Auto Tipping is Rearing its Head Again

[Stephen]

It's a rip off. One I won't be part of.

[Mervyn and Trish]

I would challenge menial and unskilled. I know they're not brain surgeons but they're working to a higher level than many unskilled workers. And very long hours. Seven days a week. Plus I think the money is shared. There are assistant stewards who help behind the scenes and on turn round days. Plus those of us who do pay are subsidising those who don't. But I agree long overdue for review.

[Stephen]

Let's get this clear, and no doubt I'll get shot down in flames from the bleedin heart club.

All crew are employed and paid to do a job. They know what the job and hours entail before they sign on the dotted line. And let's face it, the majority are fit young people not 70yr olds. What they earn is no business of mine, but I suspect even without tips it is probably more than they would be paid in they're own country for a similar service roll otherwise they wouldn't do it. Plus there is the prestige of working on a cruise ship. So why is the customer constantly having reminders rammed down they're about how much they SHOULD pay in tips before they even know if that person deserves them.

[towny44]

Incidently most stewards handle 18 cabins so Barney's calculation needs to be almost doubled.

[david63]

Simple maths show that something is not quite right.
I've calculated that a cabin steward looking after 10 cabins will pick up £490 a week in tips if every couple pay the standard £7 per day auto tip.

There are two errors in that calculation. Firstly the £7 is not split just between the CS and MDW waiters but also the buffet staff and butlers get a cut. Secondly from my observations a CS has nearer 20 cabins to look after. All of which makes it even more.

All crew are employed and paid to do a job. They know what the job and hours entail before they sign on the dotted line.

I largely agree with that but there is one part of their contract that we do not know - and that is what "bonus" they are likely to get.

What they earn is no business of mine,

Nor mine [/quote]

[Stephen]

I largely agree with that but there is one part of their contract that we do not know - and that is what "bonus" they are likely to get.

Why do we need to know about they're contract? That is between the employer and employee. It's nothing to do with me or anyone else what they earn, bonuses etc. I'm not interested in prying into someone else's affairs.

[towny44]

I largely agree with that but there is one part of their contract that we do not know - and that is what "bonus" they are likely to get.

Why do we need to know about they're contract? That is between the employer and employee. It's nothing to do with me or anyone else what they earn, bonuses etc. I'm not interested in prying into someone else's affairs.

I agree with you Stephen, buy why is it that some employees are paid fully by P&O whilst others are paid a peppercorn rate and rely on the auto grats to bring their wage up to a reasonable level. In the 21st century surely that's akin to slavery.

[barney]

About 10 or 12 years ago, my niece worked with RCI as a hairdresser. The Franchise was with Steiner so although she worked on a RCI ship her contract was with Steiner.
She signed contracts for 10 months at a time and the ships were based in Galveston Texas.
She did 3 ten month contracts.
Now I have no idea how much she was paid but I know she made a lot in tips.
When she decided she'd had enough, she returned back to the UK (back to Mum) and immediately bought a brand new car. Within a year, she had taken a lease out on a shop a started her own business which she still has to this day.

So, my assumption is that the whole project was worthwhile financially.
She said it was hard work with a six day week but generally enjoyed the experience very much.

As Stephen says, they go in with their eyes open.

[Whynd1]

I worked it out for the waiters, table of 8,6,4 and a 2 at a minimum for both sittings.
40 x7 divided by two waiters, not bad on top of your wages, food and board etc.

Lindsey

[London Cruiser]

Do we all think the policy is as per Princess Cruises across all Carnival Brands. I copied and pasted below rather than a link but its on their FAQ page, I think the drinks prices already include a tip for the bar staff. So could the Auto tipping be paying into a pool to fund the fleet wide bonus scheme hence the letter put in passengers cabins recently on P&O

Gratuities
During your cruise, regardless of which Princess ship you choose, you will meet staff who provide you with excellent service. Crew members often rotate to different vessels within the Princess fleet which helps to maintain our high standards on every ship. These dedicated workers reflect our philosophy that all crew on all ships are but one family who share in our success.

To simplify the tipping process for our guests, a discretionary gratuity of $15.50 per guest for suites, $14.50 per guest for mini-suites and club class, and $13.50 per guest for interior, oceanview, and balcony staterooms. This gratuity will be shared amongst those staff who help provide and support your cruise experience, including all waitstaff, stateroom stewards, buffet stewards, and housekeeping staff across the fleet.

For your convenience, this gratuity can be pre-paid online via Cruise Personalizer. Alternatively, you may call us at 0843 374 4444 and reference Special Services item number 0591. Pre-payment is available up to 2 days prior to departure.

