Tip money

[Brave teacher]

My DH and I and another couple will be going on our first cruise/Disney cruise in June (celebrating our 20th anniversary). I know that tips can be prepaid, so my question is not in regards to that. I know that I should tip porters and servers delivering room service. I know that we should bring singles with us in order to do so.

My question is...how much would be sufficient? We are going on the 5 night double dip on 6/26. Adults only...

I know no one can give me an exact amount. I'm just looking for what you would think would be a "safe" amount to make certain we are covered for the length of the cruise.

Thanks! Just reading all of this has been super helpful!

 

[kiford]

Kind of depends on what you are doing. We have our luggage picked up by Disney so no tipping of porters required for us but if I did it would be $1-2 per bag. We never order room service even though we say we're going to so although I bring about $10 in one dollar bills, we never use it. Occasionally we may have cash to tip tour guides - usually $5-20 depending on how much they do and if it's a day or half-day tour. Other than that, all of our other tips are put onto the onboard account. We carry very little cash.

 

[celina14]

We usually tipped $3-$5 for room service depending on how much we ordered. I like to be over prepared so I would bring $25 in ones for just that. Then to account for porters both getting on and off I'd probably bring $20 total for that. And as someone previously mentioned, if you're doing excursions I'd bring money to cover those as well but you can probably have larger bills for that. I'd probably bring like $150 to be safe but I like to be over prepared.

 

[MomOTwins]

Of course, answers will be all over the map here, but I guess I can just say what we do.

For suitcases, we stay at a disney resort the night and use the disney luggage transfer, so we stick $5-10 in the handle of a suitcase for when they pick it up in the morning, depending on the # of bags. We do use the porters when disembarking as well, and tip $5-10 as well, again based on quantity of bags.

Then we have tip for the driver to get us to and from the port: $5 each way for the Disney bus driver, 20% if using private transportation.

Excursions, usually $5 for the driver and $5-20 for the host, depending on their level of involvement in the excursion (e.g., we've had some excursions where the host really just gets you from point A to B and then you are on your own, and other excursions where the host is more involved as a tour guide or entertainer.

For room service, tip varies depending on how complicated the order is. If a Mickey Bar, just a couple of bucks, but if a full meal with dishes they'll have to come back and clear away, $5-10.

The other thing to remember if staying at a hotel the night before or after, we also tip the housekeeping $5.

So how much we need really varies based on how much we need to use the above services on a given trip. Finally, if we are on any excursion where we expect to make purchases (e.g., a beach where we want to buy a drink, or a gift shop) we like to have cash to avoid credit card international transaction fees.

 

[Brave teacher]

Thanks for responding! I knew we would be all over the place. I was just curious what to expect since we are going into new territory for us now. I just want to be prepared.

 

[bakerworld]

We do Room Service for Breakfast and we tip $5/d. If we like the beverage service, we'll add to the 15% when we sign-off for the drink. For the excursions we'll tip $5 per person - there seems to be 2 usually but there was 1 so we gave him the $10. Depending on service we add $40 to $60 to the Room attendant and MDR server with a $10 or $20 going to the other to MDR people.

We never see who handles the luggage on the cruise end - at the hotel end the porter says they are not to accept tips. I can't think of anyone else that we tip - honestly can't remember if we leave a room tip for the pre-cruise night. We do usually tip the bus driver $5 for luggage handling - it might even be $10 if DH feels the large bag is really heavy.

 

[tidefan]

For room service, tip varies depending on how complicated the order is. If a Mickey Bar, just a couple of bucks, but if a full meal with dishes they'll have to come back and clear away, $5-10.

Just a note on this, a lot of the times it is your room steward, not Room Service that clears away the plates/trays, etc... So, it may be they should get the extra...

 

[2bluesandapink]

We always pre pay our tips, but they still give us envelopes at the end. I think DH puts between $20 and $40 additional in each envelope. Is this what other people do too?

