Tips

[f-mattox]

Yes, it's best to not become involved in a personnel issue, as tempting as it may be; the head waiter (or maitre d') could make life for your servers, and even you, miserable for the rest of your cruise. It is best handled in your comment form and letters to the home office after the cruise.

[cruzincrazy]

Originally posted by Jim C.:
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)

[cruzincrazy]

I noticed that you have cruised 5 or 6 CCL and then NCL and RCCl. Tell me what you thought about the Mariner verses CCL ships. I have done several but haven't done the mega ships on RCCL and I am thinking about taking my 7 year old next year. Would like your input

Originally posted by Jim C.:
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)

[Aoumd]

Since we seem to be on the topic here, I guess I should ask this for my upcoming first cruise: I checked off the box when booking on Carnival's website to have the $10 per day in gratuities prepaid. I assume this means that this fee will NOT be put on my Sail and Sign card as it was charged and paid for beforehand? How is the gratuity distribution system done when one prepays them at time of booking?

Just curious...