A 15% gratuity is added to bar charges, dining room wine accounts, and Lotus Spa® services. This is shared amongst the beverage staff, their support staff and Lotus Spa® personnel.

Casino dealers and youth staff do not share in these gratuities. We know you will find these services onboard exemplary.

Please note gratuities will be deemed undisputed unless a request to modify is received prior to disembarking the ship.

[Stephen]

Typical American ship. Sneeze and they want a tip.

[daib GC]

Do we all think the policy is as per Princess Cruises across all Carnival Brands. I copied and pasted below rather than a link but its on their FAQ page, I think the drinks prices already include a tip for the bar staff. So could the Auto tipping be paying into a pool to fund the fleet wide bonus scheme hence the letter put in passengers cabins recently on P&O

Gratuities
During your cruise, regardless of which Princess ship you choose, you will meet staff who provide you with excellent service. Crew members often rotate to different vessels within the Princess fleet which helps to maintain our high standards on every ship. These dedicated workers reflect our philosophy that all crew on all ships are but one family who share in our success.

To simplify the tipping process for our guests, a discretionary gratuity of $15.50 per guest for suites, $14.50 per guest for mini-suites and club class, and $13.50 per guest for interior, oceanview, and balcony staterooms. This gratuity will be shared amongst those staff who help provide and support your cruise experience, including all waitstaff, stateroom stewards, buffet stewards, and housekeeping staff across the fleet.

For your convenience, this gratuity can be pre-paid online via Cruise Personalizer. Alternatively, you may call us at 0843 374 4444 and reference Special Services item number 0591. Pre-payment is available up to 2 days prior to departure.

A 15% gratuity is added to bar charges, dining room wine accounts, and Lotus Spa® services. This is shared amongst the beverage staff, their support staff and Lotus Spa® personnel.

Casino dealers and youth staff do not share in these gratuities. We know you will find these services onboard exemplary.

Please note gratuities will be deemed undisputed unless a request to modify is received prior to disembarking the ship.

It would appear that this scheme is not exactly the one being used by P&O. They have certainly not mentioned “across the fleet and you cannot pay up front ie before you go.

[London Cruiser]

Diab GC, I know you can`t prepay at the moment, whilst P and O do not mention paying into a fleetwide pool, how do we know if that's not happening, if Paul Ludlow Senior Vice President sends letters addressed personally to peoples cabins delivered via the cabin steward, is he really worried the staff not receiving gratuities or another reason.Just for discussion,

[Kendhni]

In general I have just considered the tipping to be part of the cost of the holiday ... similar to transfer flights, overnight hotel stay, kennels for the dogs, insurance, bar bill, excursions etc. When I sign up for my holiday I know my expectations of the holiday and their expectations of me and 'tipping' is just part of that and suitably budgeted for.

However I am starting to see some issues
- cruise lines seem to see it as being revenue generating and I am not convinced by their statements over what happens to the money ... when they say it is given entirely to the crew, it makes me think that an element is used to pay bonuses to all crew (inc. captain and other salaried personnel)
- Why offer OBC instead of doing away with tipping (if tipping is so important then deal with it first prior to offering OBC)
- when I booked I formed a contract with the cruise line and I do not expect any part of that contract to be changed unilaterally. The amount of tips was set when the contract was formed and I do not see why there should be any expectation that I would pay any more (so by all means you can change the amount of tipping but not retrospectively affect existing bookings).
- the tipping on ships now is VERY generous for the staff (assuming they do their job and tips are paid) therefore it galls me when I get bits of paper or the cruise director trying to get me to pay more.

Maybe the time has come to start making cruises more all-inclusive: include tips and basic drinks packages in the prices instead of trying the old 1970's style marketing tricks of we are giving you a free drinks package, we are paying tips for you, we are ... etc. etc. No you are not, you have all of these built into the price.

[Stephen]

the tipping on ships now is VERY generous for the staff (assuming they do their job and tips are paid) therefore it galls me when I get bits of paper or the cruise director trying to get me to pay more.

That is what they are employed to do, so why the need for tips. The barman is employed to serve drinks, the steward is employed to make up cabins, the waiters are employed to serve food and drinks. And yes I know allot of them multi task, but they know this before joining ship. All these people are already being paid a salary, and as I said in my earlier post probably more than they would be for the same service rolls in they're own country. I really don't see the need for tipping unless of course that person goes above and beyond for whatever reason, then that person, not the whole ship deserves his/her gratuity, which i personally prefer to give in the old envelope system and a amount I see fit, not P&O.

[david63]

Why offer OBC instead of doing away with tipping

I used to think that until I did the sums a few weeks back.

