The last dinner of the cruise the waiter and the Matre-d came by and people were giving them tips directly. They passed around little envelopes at the table for tips. They they shook everyone's hand and kept hinting to give tips. Then we get back to our room and a little envelope was sitting on our table for tips for the room steward. So we took the tips off of our sail and sign and just put it to whom we wanted. We were very upset. We found out alot of people were the next morning at breakfast before we disembarked. That was Oct. 06. I hope it has changed this cruise.
Like the good Dr. said. It depends on the service level you felt you got from your maitre D'. Some make the dinning experience more enjoyable. Some not. Then you have the ones that you don't speak to until they do the flyby on the second to last night trying to drum up tips. (They loose points in my book for that).
If you ask for a change of seating and its is handled quickly, by all means tip right then and there. At least that way he knows why he got a tip and from whom.
Spiritfilled, it is $10 per day per person broken down as stated above. If you do not want to tip those amounts (higher or lower) you can visit the pursers desk and they will change things for you. You can also just give any extra tips in person as needed. CCL does not handle it in the same way as RCCL in that on the last night you WON'T get the stack of tip envelopes and the piece of paper that says you did the auto tipping. (I think they do provide you with an envelope for the maitre'D)
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================================================== ========== Carnival Cruise Lines:
Fantasy 90, Celebration 95, Victory 05, Conquest 05, Spirit 6/06, Freedom 6/08, Holiday 7/08, Victory 6/09, Valor 9/09, Dream 6/10, Splendor 8/10,Conquest 8/11,Magic 11/11,Triumph 4/12,Spirit 7/12,Freedom 11/12, Triumph 2/13 - The fire cruise
NCL Dream October 2006, RCCL Mariner OTS June 2007
The last dinner of the cruise the waiter and the Matre-d came by and people were giving them tips directly. They passed around little envelopes at the table for tips. They they shook everyone's hand and kept hinting to give tips. Then we get back to our room and a little envelope was sitting on our table for tips for the room steward. So we took the tips off of our sail and sign and just put it to whom we wanted. We were very upset. We found out alot of people were the next morning at breakfast before we disembarked. That was Oct. 06. I hope it has changed this cruise.
We have never received envelopes for tipping anyone. Have been on the Pride and Spirit. However if someone is hinting or asking for a tip I would usually pass.
I leave the tips on my sail and sign card, plus anyone that has given me good service, I give them extra. If I can't find envelopes or they don't put them in my cabin, I go down to the purser's desk and get them. The matre d' is tipped only if they deserve one, most of the time we never see him. On some cruises, they've been wonderful, make sure everything is all right, and make sure they fix any problems-then I tip them. The cruises I don't even know his name, well, sorry, I don't leave a tip.
Originally posted by Jim C.:
CCL does not handle it in the same way as RCCL in that on the last night you WON'T get the stack of tip envelopes and the piece of paper that says you did the auto tipping. (I think they do provide you with an envelope for the maitre'D)
Interestingly enough, RCCL does not call them matre d's... I guess too many negative stigmas associated with the term. RCCL prefers to call them Head Waiters and there are typically more than one on duty at any given time.
Agreed. Our RCCL Head waiter actually came and spoke with us every night. Asked us how things were going. He actually helped serve on one night when the waiters needed to go off to do their "parade" thing. Made it seem as if they were actually responsible for something. On CCL, it is rare to see them do anything but annouce the dinning entertainment done by the wait staff.
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================================================== ========== Carnival Cruise Lines:
Fantasy 90, Celebration 95, Victory 05, Conquest 05, Spirit 6/06, Freedom 6/08, Holiday 7/08, Victory 6/09, Valor 9/09, Dream 6/10, Splendor 8/10,Conquest 8/11,Magic 11/11,Triumph 4/12,Spirit 7/12,Freedom 11/12, Triumph 2/13 - The fire cruise
NCL Dream October 2006, RCCL Mariner OTS June 2007
On our recent Princess cruise all we saw the maitre d' do was abuse our senior and junior waiters in front of us. We were ready to report him for inappropriate behavior. Our servers went out of their way for us only to be abused by the maitre d'!
We kept the $10 a day per person automatic tip on our tab and then tipped the people who personally served us extra. Obviously, the maitre d' was not one of the ones we tipped extra.
Hello digdmr, that is an interesting observation, and is maybe at the core of what is wrong on Princess lately. On Island Princess in April, on several occasions, we saw sharp glances exchanged between the maitre d' and what I believed to be head waiters, and the waiters and their assisants. And several times words were exchanged, and while I could not understand what was being said, the tone of voice and body language were unmistakable.
In spite of the efforts of the waiters and assistants, the dining room was not a cheerful place. I was thinking this might be unique to Island Princess, but after reading your post, I wonder if it is maybe systemic.
We must make these observations known through our comment cards and hope for improvement.
Now, after thinking about it I think it was the head waiter and not the maitre d', but it really doesn't matter. The head waiter would come up to our servers and dress them down in front of us. It obviously upset our servers and, therefore, upset us. Our servers were wonderful and deserved better treatment. Like my husband said if the head waiter had a problem with the servers he should have told them in private, not in front of us. We tried to comfort our servers and volunteered to speak to someone about it, but our senior waiter said he would take the matter up with the head waiter in private. We did have fun later on referring to the head waiter as "Hitler" or "Little Napoleon" which cheered up our servers. Unfortunately, as is common in a lot of companies the higher ups are the problem, not the worker bees.
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