It’s also always irritated me that society only deems certain occupations as ‘tip worthy’.
Why should I tip my taxi driver but not my bus driver?
Why tip my waiter in a nice restaurant but not the serving staff of McDonalds?
They both work just as hard; in fact the McDonalds staff probably work a lot harder than the waiters in a nice restaurant!
Don’t get me wrong, I’m still against pre paid gratuities completely, I can’t see how anyone can justify asking you to tip for a service you’ve yet to receive, but sometimes in life you have to look at the reality of a situation rather than how you would like it be.
Given an ideal situation the cruise lines would pay their staff a decent wage so that compulsory gratuities weren’t necessary to top up their wages, (the normal excuse given by cruise lines). However, they don’t do this and me refusing to pay my gratuities on principal isn’t likely to change the system. And the staff really do work hard for very low wages. Whatever we asked for aboard the QM2 we got, straight away, with a smile and a friendly comment. And it wasn’t just the things we asked for, they were constantly attentive to our needs, quite often bringing something out or changing something before we had even realised we needed to ask for it.
So have I been converted to the ‘tipping crowd’? No.
Do I now agree with pre-paid gratuities? No.
Or compulsory gratuities? No.
But did I tip all our serving staff? Yes I did and would be happy to do so again.
Me jumping up on my high horse and telling my waiter that he couldn’t have a tip as it wasn’t my fault his cruise line paid him a pittance just didn’t feel right somehow.
Happy Cruising
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