Coastal Kitchen Gratuity Question

[Neesa]

Coastal Kitchen ~

@WAAAYTOOO & @Lovetocruise2002 and anyone else who would kindly weigh in. I will be making my Coastal Kitchen reservations for my 7 night sailing (OS on the Harmony) & was wondering about the gratuity situation. I know the MDR gratuity will be charged to my account but am I correct in assuming those monies do not cover CK? Do we tip for breakfast & lunch as well? Do I hand over cash every evening, does the MDR gratuity transfer to CK servers? We purchased the refreshment package for beverages but I am unsure of the proper protocol pertaining to rewarding the service in CK. To confirm, I can also order from the MDR menu (just in case) there is something there that isn't on the CK menu? Can we order room service dinner since we have a dining room table in OS then tip the delivery person? Thanks so much!

[Lovetocruise2002]

Some people tip every meal. Some at the end. It also doesn’t help that some CK’s you always get the same waitstaff and some you don’t. That is why some prefer to tip daily. 

For me, we tip at the end depending on the service. If we have more than one waitstaff, we make note of names and find them on the last day.

I am actually not sure if auto grats go to them?  Maybe someone else knows.

[WAAAYTOOO]

Honesty, I really do not know whether daily gratuities cover CK staff or not. Many MANY suite guests do not tip extra when dining in the CK.  It is not required.  We do, but many do not.  We tip at each meal b/c you may or may not get the same waiters from meal-to-meal.  We tip $5 for breakfast, $10 for lunch and $20 for dinner regardless of where we eat - even if we eat in the Windjammer  

If you do not prepay your grats, you will be charged daily.  We always prepay ours.

Yes, if there is a dish being served in the MDR that you want when dining in the CK, you can ask to have it brought to you in the CK.  For instance, if you choose to eat in CK (or any specialty restaurant, for that matter) on the second formal night and they are serving lobster tails in the MDR, you can ask your waiter to bring you a lobster tail. Please note that when doing this, they are going out of their way to accommodate you, so please “appreciate” their effort.  If you anticipate that you will do this, it is generally appreciated to give the restaurant a “heads up” the night before and let them know that tomorrow night you’re going to ask for a lobster tail.  That way they can be prepared. On LIB last month when having our breakfast in Chops the morning of lobster night, our waiter asked us if we would like to have “surf & turf” for dinner that night (he knew that we were coming to Chops for dinner that night).  We told him, “yes, thank you” and we get our lobster without even asking.  We often make similar requests/arrangements on nights when they serve lamb shank, as that is Dans favorite but we never visit the MDR anymore.

 

[AshleyDillo]

They ask your room number everytime you check in there, so they can reallocate the dining room tips there.  Whether they actually do or not, who knows!

[Big Tule]

We usually prepay gratuities but when you get top service we note the name of the staff member and give them cash at the end of the cruise ....I think it is a nice way of showing appreciation and is a unexpected pleasant surprise for them

[spiralqueen]

When we went to CK on Allure we had different servers almost every night because it just depended on where they had room to seat us that night. What we did is figured out how much we would normally tip 1 person who had excellent service on a 7 night and divided that by the number of times we ate there. On day 7, I swung by guest services in the afternoon to grab some extra tip envelopes and we used those to distribute the tips on the last night. There were a couple of people who we didn’t immediately see, so we left those tips with the host (who also got a tip because he went out of his way to help us get reservations for the rest of the nights as a JS without us asking and genuinely improved our cruise experience). To make it easier on the last night, I had a note in my phone where we wrote down the server’s name for each night and little notes about them which also doubled to make complimenting them in the survey easier. 

[JLMoran]

When we had dinner at CK on the Anthem each night, we were lucky enough to have the same waiter covering us each night. I hadn't even considered beforehand that the auto-gratuities might not be transferred to him, but on the last night I added a sizable tip to the final receipt as a thank-you for all his great service and for keeping us entertained each meal with his puzzles and riddles. It was the same as I'd have given to our waiter and assistant waiter at the end if we'd been eating the MDR every night, since we feel an extra cash tip at the end is deserved unless the staff has seriously dropped the ball.

[ChrisK2793]

You can ask for specific servers by name in the Coastal Kitchen.  We’re on Symphony right now and we liked our first server so much and had such a great time with him, that we asked for him again tonight and he told us to ask for him at any meal we eat there the rest of the week.