CRUISE TIPS – THE PROBLEM

Talk cruising, and I guarantee that one subject that is always going to come up in conversation is the subject of tipping.

I’ve been cruising now for almost 40 years and it’s always been a very contentious issue because we British really don’t like to be told when, and how much, we have to tip. Surely, it’s for the customer to decide what is good service, and what is not, and also, it’s the customer who considers what they feel that service warrants as a tip.

Americans are totally different. They expect to tip for absolutely anything, irrespective of whether or not they have actually received good service.

The Egyptians….  now they’re in a league of their own. They expect a tip (baksheesh) whether they have done anything or not! Arrive at Cairo Airport and you’ll probably have staff at immigration control asking for baksheesh. I have experienced this on many visits cruising to ports in that country.

Makes me recall a funny story. My wife and I cruised some years ago in the Baltic. We stopped at Lubeck in Germany. We decided to get a coffee and sandwich for lunch. I went to the counter to purchase what my wife and I had chosen, and a very angry sounding voice shouted at me…”Go. Sit down”.

This clearly shows the difference in cultures and that is one thing that really does make cruising very exciting. However, I did what I was told. I sat down and, we waited and waited and waited. We finally got served lunch. The food and service was lousy. A surly waiter brought my bill and stood there, to attention, waiting for me to settle up. On this rare occasion, having received awful service, I chose not to tip. “And vot about me?” he challenged.

I wasn’t ready for a 3rd World War, so I tipped and got out quick!!!

Cruise line tipping can also be intimidating. I’ve had instances where, on embarkation day, a very friendly and cheerful crew line up to greet new guests. Then, once shown to our cabin, our very own steward or stewardess comes and introduces themselves in the cabin and tells me that they will tend to my every need.

Great, I think, but then we get to the end of the cruise and I realise that actually the service I received was not really that good at all. In the many years that my wife and I have been cruising (and we have taken probably over 100 cruises to all areas of the world experiencing many cruise lines), I have always regarded it as important to tip the staff at the end of the cruise. I usually collate as much of the foreign currencies I have left over (knowing the crew will be visiting the same places again so will have a use for this money), as I possibly can, and then top up the differences in sterling. I have known instances where stewards/stewardesses, whom I have never seen during the entire cruise, and who often have not tended us in quite the way that they promised, would suddenly appear, hovering outside my cabin door on disembarkation day waiting for their tip.

Isn’t this yet another case of what about me?

There is of course a solution to every problem… so, why not drop by my blog next week, and I’ll share with you just one of the solutions.