Coastal Kitchen Tipping

[BB1]

I pay the daily suite tips on my room account but I was wondering what people do as far as tipping the waiters and drink servers in Coastal Kitchen.  Thanks.

[asquared17]

we always tip our server at the end of the week when in CK, and also usually the maitre'd if they have helped us with reservations/dining times etc.

[Peter D]

Last year was the first CK experience for us.  We dined in CK nightly, but because we had different waiter nearly every night, we opted to tip a few bucks each night.

[Srp431]

Same for us, with different wait staff, so it was best for us to tip at end of each meal (breakfast and dinner)

[WAAAYTOOO]

We always tip nightly as I’m never sure to have the same servers.

[SpicyCherry]

We quickly bonded with the waiter we had at lunch on Embarkation day so requested to be seated in his section for each meal, including breakfast, lunch & dinner. Therefore, we tipped him at the end of our stay. In fact, being on a B2B, we had him for a 2nd week and handled the tip the same way as the 1st week.

[AndyPandy]

I want to ask a question on this. ( Before doing so I will add I always pay tips and often prepay them and add more).

So CK is for Suite cruisers who already have paid higher costs for their stateroom.
 

Typically standard Tips cover not just Dinner service, but Breakfast and Lunch wherever you eat.  I have prepaid tips for the cruise. So that covers the restaurants and staterooms.

So if you use CK instead of the MDR or Windjammer, you have already prepaid standard tips. Question, isn’t this “double tipping”; don’t the staff in the CK get a share of prepaid tips? Or someone you may never see in the MDR get it, even though you never went there?

I understand say with speciality restaurants the extra fee covers the tip as well? Now I understand that, but basically again you have tipped twice if you miss the MDR and have prepaid tips. 
 

This is a practical question, not avoiding tipping, and is there a solution, ie if on My time dinning and do not go, are prepaid tips transferred to who actually serves you in CK? 

[Xaa]

Essentially, the included tips cover the included meals.  When you get Specialty Dining, they add an 18% to the cost so that is also paid.  Additional tips for dining then are always just that.  Additional tips.  It's a person saying through their tipping action "I want you to have something more than the standard offering".

There's really nothing you can do to impact how they split the included gratuities or even if the additional tips are able to be kept individually or pooled (I believe they are able to be kept).

So I think it's just semantics.  I don't think of it as double tipping as much as I think of it as increasing the initial offering to something more.

[asquared17]

18 hours ago, asquared17 said:

we always tip our server at the end of the week when in CK, and also usually the maitre'd if they have helped us with reservations/dining times etc.

i should clarify that if we haven’t had the same server for dinner service, we make sure to tip them too

[AndyPandy]

2 hours ago, Xaa said:

Essentially, the included tips cover the included meals.  When you get Specialty Dining, they add an 18% to the cost so that is also paid.  Additional tips for dining then are always just that.  Additional tips.  It's a person saying through their tipping action "I want you to have something more than the standard offering".

There's really nothing you can do to impact how they split the included gratuities or even if the additional tips are able to be kept individually or pooled (I believe they are able to be kept).

So I think it's just semantics.  I don't think of it as double tipping as much as I think of it as increasing the initial offering to something more.

Thank you, yes understand your perspective. So CK is additional tipping. As said, have prepaid tips, but trying to think about CK, say breakfast each day, where I felt it’s covered in prepaid tips and suite costs. 

[14Terry]

20 hours ago, asquared17 said:

we always tip our server at the end of the week when in CK, and also usually the maitre'd if they have helped us with reservations/dining times etc.

We do the same, in addition to the prescheduled daily suite tips. 

[SimGuy]

Ate breakfast every morning in CK and had the same server every day but one.

Tipped the regular server and the maitre’d extra on the last morning.  Our server was terrific!

[CruiseGus]

13 hours ago, AndyPandy said:

I want to ask a question on this. ( Before doing so I will add I always pay tips and often prepay them and add more).

So CK is for Suite cruisers who already have paid higher costs for their stateroom.
 

Typically standard Tips cover not just Dinner service, but Breakfast and Lunch wherever you eat.  I have prepaid tips for the cruise. So that covers the restaurants and staterooms.

So if you use CK instead of the MDR or Windjammer, you have already prepaid standard tips. Question, isn’t this “double tipping”; don’t the staff in the CK get a share of prepaid tips? Or someone you may never see in the MDR get it, even though you never went there?

I understand say with speciality restaurants the extra fee covers the tip as well? Now I understand that, but basically again you have tipped twice if you miss the MDR and have prepaid tips. 
 

This is a practical question, not avoiding tipping, and is there a solution, ie if on My time dinning and do not go, are prepaid tips transferred to who actually serves you in CK? 

I ask a lot of question of the senior managers I have been getting to know, I could be wrong but my understanding is.

The reason they ask and notate your room number is those dining pool gratuity portions are either re-allocated to that resturant or used to determine the larger % of the pool that the specific resturants workers get.  This seems to apply, whether it be CK, Johnnie Rockets breakfast, specialty resturants, pinnacle breakfast.  Now I don't know the exact splits, but I do know that employees at the special eating venues do not rotate like or with those in the MDR and Windjammer, they are allowed to stay as long as they want barring any problems.  I have also been directly told their percentage is higher than that of MDR waiters.

So bottom line is as long as your paying your daily gratuities and specialty resturants 18% you are covered.

Tips should then be for exceptional service above or beyond what is expected.

[AndyPandy]

10 hours ago, CruiseGus said:

I ask a lot of question of the senior managers I have been getting to know, I could be wrong but my understanding is.

The reason they ask and notate your room number is those dining pool gratuity portions are either re-allocated to that resturant or used to determine the larger % of the pool that the specific resturants workers get.  This seems to apply, whether it be CK, Johnnie Rockets breakfast, specialty resturants, pinnacle breakfast.  Now I don't know the exact splits, but I do know that employees at the special eating venues do not rotate like or with those in the MDR and Windjammer, they are allowed to stay as long as they want barring any problems.  I have also been directly told their percentage is higher than that of MDR waiters.

So bottom line is as long as your paying your daily gratuities and specialty resturants 18% you are covered.

Tips should then be for exceptional service above or beyond what is expected.

Thank you, excellent answer, and to my expectations. I may still tip extra at CK if deserved. But take it they get some % from my prepaid tips.