Sateroom attendant

[tvguy]

And remember the world is not just Americans cruising, a good portion of the world doesn't have the tip culture we have and ones that do don't normally have it to the same severe degree we do.

Yes. For some it not only isn't what they are used to, a tip is considered an insult. Cruises are a true melting pot of different cultures. Passengers have to be sensitive to that, as do crew members. My last cruise was on Celebrity and the crew was under going special refresher training because the cruise after ours was a charter by a group whose beliefs and actions might be offensive to the crew from some cultures and religions. .

 

[Mommb]

I personally would be okay with tips being included in the fare (assuming the crew actually gets them) with envelopes provided to add additional amounts for those who wish to but many people enjoy the feeling of the crew needing to "earn" their tip. I don't agree with that way of thinking but it is common and one of the reasons the dining plan dropped tips included at WDW

I suspect that if tips were simply charged as part of the cruise fare, people would be less likely to increase the amounts and the crew would make less. On the other hand, highlighting how much is being charged also makes it more likely people will ask to remove or reduce the amount.

I would support the idea of including gratuities in the fare and providing envelopes for additional tips (to clarify which positions can accept tips) as long as additional gratuities could still be added to the onboard account. I don't like carrying large amounts of cash, but I do like rewarding people who do a good job.

Like many previous posters, I could maintain my room myself and don't need daily service, but recognize that it is far easier for the cruise staff to simply service every room than to keep track of who wants what. On a 7-night cruise, there may be 1 or 2 times I return to the room in the middle of the day while the cabin steward is working on it, and it's not a problem to find somewhere else to go for 10 minutes. Generally, it's eerie how the stewards can slip in and out while I'm away from the room.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I personally would be okay with tips being included in the fare (assuming the crew actually gets them) with envelopes provided to add additional amounts for those who wish to but many people enjoy the feeling of the crew needing to "earn" their tip. I don't agree with that way of thinking but it is common and one of the reasons the dining plan dropped tips included at WDW

I don't disagree how behaviorally people can be but it's an American perspective because that's how our tipping culture is so sure some people would complain but probably would be more the Americans because we have a hard time with not tipping everyone. It would be much harder for a cruise line aimed at Americans to do that, I certainly agree with you there.

Silversea, Regent, Seabourn, Explora Journeys, Virgin Voyages, Azamara, Emerald, P&O are some of the cruise lines where tipping is just part of the fare. And generally these cruise lines it is already expected that excellent service is provided (most often the crew are well paid), the crew doesn't need to earn their tip, though some entitled rude people may think someone needs to earn their wage by making unrealistic demands, they aren't obligated to add more money to the pot so to speak.

Tip envelopes are not something you normally see on Seabourn for example (whose mantra until it changes is tips are neither required nor expected) and if you started seeing it as a norm a lot of people would jump ship (pun intended) as this is considered far too blatant. It's all how the cruise line structures themselves and well the passengers who sail them. This is one of the reasons I mentioned in the OP's prior thread to another poster about trying out a cruise line that has tips included, it's unfair to penalize some of these crew members when you're on a line that tips are part of the structure and for the OP in this thread to arbitrarily not tip this time around when before they did even when both cruises they did not have the room serviced.

 

[princesscinderella]

Yes. For some it not only isn't what they are used to, a tip is considered an insult. Cruises are a true melting pot of different cultures. Passengers have to be sensitive to that, as do crew members. My last cruise was on Celebrity and the crew was under going special refresher training because the cruise after ours was a charter by a group whose beliefs and actions might be offensive to the crew from some cultures and religions. .

I wonder if it was the naked charter sailing one of the ships just had?

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Yes. For some it not only isn't what they are used to, a tip is considered an insult. Cruises are a true melting pot of different cultures. Passengers have to be sensitive to that, as do crew members. My last cruise was on Celebrity and the crew was under going special refresher training because the cruise after ours was a charter by a group whose beliefs and actions might be offensive to the crew from some cultures and religions. .

I think you still need to learn the rules for the line you're sailing (which goes the same for the crew) much like you do when you travel to another country. So I don't mean that a person from a culture that doesn't have tipping (or to our degree) can just not tip on the basis of that or on the flip side a crew member from a culture that does tip can just expect a tip on the basis of that, but I do think that how we approach the topic especially who we tip is much more of an American perspective as we are used to tipping anyone and everyone and often in ever increasing amounts.

