Good old "tipping" question again

[Kraken]

I tip, based on the service provided by the server, not the food quality (as that is beyond the servers control). If the food is bad, I mention it to the server when they do the check-back to ask if everything is OK. If you say no, the manager is normally at your table pretty fast.

Have had two bad experiences in Florida...

1. Rainforest Cafe, Animal Kingdom. Ordered food from the Brazilian Special menu they had on at the time. Food was greasy, bland & the rice rock-hard from being under a heat lamp on the kitchen pass. Told the server and the manager duly appeared. She removed the meals from the bill & removed the plates. We ended up with a bill for just 2 diet cokes. Left a generous tip as the server had been great & the food was not her fault.

2. Mythos, Islands of Adventure. Starters were great, but my swordfish main was way undercooked & raw in the middle. Told the server and the manager appeared - my meal was replaced, but it meant I had to watch the girlfriend eat her main while my replacement was cooking, then she had to sit watching me eat my replaced meal. (Manager also at the table within a minute of the replacement being delivered to check it was OK). Server passed by the table saying the manager was comp-ing both main courses & buying us both dessert and a drink "so choose an expensive dessert!". We both ordered Coors Light as our free drink, but the server was having none of that - she bought us 4 craft beer samples before ordering the freebies - and we both ended up ordering one of the craft beers. The food had all been good, but the main course disruption made the meal a bit less special. We were presented with a somewhat low bill, but the server had been outstanding throughout - we tipped her based on what the bill should have been.

If the server has poor / bad attitude, then leave a very low tip (or even no tip) - but always speak to the manager to give feedback.

If you want to leave a low / no tip & not risk having to tell the server why, then it's easier to pay by card. They will always swipe your card and leave the bill "open" for you to add the tip. More often then not you leave the signed copy of the card receipt in a folder on the table when you leave, so the server will generally pick it up after you have left.

[captain-codeye]

Brilliant, just what we all needed, nothing says the pandemic is over and we’re back to normal than a tipping thread.

I’m off to recline my chair😂😂

[macdonald]

I dont understand why we continue to discuss tipping, its a personal thing, we tip if and as we like and have no need to tell the next person how much we give a waiter for serving our meal while on holiday, we tip here too so its no big deal..

[Katnic1]

I’ve always tipped around 20% off the full cost including tax. I’ve read a few times, that you exclude the tax when working out the 20%. Is that correct? Have I been too generous all these years?

[dx4100]

Originally Posted by macdonald

I dont understand why we continue to discuss tipping

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Its a discussion forum - the topics people don't want to discuss drop down the page - the ones people do want to discuss remain active.

The community should drive what gets discussed I feel.

Any newbie who reads this thread will no doubt learn its something they need to consider before booking / when out there.

[iang27]

We do tip at restaurants we visit often but if the food isn’t great or the server is useless then we dint bother.
We don’t get a tip for doing our job and I bet 99% of people here don’t get a tip for doing the job they choose to do.

[BertnErnie]

One of the best meals we ever had in the US was in New York at a restaurant called Manhatta. It’s part of a group owned by restauranteur Danny Meyer that was notable for its no tipping policy. The prices wer all “hospitality included” tips were strongly discouraged although I think they would accept if you absolutely insisted. I distinctly remember standing at the bar ordering a cocktail while a wall-street type guy next to me was trying to settle his bill and just couldn’t believe that no tip was expected. He almost seemed offended by the idea. Personally we thought the service was excellent and in many ways better than what we’d come to expect

Sadly Meyer has reintroduced tipping in his restaurants since the pandemic hit as a way for staff to earn extra money. It’s a pity as I think tipping culture in the US has become quite problematic. As a tourist though it’s not really for us to judge - when in Rome and all that...

[BertnErnie]

Originally Posted by iang27

We do tip at restaurants we visit often but if the food isn’t great or the server is useless then we dint bother.
We don’t get a tip for doing our job and I bet 99% of people here don’t get a tip for doing the job they choose to do.

