Gratuities - Discussion Has Ended

[Tom]

My wife and I are taking our nearly 1-year-old on his first cruise next Friday.

We won't be dining in any of the rotational restaurants this time. She and I will try Palo while he goes to the nursery. The other nights it's Cabanas and then pool bar or room service food. Going laid back!

So, how does this work with the tips? We prefer to tip those who provide direct service to us, and not to those who don't. We'll obviously tip at Palo, and for other cash-type operations, but we'd prefer not to tip staff that do not provide a service to us (as would apply in any other situation).

Is there a way to address this before the pre-paid tips are charged?

EDITED to eliminate the crass tone I used when posting at 1am, which I shouldn't do. We always tip appropriately, and then some, for excellent service.

 

[disney4life2008]

From my understanding in the cruise industry tipping is required and standard. Not just applied to dining but to the wide range of services including your steward. Regardless if you use the open dining areas, thats included in the gratuity.

 

[disney4life2008]

From my understanding in the cruise industry tipping is required and standard. Not just applied to dining but to the wide range of services including your steward. Regardless if you use the open dining areas, thats included in the gratuity.

Perhaps I am wrong: https://disneycruise.disney.go.com/faq/onboard-services/gratuities/

 

[ToTBellHop]

Interesting. So Disney doesn't have you pre-pay tips like other cruise lines. So for the OP, looks like they would suggest $4 per person, per day for the room steward and then your separate tips for Palo and room service. You would not offer the $8 per person, per day for the dining rooms.

 

[jme]

Your tips are applied automatically based on the suggested amounts. Stop by guest services at any point during your cruise to adjust, or remove them from your stateboard account to tip in cash.

 

[ChuckElias]

Just some food for thought.

The dining room staff rely on the passenger gratuities for their livelihoods, and often, that of their families. If you withhold your suggested gratuity, that income will not be replaced. Other passengers will likely not be seated at that server's station in your place.

At the very least, you should consider tipping your staff in Cabanas.

 

[wdwstateofmind]

We have one of the only economic systems that rely on tips and Disney takes full advantage of foreign workers by demanding such low gratuities to begin with. Out of good cruisemanship(?) I hope you still tip them.

 

[Tom]

Your tips are applied automatically based on the suggested amounts. Stop by guest services at any point during your cruise to adjust, or remove them from your stateboard account to tip in cash.

Thank you, we'll do that.

Just some food for thought.

The dining room staff rely on the passenger gratuities for their livelihoods, and often, that of their families. If you withhold your suggested gratuity, that income will not be replaced. Other passengers will likely not be seated at that server's station in your place.

At the very least, you should consider tipping your staff in Cabanas.

We more-than-generously tip everyone who provides us with service, and will indeed do so for anyone on this sailing.

 

[disney4life2008]

I am a stiffer on tips but i will say on carnival the staff is amazing I usually substantially increase my tips especially for the room Steward. I can only imagine the service is even better on disney. I will echo the living wage the staff receive on cruise lines is very little albiet more than they make in in their home country but its still little.

 

[alissafalco]

I don't know how it works, but maybe if you contact the cruise line ahead of time and let them know that you wont be eating at any of the dinners and maybe they can put someone else in your spot, because from what I gather even if you don't go, those waiters will lose out on their tips for however long your cruise is.

 

[George]

I don't know how it works, but maybe if you contact the cruise line ahead of time and let them know that you wont be eating at any of the dinners and maybe they can put someone else in your spot, because from what I gather even if you don't go, those waiters will lose out on their tips for however long your cruise is.

Not bad idea. They will be doing some work for you every night regardless of if you show up or not. On our recent cruise we were seated with a table that seated eight, two families of four. Luckily for us, the weirdo family of 4 never showed up for dinner. But, every night they had all the place settings and the two kids had drinks with their names on the drink lids and festive home made paper toppers ready to go. We got really friendly with our servers and they told us that they actually called the other family and found out they weren't coming to dinner any of the nights, but they still had to get prepared as though they were.

Anyway, I can see where @Tom is coming from, but if they can organize it so the servers don't get stiffed, so the speak, I think that could work out well for everyone.

On the dynamics of tipping, your tips are automatically allocated to the two servers, your room host (steward), and the head server honcho. As mentioned above, the amounts can be changed at guest services. On our cruise we got little cards with each tip and little envelopes so we could hand out the tips ourselves. I went to guest services and changed all the tips and they printed out new little cards for me. This all happened on the penultimate night of the cruise. Paradise was about to end.

 

[Tom]

I don't know how it works, but maybe if you contact the cruise line ahead of time and let them know that you wont be eating at any of the dinners and maybe they can put someone else in your spot, because from what I gather even if you don't go, those waiters will lose out on their tips for however long your cruise is.

My wife confirmed that she called DCL a while back and told them that we wouldn't be doing the rotational dining, with the hopes that they'd be able to make someone else's trip a bit more magical (we had early dining, which is in high demand), and to help out those servers.

