had outstanding service from our room attendant, server and assistant server. We went to guest services and increased the standard gratuity that we "preordered" to be charged.

 

[shoes99]

We charge our pre-paid gratuities to our Disney Visa by adding it to the cruise price. This way we get points on the card, and 6 months
to pay off the charge. If you wait until the cruise, and gratuities are added to your onboard account, and you
leave it on your Visa, you don't get the 6 months no interest. Lots of folks might just bring
Disney gift cards to apply to their onboard account instead of leaving it on a credit card.
We are frequent DCL cruisers and the last two cruises my onboard account balance was zero
as I applied either a gift card or a Disney visa rewards card to pay for any charges left after applying
our onboard credit.

 

[Erintx7]

We have the Target Red card and all purchases in store are 5% off. there are 2 types of Red card: one acts as a debit card & the other as a credit card. We have the former. The Disney gift cards are overy in the movies/CDs. I pick up some every payday and payoff the cruise beforehand paying $95 for every $100 card. It adds up! If you have a BJs membership, you can get $100 cards for $94.99 online.

Picked up a few gift cards on my Target run last night... going to try it out. Spreadsheet next

 

[xlxo]

Thinking of an Alaskan cruise. I know gratuities aren't included but have no idea how to estimate so I can budget for them.

Alaska is a great cruise destination.... some ideas to save money....

• look for hotels a few blocks away from the cruise terminal for savings
• avoid pre-cruising on a long weekend when hotel rooms are in high demand.... Vancouver is best explored post cruise for a few days.
• look to May or early in the season for savings
• in addition to DCL... do also compare Princess and HAL sailings for the same week. You give up on pixie dust.... but you have a better glacier viewing opportunity at Glacier Bay, while saving significant money
• if you enjoy dry port weather.... look for an Alaskan cruise May to July when the weather is dryer. August starts to get wet and September is discounted for storm chasers.
• there is a special 9 day Alaskan cruise each year... this cruise does cost more as the extra 2 days include Hubbard. Avoid the cheaper 5 day cruise as you miss out on my fav 2 ports.

 

[CowgirlTN]

We've saved over $1000 over 2 cruises using the Target red card 5% savings. Woohoo!

I have a Target Red card, how did you save money?

 

[dad of 3 addicted to DCL]

I have a Target Red card, how did you save money?

I paid off 2 cruises incrementally by purchasing gift cards getting the 5% savings every time. I also prepaid gratuities, loaded the onboard account for port adventures and a little bit of extra for shopping/drinks/whatever. It added up. Instead of paying $20,000, I paid $19,000 (5% savings!!) Yay!

 

[twinsouvenirs]

I know the feeling!! I have a spreadsheet so that I can track and plan for payoff over time (we buy the gift cards at Target to get the 5% discount), prepping for the on board booking, DCL port adventures/independent adventures...ahhh!!!! My wife thinks that I'm crazy. At least I'm the happy kind!

This is totally me too!