Firstly any OBC that is "included" in the price is basically your money that you are putting in the bank for when you are on board. The cruise line are holing that money in their bank account gaining interest for at least three months prior to the cruise, but that is not where the big saving is. The big saving is in not giving loyalty discount on the OBC and by my calculations overall OBC is saving P&O around £2 million a year.

Tips could be added to the headline price without anyone noticing under the guise of fluid pricing at any time that they wanted to.

One other point to consider when discussing tipping is that we don't know what the crew's view of it is - it is possible that for them there is a financial advantage, perhaps in their country they do not pay tax on it (or they don't have to tell the Missus how much they get!!)

[towny44]

It is interesting how tipping threads have become far more concerned about how the cruise line deals with the money it collects in this way, most contributors accepting that staff should be paid a decent wage, and not one dependant on the tipping culture.
However anyone who is watching ITV's excellent documentaries following various Princess cruise ships will have noticed how all departments are now profit centres, which have their own financial targets they have to meet. So it's no surprise really that if there is an advantage to be gained by paying staff from "gratuities" rather than in normal wage form, then the cruise lines will want to continue this tradition. But as an increasing number delete this entirely the cruise lines have to increase the auto tip to meet their targets, leaving those who do pay to foot an increasing bill.
If that is the case then the only way to effect a change is for all passengers to opt out of the scheme entirely, and not pay anything even cash in envelopes. I doubt this will have any impact on the staff since it seems that Carnival companies currently top up any shortfall anyway, but it will have a devastating effect on the profit. I recently calculated that the Carnival group could be receiving $1bn a year from auto tips, assuming a conservative 2500 passengers for every one of their 92 ships and an average $12pp per day auto tips, so even if only 50% of passengers pay their tips that's contributing $500 million to their annual profit, which last year was $2.7bn.
Not surprising P&O are sending "threatening" begging letters to passengers who opt out of the auto tip.

[daib GC]

Diab GC, I know you can`t prepay at the moment, whilst P and O do not mention paying into a fleetwide pool, how do we know if that's not happening, if Paul Ludlow Senior Vice President sends letters addressed personally to peoples cabins delivered via the cabin steward, is he really worried the staff not receiving gratuities or another reason.Just for discussion,

With regard to the fleetwide payments, this is something I have not heard about and has never been mentioned in any of the discussions I have taken part in or followed.

[barney]

It is interesting how tipping threads have become far more concerned about how the cruise line deals with the money it collects in this way, most contributors accepting that staff should be paid a decent wage, and not one dependant on the tipping culture.
However anyone who is watching ITV's excellent documentaries following various Princess cruise ships will have noticed how all departments are now profit centres, which have their own financial targets they have to meet. So it's no surprise really that if there is an advantage to be gained by paying staff from "gratuities" rather than in normal wage form, then the cruise lines will want to continue this tradition. But as an increasing number delete this entirely the cruise lines have to increase the auto tip to meet their targets, leaving those who do pay to foot an increasing bill.
If that is the case then the only way to effect a change is for all passengers to opt out of the scheme entirely, and not pay anything even cash in envelopes. I doubt this will have any impact on the staff since it seems that Carnival companies currently top up any shortfall anyway, but it will have a devastating effect on the profit. I recently calculated that the Carnival group could be receiving $1bn a year from auto tips, assuming a conservative 2500 passengers for every one of their 92 ships and an average $12pp per day auto tips, so even if only 50% of passengers pay their tips that's contributing $500 million to their annual profit, which last year was $2.7bn.
Not surprising P&O are sending "threatening" begging letters to passengers who opt out of the auto tip.

When you look at it from that angle Towny, it makes it all the more obvious that the company is seeing it more as a revenue stream than 'reward for service'

As I said earlier, we've now made the decision to remove the autotips and they can send me as many letters as they want.

We will have the tip money set aside and pay the full going rate IF the recipients have deserved it. IE have met our expectation level of service.

P&O always have the option of including it in the fare, should they choose to. It's totally up to them.