 

[tvguy]

I wonder if it was the naked charter sailing one of the ships just had?

No, but our servers said the real issue was this group tended to buy a whole lot more alcohol than other cruises which caused some passengers to act out with the crew. There was a VERY strict process for crew to follow if that happened. This group chartered the ship several times a year, and typically a couple crew members got fired for punching out passengers who crossed the line instead of just reporting it to a supervisor.

 

[tvguy]

I think you still need to learn the rules for the line you're sailing (which goes the same for the crew) much like you do when you travel to another country. So I don't mean that a person from a culture that doesn't have tipping (or to our degree) can just not tip on the basis of that or on the flip side a crew member from a culture that does tip can just expect a tip on the basis of that, but I do think that how we approach the topic especially who we tip is much more of an American perspective as we are used to tipping anyone and everyone and often in ever increasing amounts.

On one of our HAL cruises we had a very informative conversation with our server who said not getting a tip from a passenger from a culture when that is not the norm was just part of the job. He said the tiny salary he got from HAL was more than he would earn from a job back home in Indonesia, so that kind of made up for it.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

On one of our HAL cruises we had a very informative conversation with our server who said not getting a tip from a passenger from a culture when that is not the norm was just part of the job. He said the tiny salary he got from HAL was more than he would earn from a job back home in Indonesia, so that kind of made up for it.

It's part of their job of course, that's just called professionalism to not make the customer (in this case passenger) feel obligated to tip especially if you knew it wasn't as common where that passenger is from.

 

[brentm77]

I personally would be okay with tips being included in the fare (assuming the crew actually gets them) with envelopes provided to add additional amounts for those who wish to but many people enjoy the feeling of the crew needing to "earn" their tip. I don't agree with that way of thinking but it is common and one of the reasons the dining plan dropped tips included at WDW

I wish Americans would move away from the idea that we must control the tip to receive good service. It's a sensitive subject, but the best customer service I consistently received was when visiting Japan, where tipping is not the norm. I also receive similar or better service to the U.S. when visiting Europe, where no tip is expected. It seems there are much better methods to ensure good service than leaving it to the discretion of customers, who can deprive people of income they deserve if a customer simply decides not to tip. Furthermore, it addresses the issue of generous individuals subsidizing those who do not contribute.

This thread is Exhibit A to support my claim.

 

[dreamer17555]

I wish Americans would move away from the idea that we must control the tip to receive good service. It's a sensitive subject, but the best customer service I consistently received was when visiting Japan, where tipping is not the norm. I also receive similar or better service to the U.S. when visiting Europe, where no tip is expected. It seems there are much better methods to ensure good service than leaving it to the discretion of customers, who can deprive people of income they deserve if a customer simply decides not to tip. Furthermore, it addresses the issue of generous individuals subsidizing those who do not contribute.

This thread is Exhibit A to support my claim.

I agree completely. Sadly there are many who like to "hold the purse strings" so to speak over those in service job's heads. It's an awful way to treat others IMO but it has become ingrained in American culture. I would be 100% okay with the tip being worked into the base fee (assuming it goes directly to the crew) with the ability to to add on more (cash or onboard account charge) for those who wish to. I do worry though something like that might reduce the tips that the crew are getting because the OP is more of an outlier than the norm and many people do tip above the automatic amount but might not feel like they need to as much if the tips are baked into the cost.

It would be wonderful if we could find out if say the crew on DCL is making more with this system vs the crew on Virgin but that data as far as I can tell is not public. It is also likely that it will shift depending on on where the ship is sailing from- ships sailing from the US where tipping is common might the crew making more using DCL's current system but that might be different on sailings from other countries where tipping is not as common.

 

[Kae]

So what I feel the bottom line is you didn't have them do their job so you wouldn't have to tip.

 

[Mags2002]

I agree completely. Sadly there are many who like to "hold the purse strings" so to speak over those in service job's heads. It's an awful way to treat others IMO but it has become ingrained in American culture. I would be 100% okay with the tip being worked into the base fee (assuming it goes directly to the crew) with the ability to to add on more (cash or onboard account charge) for those who wish to. I do worry though something like that might reduce the tips that the crew are getting because the OP is more of an outlier than the norm and many people do tip above the automatic amount but might not feel like they need to as much if the tips are baked into the cost.