 

[Tom]

Not bad idea. They will be doing some work for you every night regardless of if you show up or not. On our recent cruise we were seated with a table that seated eight, two families of four. Luckily for us, the weirdo family of 4 never showed up for dinner. But, every night they had all the place settings and the two kids had drinks with their names on the drink lids and festive home made paper toppers ready to go. We got really friendly with our servers and they told us that they actually called the other family and found out they weren't coming to dinner any of the nights, but they still had to get prepared as though they were.

Anyway, I can see where @Tom is coming from, but if they can organize it so the servers don't get stiffed, so the speak, I think that could work out well for everyone.

On the dynamics of tipping, your tips are automatically allocated to the two servers, your room host (steward), and the head server honcho. As mentioned above, the amounts can be changed at guest services. On our cruise we got little cards with each tip and little envelopes so we could hand out the tips ourselves. I went to guest services and changed all the tips and they printed out new little cards for me. This all happened on the penultimate night of the cruise. Paradise was about to end.

On our first cruise, it was the Fantasy's first voyage, so even the staff was learning how to do things. We compensated everyone heartily.

On our second cruise, last March on the Dream, we stayed concierge and added something to many envelopes, and even got more envelopes at the Guest Service desk.

But since we've completely opted out of rotational dining, I was just wondering how we can free up some of that tip cash to re-allocate to other crew, such as our Palo wait staff, Cabanas, and others.

 

[George]

My wife confirmed that she called DCL a while back and told them that we wouldn't be doing the rotational dining, with the hopes that they'd be able to make someone else's trip a bit more magical (we had early dining, which is in high demand), and to help out those servers.

Cool. So, if DCL is organized this shouldn't be an issue at all.

 

[George]

On our first cruise, it was the Fantasy's first voyage, so even the staff was learning how to do things. We compensated everyone heartily.

On our second cruise, last March on the Dream, we stayed concierge and added something to many envelopes, and even got more envelopes at the Guest Service desk.

But since we've completely opted out of rotational dining, I was just wondering how we can free up some of that tip cash to re-allocate to other crew, such as our Palo wait staff, Cabanas, and others.

Can you just remember the name of someone at Cabanas who gave you good service and then go to guest relations? I had to change tips at guest services with ye olde credit card because someone in our traveling party who will remain nameless and whose relationship to me rhymes with "rye life" spent all of our cash on jewelry in Cozumel whilst I stood outside and sweated like a nervous Nellie on the sidewalk which is my typical response to high pressure sales.

 

[flynnibus]

But since we've completely opted out of rotational dining, I was just wondering how we can free up some of that tip cash to re-allocate to other crew, such as our Palo wait staff, Cabanas, and others.

You control all tip amounts at the end. Disney just allows you to prepay and will print suggested amounts at the end. Simply adjust the amounts as you need to at the end. There is no "mandatory" tip you need to undue. But I imagine some will still give you a sour look because these ppl are expecting the amount for the week based on their normal schedule. It's like being laid off for the week...(to a degree)

 

[Tom]

Can you just remember the name of someone at Cabanas who gave you good service and then go to guest relations? I had to change tips at guest services with ye olde credit card because someone in our traveling party who will remain nameless and whose relationship to me rhymes with "rye life" spent all of our cash on jewelry in Cozumel whilst I stood outside and sweated like a nervous Nellie on the sidewalk which is my typical response to high pressure sales.

I was just talking to my wife this evening about how we go about tipping anyone who may help us at Cabanas. As I understand it, it's still a buffet at dinner on night 2, so I'm not sure how much "waiting" a waiter would be doing, or if they just have a mess of people who swipe drty plates like they do at lunch.

We're anticipating that we'll apply most of our allocated gratuity funds toward our Palo staff on night 1.

 

[ChuckElias]

There is no "mandatory" tip you need to undue.

I'm not 100% sure what you're trying to say here. While tipping is not mandatory, as you say, the suggested gratuities are automatically charged to your stateroom account. So if you wish to leave less then the suggested tip, you do need to go to Guest Services and "undo" the automatic charge.

 

[flynnibus]

I'm not 100% sure what you're trying to say here. While tipping is not mandatory, as you say, the suggested gratuities are automatically charged to your stateroom account. So if you wish to leave less then the suggested tip, you do need to go to Guest Services and "undo" the automatic charge.

My point was there was no need for 'permission' to tip less - you only have to adjust the tip amounts to whatever you need. Your tips are 'pre-loaded' so to speak, but you still control what the payouts are 100%.

 

[Elenadc]

I just wanted to mention that while you may not be served by your servers in the main dining room at night, duting the day they work in other food service positions throughout the ship. Your recommended gratuities are also meant to cover this. I completely understand that you don't want to tip for service in the dining room that you aren't using, just keep in mind that your servers won't get your portion of their tips for work they do elsewhere.