Question on tipping???

[korzmom]

I have a problem with figuring out who to tip..when you valet park,do you tip the person who takes your car or brings it back or both???when you use concierge service do you tip the guy who loads your bags or the guy who delivers them to your room or both???and finally what is considered a resonable tip???

 

[DisneySpence]

We only ever tip the wait staff at the restaurants we do not tip mousekeeping and we never use valet so no need to tip them. We will tip Bellservices if we use their service but only 1 time have we ever used it.

 

[lllovell]

I tip about a dollar a bag for bell assistance, however - when it is just myself and the boys and the bellman is especially helpful (because we take like 800000000 things that are not always loaded up in their little containers when we arrive like the computer that they watch movies on, etc) I tip more. Last time I stayed at the Grosvenor, I tipped the guy a $20 (because it was all I had) for helping me with my bags. You know what it got me? FANTASTIC service. He asked if we were leaving again soon - kept my car handy for me and made sure it was valeted that night again without any wait or problems. He also checked on us a few times when we were around the lobby, showing my sons fun stuff, etc. Know what? I asked for him when we left and made sure the front desk knew how helpful he was. Best tip money ever since I was traveling with a 2 and 4 year old and could hardly leave them in the room alone to unload myself.

For valeting, I tip when receiving my car unless they are holding it there for me. (usually $2)

whoops - more to ad

I do tip mousekeeping - a few bucks a night when in a hotel, but not sure what we will do for them when we are staying on points and dont get housekeeping every night...going to have to figure that one out. I tend to leave a dollar a person a night - not much, but I am sure they appreciate any little bit (more if they go that extra mile and make my children happy )

 

[disney junky]

I thought there was a mailing within the last six months that included tipping guidelines. Do these appear in any of the other published material?

 

[Maistre Gracey]

Good questions. It is clear who to tip when there is only one person involved, but as you say, one guy takes the bags out of the trunk, another parks the car, and a third brings the bags to your room.
I do believe proper etiquette for valet parking is to tip the person who delivers your car to you. That being said, I tip both ways. I also tip all bellman involved in handling my bags, as well as housekeeping.
Not only do I tip too many people, but I probably over tip amount wise.

Proper amounts vary quite a bit. I use $5 for valet parking, $10 for bell services, $5 trash day, and $20 full cleaning.

The result? When I call down for my car, they remember who I am by name.

Good luck!

MG

 

[kathleena]

There goes MG, always raising the standard!

Hey MG - I want you to know that I am now officially two degrees of Kevin Bacon. Someone from my class in High School was in Mystic River. I'll only get closer by meeting him.

Anyway - back to tipping.............If valet takes the bags out, we tip $3. When valet brings the car we tip $3. We tip the bellman who arrives at our room $2-$3 per bag. We don't tip housekeeping unless there is some extraordinary service that we want to recognize.

A note about Mousekeeping - if you just leave $$$ in the room - the person who comes in to clean gets it. So you may not be tipping the right person unless you get someone's name. They do not pool tips.

 

[rbuzzotta]

We tip when we recieve our car from the valet ($3). We tip the bellman that brings our bags to our room ($1 per bag, usually around $15 or so). Dh also tips others in the valet area (either valet parkers or bell man or such) if they give advice, directions, tips, nice service. DH is pretty generous as long as he is treated with respect and no attitude!!!

 

[spiceycat]

okay I thought we just do this

maid service $1 a day per person

bell services $1 per luggage

valet - I tip $2 both ways - so $4 total

food servers 15 to 20% of the total bill

 

[TnRobin]

We too probably over tip. We give a little something to the guy who unloads the car. I always seem to get my luggage more quickly that way. I also tip the person who brings the luggage to our room.

As for the car - we too usually tip both ways. I figure a few extra dollars helps ensure that my car gets a few less dings.

The maid - well it all depends on what size unit I have - I think $1 per day/per person/per room.

Like I said, this is more than expected, but hey I expect and get great service.

Robin

 

[barb45]

Another tipping question. When you switch resorts (which we are going to do on our next trip) I know that they will transfer your luggage - although I'm not quite sure how this is done. Who do you tip for this service and how much?

 

[pumpkinboy]

I am interested in the resort changing tip etiquette too.

As for regular tipping, I gave a $10 to the nice fellow picking up our bags when checking out of VWL as soon as the bags were on the cart; for this, he personally called up our car, loaded stuff in and helped me load my son's wheelchair in at the very end. Great service and a big thank you. He clearly liked being tipped up front and really went the extra mile (IMO) helping us get all loaded up. A great finish to a great (if short) stay.