 

[Ralph&Pam]

We always pre pay our tips, but they still give us envelopes at the end. I think DH puts between $20 and $40 additional in each envelope. Is this what other people do too?

Between $20 and $40 is pretty typical for us for a 5 to 7 night cruise, with the actual amount in this range depending on the quality of service we’ve received. We double that for the longer cruises like Panama Canal and Transatlantic.

 

[SL6827]

I am going to prepay the tips for both of our cabins and then have extra in an envelope that I will keep in our safe on the cruise. I will make sure my daughter has around $15 worth of ones in her cabin so if they order room service and such. They will be down the hall from us do I will make sure she is prepared.

 

[kiford]

We always pre pay our tips, but they still give us envelopes at the end. I think DH puts between $20 and $40 additional in each envelope. Is this what other people do too?

If we want to increase what we give, we'll go to Guest Services and have them increase it, bill the onboard account and then reprint the forms to hand out. This way, if there's any reason we don't see someone to give them the envelope, I know that they'll get the money, it's deposited in their account and they don't have to deal with cash (which they'd likely have to spend time to go deposit in their account).

 

[cwis]

My DH and I and another couple will be going on our first cruise/Disney cruise in June (celebrating our 20th anniversary). I know that tips can be prepaid, so my question is not in regards to that. I know that I should tip porters and servers delivering room service. I know that we should bring singles with us in order to do so.

My question is...how much would be sufficient? We are going on the 5 night double dip on 6/26. Adults only...

I know no one can give me an exact amount. I'm just looking for what you would think would be a "safe" amount to make certain we are covered for the length of the cruise.

Thanks! Just reading all of this has been super helpful!

Thanks for opening this thread, I was about to do the same.

Two things I have learned (the hard way) during our last cruise: 1) there is no ATM on board 2) guest services will not break bills for you
(Of course crew members might help you with change)

Still not sure about what we'll need for our next cruises. I would say:

• $5s for the housekeeping on the night before the cruise and porters
• $1s for Room Service when ordering snacks (cheese, Mickey bars…)
• $5s and $10s for Room Service when ordering full meals
• preferably no $2s as I've read elsewhere crew don't really like them
• cash is not required for tipping crew members (you can use the enveloppes, adjust the tips and give tips to concierge hosts if applicable to you)

In addition I would also bring some euros if my cruise is in the Med, but only because I actually live in a country using euros. I presume crew prefer dollars to send them home, and I expect they cannot use euros on board and cannot change coins (remember the smallest bill is 5€).

For my next cruise, I will be arriving in the US a few hours before it leaves port and hope I will be able to make enough change for the tips. If only DCL could provide some way to charge room service tips to the stateroom!

 

[Toulou]

When the room service person delivers the food we just ask for the receipt and place our tip on it. They put this on your stateroom tab for you. We usually run out of ones, etc and no one ever has a problem with it. PS I never forget to bring a few thank you cards along with me and the person whom I speak with every time I call, certainly doesn't go unnoticed. A card and a little bit of cash!

 

[SuperDry]

When the room service person delivers the food we just ask for the receipt and place our tip on it. They put this on your stateroom tab for you. We usually run out of ones, etc and no one ever has a problem with it. PS I never forget to bring a few thank you cards along with me and the person whom I speak with every time I call, certainly doesn't go unnoticed. A card and a little bit of cash!

This. It's completely unnecessary to have cash in order to tip room service. Even if you have a $0 order, they will have a receipt handy with a tip line for you to complete if you ask.

 

[cwis]

When the room service person delivers the food we just ask for the receipt and place our tip on it. They put this on your stateroom tab for you. We usually run out of ones, etc and no one ever has a problem with it. PS I never forget to bring a few thank you cards along with me and the person whom I speak with every time I call, certainly doesn't go unnoticed. A card and a little bit of cash!

Good to know. I refrained from getting Mickey Bars on my first cruise because I couldn't get some cash.

 

[disneylove69]

I do $2 a bag and then have $20-25 in singles. All other tips will automatically go to your room.