sengsational wrote:
>[quote=zqvol;12954259 cruisecritic.com] Well it really doesn't matter
>since NCL changed the contract of carriage. This is now a moot point.
>There is no tipping required. Every passenger is assessed a mandatory,
>non removable $10 per day service charge.[/quote]
>
>I did remove the service charge on my recent (April 2008) NCL Majesty
>cruise. I spent about 10 minutes talking to a few folks and filling
>out a form, and it was done. I have the entire exchange on my digital
>voice recorder, but it's really boring because there was nothing
>contentious about it.
>
>Before the cruise, I got a wad of $5 and $10, and golden dollars.
>This was to be my experiment to see if I could gain a reputation and
>get decent service. Since I was handling the tipping for 3.5 people
>on a 7 day cruise, that was $224 I had to play with. I gave at least
Who was the half a person? I would have said that it was 3.5*7*10
which would be $240 or if the half person required significant service
(like a baby at a meal in a restaurant on shore, I would tip MORE
because of the possible mess) then I would have counted them as a
whole person for $280.00.
If there were children, did you also tip the children's activity
people?
>$15 for dinner, but that was only for the worst service. I left a few
>bucks per person for folks clearing dishes in the buffet and gave a
>few bucks to the pasta guys, etc. By the end of the cruise, I'd given
>away all of my tip money.
>
What about your cabin steward?
>So the day before we disembarked, I went to the credit desk, they sent
>me to the customer service desk, and I said I wanted to remove the
>automatic tips. They asked if anything was wrong with the service. I
>said "no" and told them about the money I'd left. They pulled me away
>from other passengers and had me fill-out a form. Besides the cabin
>number and my signature, there was just a place to write a
>description. I just wrote one sentence about how I tipped people who
>served me. The adjustment to my account happened "after midnight"
>that night, so I was, oh, a little concerned that there would be an
>accounting problem or something, but the bill under the door in the
>morning was fine: tips removed.
>
>Those are the facts from my experience. Now on to the
>perspectives.....
>
>Did I get better service? No; it was a waste of time and effort.
>
>There was one waitress who "went the extra mile", who noticed me again
>in the dining room, but with this freestyle thing, I wasn't in her
>area. The guy that served us that night was obviously just "going
>through the motions" so I guess she didn't spread the word (or he
>could have doubled his tip).
>
I got better service from the people that I smiled at and talked to,
without tipping them extra.
>That's the problem with automatic tipping: people go through the
>motions. They do whatever is required "not to get called out on
>something specific". But that is a lot different than trying to "earn
>a tip". The "feel of the service" under an auto tipping system,
>especially freestyle, where you don't have the same servers, is much
>different than one where the servers actually have to "please"
>customers. This as opposed to having to "not displease" customers.
>
>But, that being said, I think that the "not displease the
>customer" (auto tipping) is the new model on the el-cheapo cruise
>lines like NCL, whereas "please the customer" was the model of yore,
>never to be seen again?
>
>--Dale-- |
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