Tipping on dining plan

[satchel01]

There will be 2 of us and I'm wondering what's an acceptable amount to tip. I know that 20% is customary, but I want to set envlopes up ahead of time and am wondering if $15 per meal is enough or is that really cheap? I normally tip well, but we're dealing with a tight budget lately and I don't want to go broke tipping.

[egospotter]

15% is the standard for good service, I usually tip up to 20% for really good service and/or friendlyness. Also the standard for buffet is 12%.

I am doing the same thing in setting money aside for each meal for the tip. What I did was go to allears.net and view the menus of the restaurants we are planning on going. I don't go as far as to pick out what I am going to eat, but I do get an idea of how much things are and what I might like. Then I figure out about how much we will be "spending" (DDP) and figure out the tip from there (setting a little extra aside for really good service.)

Also remember that you do not tip on tax - makes things a little easier!

Hope this helps! :mickey:

[Mousemates]

Well, let's do the math to figure out what kind of tip $15 dollars is.....

20% x Amount of Meal = 15

Amount of meal = 75

So if your meal is considerably less than $75 your tipping quite a bit.

If its considerably more than $75, your not tipping quite so well.

[gerald72]

On the bottom of your receipt it will give 2 tip suggestions, I think 15% and 18%. There were two of us, and our tips always ranged around $6 or $7.
I found it was easier to show the room key and have it billed to that, rather than carry around the cash.

[CleveRocks]

I think it's wise to budget for tips by looking at menus and guessing what you will order, what the total might be, and so on.

I think it's VERY unwise to actually decide exactly how much you will tip at each meal and load envelopes with those tips.

Maybe try having one big envelope with all your planned tip money, leave it in the room safe, and then each day bring what you think you'll need, leaving the one big envelope in the room safe.

Better yet, at check-in at your resort, use that cash to set up a room charge on your Key To The World card, and use the room charge EXCLUSIVELY for tips. You will be givign that same card to use your dining credits, anyway, so you could be using that same card for the tips, and it's backed up by that tip cash. A room charge can be set up with cash ... it's not necessary to use a credit card to do it.

[satchel01]

Thanks for the ideas. I think I'll go check out the menus and see approx what our meals would cost and go from there. I also didn't know that you could set up a room key with cash. That's really handy to know. I actually had planned on locking up the envelopes in the safe and just taking one for the day, but adding it to the room key sounds good.