 

[Dean]

Do an internet search for tipping etiquette and see what you find. Look at 3-5 sites minimum and see how they fit together and how you feel. WDW does not consider the mousekeeping staff to be a tipped position. I think standard is to tip when you pick up your car somewhere in the $1-3 range and on the final destination of the bags (your room on arrival) $1-2 per bag. Of course there are many variables. Is it raining, do they remember your name or open the door, do you have 15 small grocery bags from Publix, etc. This will give you the basics then you can decide what's reasonable to you.

Personally I find it unreasonable to tip a non tipped position if they don't do anything more than their job and I don't do anything to make their job particularly difficult. Thus I don't tip mousekeeping in general. But I do strip the beds, group the sheets and towels hear the door (separated) and load the DW and put it on running when we leave. We pick up all we can and leave the place as reasonably clean as possible in the situation realizing they're going to wash the dishes and change the towels/sheets. I usually don't do valet but when I do, I usually tip $2 on pickup more if it's raining or there are other issues. I frankly hate someone else messing with my things, I like to be in control. So I try very hard not to deal with bellman if I can help it. I'd rather make several trips, I guess it's just me.

 

[Muushka]

We have also struggled with the tipping issue. We always used the bell services, but they sure made it uncomfortable. It seemed like everyone had their hand out. We usually tipped $10 to the one who brought the stuff to the rooms and $5 to the one who loaded it from the car to the cart. We had about 10 items and we would always help them load/unload the stuff.

Then I did some research (on these boards) and got involved in a tip discussion over on the budget board. Over there someone said that you had better tip the one who loads the cart because otherwise your stuff may not be as safe or handled like it should be. Then I read the tipping guidelines on this boardtip guidelines where it said to tip $3 PER BAG to the one rolling it to your room. Well, that was the straw that broke the camel's back. That would mean we SHOULD (according to these boards guidelines) be tipping $30 plus whatever to the guy taking it from the car to the cart. No way were we about to pay that.

So this past Dec we decided to lug our own luggage. What a pleasure it was. We did it in 2 trips, got some much needed exercise, and did not have to deal with all the hands out. I too do not like people messing with my stuff.

 

[barb45]

We have never used bell services or valet - just like to handle our own stuff and I too feel uncomfortable with who to tip etc. We did have a problem with our fridge being turned off in our room and all our frozen food thawed. I called the front desk and they sent up a guy from housekeeping who said it was a mistake on the part of the person cleaning the room and they would replace the food - he picked up the spoiled food and on his way to work the next day stopped at the grocery store and purchased new food (the disney store didn't have the same brands and products). I thought this was so wonderful, I tried to tip him and he absolutely refused to take it. Then I felt all warm and fuzzy! He knew how grateful we were so he probably felt the same.

I really wish they would have a NO tipping policy for anyone (but raise their wages of course). Then we could expect courteous service from everyone without having to show them money first. Also you have the big tippers so if you are a standard tipper you don't get as good a service either. Where does it stop?

 

[dallastxcpa]

In response to luggage transfer we always leave a tip ($1/bag) under the bags in the room for the first part of the transfer.

We then tip at the new hotel when the bags are delivered. To me this is worth it as it saves us a lot of trouble of having to arrange transportation to get our bags to the new hotel and missing park time.

 

[elfbo]

So for those who tip for mousekeeping, do you tip appox 1$ per person per day per day stayed. Or 1$ per person for the day the mousekeeping is done?

We stayed for 4 days and so got no T&T or full service, so I tipped 2$ because they only cleaned the room after we left. I plan to tip 2$ per person on full service day, and 1$ on T&T day, the rest of the time, not planning to tip because we are not getting service on those days.

 

[drakester]

I truly find it amazing that people don't tip Mousekeeping! These are the people who are cleaning up our living space. Scrubbing toilets, grimmy bathtubs and vacuuming the dirt we leave on the floors. I am aware this is their jobs and they do get paid for it. As a stay at home mom I can assure you what ever they get paid it is not enough. I find my most magical experiences occure when I am the one spreading alittle pixie dust! As a rule we tip 1$ a bag, 20$ a week to Mousekeeping and 15%-20% on food service depending on the service.

 

[Dean]

I truly find it amazing that people don't tip Mousekeeping! These are the people who are cleaning up our living space. Scrubbing toilets, grimmy bathtubs and vacuuming the dirt we leave on the floors. I am aware this is their jobs and they do get paid for it. As a stay at home mom I can assure you what ever they get paid it is not enough. I find my most magical experiences occure when I am the one spreading alittle pixie dust! As a rule we tip 1$ a bag, 20$ a week to Mousekeeping and 15%-20% on food service depending on the service.

They are getting paid to to that job, it's their choice to do so. What I find amazing is that people insist on tipping a position that Disney themselves state is a non tipped position, just for doing their job. If they do something extra, that's a different matter.