It would be wonderful if we could find out if say the crew on DCL is making more with this system vs the crew on Virgin but that data as far as I can tell is not public. It is also likely that it will shift depending on on where the ship is sailing from- ships sailing from the US where tipping is common might the crew making more using DCL's current system but that might be different on sailings from other countries where tipping is not as common.

I do know that the first Australian season, a significant number of Guests removed tips from their account altogether as Australians do not have a big tipping culture. Crew lost a lot of money that season, and a lot said they would not go back to Australia. I’m not sure if a similar thing happened during the second Australian season

 

[scroogie]

I do know that the first Australian season, a significant number of Guests removed tips from their account altogether as Australians do not have a big tipping culture. Crew lost a lot of money that season, and a lot said they would not go back to Australia. I’m not sure if a similar thing happened during the second Australian season

I was on three cruises during the latest Australian season, and I was pleasantly surprised in the social media groups for all of them in that many first-timers seemed to go out of their way to pre-pay their gratuities.

 

[DisneYE]

Reading this thread and the post from the OP really made my blood boil.
Non-tipping cheapskates should be banned from DCL imo... But to be fair its also the fault of DCL... simply make tips mandatory and impossible to remove. That'll force the bean counters to pay no matter what...and if they don't like it, well, don't go on a cruise.. Easy solution.

 

[Kwami]

Reading this thread and the post from the OP really made my blood boil.
Non-tipping cheapskates should be banned from DCL imo... But to be fair its also the fault of DCL... simply make tips mandatory and impossible to remove. That'll force the bean counters to pay no matter what...and if they don't like it, well, don't go on a cruise.. Easy solution.

A mandatory tip is not a tip.

So, just skip the whole thing. Disney can pay their employees better and the rest of us can stop worrying about it. Everyone wins.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

A mandatory tip is not a tip.

That's why many cruise lines now call it a Hotel Service charge.

 

[bakerworld]

I'm assuming the OP is talking about additional tipping and not what is auto charged, when stating they didn't tip.

We've been on 10 DCL cruises. On all of them we left the 'auto' tip in place, so everyone received something. However, on 2 cruises we did not give the MDR servers any additional tip because we didn't use the MDR for those cruises so they received the auto tip for, I guess, services they provided on CC. Our first cruise we didn't leave any additional tip for the room attendant because in the 3 days we cruised it was a different person every day - sometimes twice a day - so we figured the person assigned to our cabin was sick. We found this confusing and didn't tip extra. One guy was in a white officer uni.

On two cruises we were all over the place with our schedule and a few times attendants missed our evening service but that was our fault. The service provided otherwise was wonderful so that additional tip was reflective on service that would've been provided if we'd've let them. One room attendant we tipped less extra because I constantly had to remake the bed along with having to put up with DH telling me to stop and call the attendant back. Apparently, some people don't mind sleeping on wrinkles but I'm not one of those. LOL

My last comment on tipping relates to the land portion of our vacations. We leave a tip even if staying for 1 night because we use everything - bathroom, kitchen, bed - we touch it all and the room definitely needs to be put back in order. So yes, IMO, a 1N stay needs a tip.

My comment on the Room Occupied tag is that when we hang that on the door we REALLY want to be UNDISTURBED. So all of those who hang that tag on the door all day are a PITA.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

we didn't use the MDR for those cruises so they received the auto tip for, I guess, services they provided on CC.

The tip for the servers covers all meals - breakfast, lunch and dinner. The "dinner" servers also staff/serve in those locations - the buffet and fast food locations, as well as the MDR that serves those meals.

 

[Kwami]

That's why many cruise lines now call it a Hotel Service charge.

But why not just fold it into the cruise fare? Why bother breaking it out into a separate line item at all?

 

[DVCSunDevil]

Yes I did, I didn't use there services at all. If I did used the service, I would have tipped or adjusted accordingly.

You may want to consider just not cruising at all if you are going to reduce/remove the tip just because you demanded they not clean your room. That is how they make their money and you know going into a cruise that the stateroom tip is a component of the trip. It would be like not eating dessert and then demanding the tip for the server gets reduced. So in your original comment you mentioned the attendant seemed to get annoyed by your unwillingness to have them clean your room...and they were rightfully annoyed. The same way a server should be annoyed if they get a cheap customer who skimps out on the tip. It's a service industry.

And as a side note, the daily room cleans are a way to help keep viruses from spreading on the ship. Everything gets wiped down. They are also a way to ensure security/safety, similar to why they do the daily room check at the parks.