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I think the point is that that you are the one paying most of their wages for that job. The problem seems to be that there no clear line between what you are obliged to pay and what is genuinely a discretionary reward.

Oh, and It’s not the servers fault if the food isn’t up to standard - you should really take that up with the manager.

[Tinkerbell]

I only logged back in as I saw this thread... YEAH. Normal service has been resumed , tip or no tip.


Personally, I’ll tip what I want and when I want... not what someone tells me I have to tip or what is deemed “appropriate”. I do tip, but the amount depends on many factors , equally I wouldn’t NOT tip without a discussion with either the server or management


Gosh a tipping thread... might start a controversial one about cattle class 😂

[Nimbus]

Originally Posted by khonsu

I was asked recently about tipping in Orlando recently.

I'm interested to know other people's experience based upon my own.

The minimum wage in Florida is $8.56 - but employers can actually apply for tip credit which means the minimum wage can be as low as $5.54. They then use tips to top up the difference and only if it is below $8.56 do they need to pay that back to the employee.

Make sense? Apparently it does in America.

You should reckon on 15-20% tipping by my own experience. Up to you of course! Remember - you're tipping the quality of service, not food. Your waiting staff can't help that!


This statement is in many guides "If you can't afford to tip - you can't afford to go to America."

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Oh boy - here we go again with a tipping thread.

Yeah, the USA has this "interesting" system of 'tipped positions' which we don't have in the UK. With tipped positions, it is assumed that the employee will be receiving some tips and therefore the employer's base wage can be lower than the state's minimum wage. However, the employer must ensure the employee is paid at least the state's minimum wage. So even if an employee in a tipped position does not receive any tips, the employer must ensure they are paid at least the minimum wage. Or, at least, that's the theory/law.

Which is interesting and everything. And, yes, it does mean that the USA's cultural stance on tipping is different to the British cultural stance. Which causes some... friction.

It also leads to two additional points of discussion:

1. The minimum wage is pretty low.
2. In order to get the minimum wage, the tipped employee has to receive just over $3 in tips per hour.

I won't discuss the first point as it's pretty self evident and there's not really a lot more to be said. It's that latter point and it's ramifications which often leads to "discussions" here on the DIBB. Primarily these discussions are over the amount to tip and whether it's too little or too much, especially whilst dining in the Disney parks.

I think many of us don't mind leaving a tip, especially if the service is good, but it's the value of the tip and how it's calculated that some people object to. People will throw out a suggestion of how much to tip, which tends to be a percentage and usually somewhere around 15-20%, give or take. Then people will question why it's a percentage, why not a set amount - perhaps per person - for good service. And others will point out that the percentage amount seems to be increasing every few years; it used to be 10-15% decades ago, now it seems to be 18-20%, and some places even suggest 25% nowadays. Which, of course, makes no real sense; as prices of meals go up due to inflation so will the amount given as a tip - the percentage doesn't need to change.

Then someone (like me) will do some quick maths. They'll post an example of a waitress at Disney serving, say, 4 tables per hour where at each table there's a family of 4. If we assume that all the meals at each table might come to a total of, say, $100 ($25 a meal), and we assume each table pays a voluntary 15% tip, then the total tips per hours will be $60. Which is a lot more than just over $3 an hour needed to bring the amount above the minimum wage, even if that tip is split between multiple people.

The discussion might also go off onto little side-paths debating whether the percentage tip should be before or after tax (spoiler: it honestly doesn't really matter). Or whether we should tip at self service buffets (spoiler: it's up to you but the suggestion is usually 10%). The thread may even touch on the fact that tips are taxed, it's the employee that declares how much in tips they collected, but the IRS assumes a certain level of tips beforehand for tax purposes (spoiler: the assumed amount is less than 15-20%. I think it's 8%?).

And, of course, most of us will be wondering why we're discussing tipping again. Especially when there's a perfectly good page about tipping in the DIBB Guidebook which has suggestions on how much to tip and where/when:

https://www.thedibb.co.uk/forums/Tip...ando-p-40.html

Still, we all like a good tipping thread on the DIBB, don't we?