OK now I have my upgrade........concierge tipping?

[dancemomof2]

OK Now I have my upgrade to cat. 3 what do I tip the concierge? Anyone have any suggestions?

 

[disneyholic family]

officially, the concierge is a 'non-tipping' position....
i.e., you're not supposed to tip them and they're not supposed to accept it...
i can't tell you whether they refuse or not as they did absolutely nothing for me, so there was no reason to tip them....
in fact, i only met them on friday at the concierge cocktail party....we chitchatted for about 10 minutes....but that was the sum total of my interaction with the concierge staff....
so i saw no reason to tip them....

on the other hand, we had two stateroom hosts instead of the normal one....the second one was in training and i was told that it was a non-tipping position....however he was the sweetest person you can imagine....always smiling and cheerful....so i tipped him anyway as i felt he deserved it....
as for all the other tipping positions....i didn't follow the guidelines...i felt they all deserved much more than what the guidelines stipulated, so i tipped them much more........(and they were very very gracious and appreciative....i think not so much for the amount as for the fact that we were so very pleased with their efforts to make our cruise the wonderful experience that it was...)

 

[cotomom]

Same here.

Here I looked so forward to concierge. It was a dis-service more than anything. When I went to the concierge meeting the first day, they had time slots available for different things (hairbraiding/spa/beauty salon) but there were very select time slots. None of which I wanted (like a 9am spa appt. for 2?) She tried to get another time, but they had already started taking ressies at the spa and they were already booked? So, what was the point for the concierge meeting that was supposedly BEFORE any place was taking ressies?

We too went to the cocktail party and we were never even approached by the concierge 'team'. Mind you we were in one of two cat. 1s and they couldn't pull themselves away from the bar to interact with us.

Yes, we received cookies and coloring books, but we could've gotten our own cookies (had to anyways as they only gave us 2 and there were 6 of us).

No tip deserved or necessary in my book.

 

[LorraineinTO]

One of the best things about this board is hearing about different experiences.

We cruised in June and couldn't have been happier with the concierge service. They helped arrange the spa treatments I wanted at the meeting on the first day. They took time to sit with us at the cocktail party to check that everything was going fine.

the cruise was a graduation present and the concierge dropped off a signed picture from Mickey Mouse congratulating me. My DH brought along a poster of the Magic and the concierge had all of the characters sign it as a rememberance of the graduation cruise. They also provided a full set of trading cards when my DH asked- even found one that is not in the current set.


And they wouldn't accept a tip!!

 

[howardk613]

Dancemomof2 -
We have been on 2 cruises and both were in a category 1 suite. The 1st was on the Magic and our concierge was terrific like
LorraineinTo' s experience. We offered a tip and it was refused but since our concierge was so terrific , we insisted and the tip was finally accepted (and well deserved). On our 2nd cruise (on the Wonder) our concierge was just as disneyholic family and cotomom described (nothing special) so we did not offer a tip. I guess it depends (like in most instances) on who is the concierge and how he or she does the job. By the way, in my opinion the reason to book a concierge suite (category 1 thru 3) is not for the concierge service (which is a nice plus) but for the room itself. These suites are beyond description and make the cruise even more special. I'm sure that you will enjoy the suite and the cruise.

 

[dancemomof2]

Thank you everyone for all your help. It is greatly appreciated.

 

[TootyJane]

Originally posted by howardk613
Dancemomof2 -
.... By the way, in my opinion the reason to book a concierge suite (category 1 thru 3) is not for the concierge service (which is a nice plus) but for the room itself. These suites are beyond description and make the cruise even more special. I'm sure that you will enjoy the suite and the cruise.

You are right. Words cannot describe the suites. We, too, have cruised two time -- both times in the Cat. 2 two-bedroom suite. Fortunately each time the Concierge service was outstanding. We had a great team this last May (Christina and Thierry). They called upon us each afternoon and delivered a different goodie. Thierry also left us a daily message. They gave each of our 3 boys arcade cards twice during our cruise. One thing we discovered on our first cruise was the fact that the Concierge Team is only given a select number of reservation spots for Palo, spa, etc. They didn't necessarily correspond to what we wanted so on our cruise this past May we made the reservations ourselves and didn't even go to the "meet and greet." Christina and Thierry stopped by later that afternoon to introduce themselves as they had missed us at the "meet and greet." They wanted to know if they could make any reservations for us and they were quite disappointed when we informed them we had made our own. Oh well. I would have gladly given them a tip but they flatly refused.

 

[disneyholic family]

i totally agree......
the reason to get a concierge stateroom is for the room itself....
the services on the ship are fantastic for everyone so i really don't need anything special from concierge (although i've heard they're adding the abilitiy to make advance phone reservations for some things for concierge guests.....if that's true, it's a wonderful addition...and i think you can specify the eating rotation as well....we asked for a table for 4 in advance and they said no problem)...

we also didn't go to the meet and greet and instead explored the ship and made our own spa reservations when we took the spa tour (we didn't eat at palos as i didn't want to miss a meal with the kids)...

we were in a cat 3 as the 1 and 2 staterooms were booked...
the cat 3 was a little bit cramped for my taste when the beds were open at night...
obviously on our next cruise i'll try for cat 1 or 2 but i wouldn't hesitate to take cat 3 again as the room is absoultely lovely...
we were in 8534 i think, which has a very nice configuration...

 

[ellyjenn]

If your tips are prepaid, do you still tip? ANd how do your servers etc know that you have already pretipped and are not just stiffing them?

 

[atigeg]

When you prepay the tips, you get little cards to put into the envelopes. We prepay the standard amounts early to avoid the lines at Guest Services and then add additional cash for those who deserve a little extra.
Barb
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