[CaroleF]

We have always gone with Auto tips since the scheme was introduced. It was an easy way of dealing with tips instead of having to remember to have enough cash to tip in envelopes at the end of the cruise. We have recently done the 65 nights on Aurora so you can imagine we paid a lot of money in auto tips - but then we were on the ship for a long time. It's not really the issue of how the cruise line deals with the whole tipping thing. I have always felt that the amount the crew gets paid is between them and the cruise line. They sign on to work for P&O - or Carnival, not sure how that works, so I assume they are happy with the amount they get paid, well as happy as anyone is, everyone would like more.
This last cruise, for the first time, and we've done over 20 cruises on P&O, we were not exactly happy with our Cabin Steward. I know we could have removed the auto tips and just tipped him what we thought, or we could have had a word with the Deck Officer, who in fact had introduced herself to us early in the cruise. It was a mixture of things that made us dissatisfied. We had to remind him to top up the coffee supplies and the biscuits. He was not always thorough in cleaning the bathroom thoroughly. The other thing was that he never seemed happy. At first I thought maybe he was just shy and tried to engage him in conversation, then I wondered if he was actually unhappy in his job. Don't misunderstand me, he was never rude, the cabin, it was a mini suite, was never left in a dirty condition. I suppose it's just that we're so used to a smiley steward who says, Good morning, afternoon or whatever when you see him in the corridor. We had the usual canapes each evening - they are complimentary I know but it's almost worth starting a thread about them as they were so awful - and the steward would come in put the plate down on the table and not say anything - oh yes he knew that I don't eat cheese and they were quite often cheese. If they were, as he put the plate down he'd say 'Cheese!' This is no big deal, it's my fault I don't eat cheese but it was just his manner.
Some of the crew left the ship in Barbados and I was hoping he was due leave but he wasn't. It may have been a coincidence but the steward in the next bank of cabins adjacent to ours was even more dour and he never smiled when in the corridor. Maybe I'm expecting too much but we've never experienced this before.
So, in the event we left the auto tips on in the recommended amount. When it came to filling in the form at the end of the cruise giving the usual scores - excellent, good etc. I chickened out and ticked excellent. I knew I really shouldn't but I felt that as we'd not said anything either to the steward or the deck officer I had no option - yes I know I did.
So all this and the fact that there has been another increase is making us think about our cruise on Oceana in September. We may well decide we'll tip personally and let the steward and waiters know we'll be tipping at the end. I don't know if they get told if passengers have removed the auto tip or not but just in case they do I'd like them to know we will be tipping them. We would intend to pay the full recommended amount unless the service is below standard. As I say we've never had this experience with a steward before. Our two waiters were as good as ever, really keen to ensure we were enjoying the food and only too ready to give advice and change things if anything was amiss. This may all sound a bit petty but we were really surprised.

Carole

[Manoverboard]

Tips on the upmarket Riverboat Lines are higher than P&O and are advertised as being shared with EVERY member of the crew .... but NOT the Company.

just saying

[RAwllE-12]

I have only just started to read the comments on tipping, I contacted by nephew who works for P.O., via his wife he is at sea at the present time she told me that on his last cruise 62% of passengers opted out of auto tipping but did not know how many paid the crew direct. The main reason given was that was not the amount when i booked. She did say that it was of concern to P.O as it was not the same on all ships.The adult only ships have a far better up take of auto tipping than non adult.Also a lot of families have the children removed from auto tipping.
I have a cruise booked in september and one for next year and i will be going back to the old system.

[colin parry]

Having done getting on for 40 cruises, all with P&O , the last 5 on my own since losing my wife 2 years ago, I have always, since it was introduced, left the auto tips on but almost always given additional to the cabin steward and waiters, the amount depending on their quality of service. I have found that the cabin stewards in particular seem to feel a greater responsibilty to you when you are on your own. I'm off on Oriana next Friday and will report back on my next experience.

[barney]

Please do Colin. That would be very much appreciated.
Could you also let me know how strictly they are enforcing that bringing on of the odd bottle of vino at ports.
Have a lovely time !

[Gill W]

I include tipping or gratuities or service charges , as part of the cost of the holiday.

I don't use cash very often these days, and I would not consider for a moment going back to the 'old' way and have to get a wodge of money out of the ATM and mess around with envelopes.

In fact, I'm more than happy to pay the service charge before I go away.

On our recent Fred Olsen cruise, the charge went up from £4 pppn to £5pppn a couple of days before we were due to sail. They gave us the opportunity to pay the £4 rate if we paid up front, so I took advantage of this.

In the next few days, we intend booking a CMV cruise for next year. We will purchase their Additions package, which includes tips, so will pay the service charges at the time of booking. If you pay up front the charge is £6pppn. If you wait until you get on board it's £7.

By paying up front, I won't have to worry about rising service charge prices as I've bought at today's prices.

I've got a P & O Cruise booked for Sept 2019, and by that time it wouldn't surprise me to find that the tips had gone up to £8 or £9. I'd much rather pay it now at today's rates, and forget about it.

I know there's a risk that I might get bad service - but I can't imagine a scenario where the service would be so terrible that I'd want to withhold my tips