A novice cruiser here, Is room service free? Does anyone know if the Norwegian Star has an indoor pool, we are going to Alaska, so it won't be warm enough to use the outdoor pool?
Thanks for any help

Hello Mysalian, and welcome to cruise-chat;

The Norwegian Star has a beautiful indoor pool in the fitness center. But depending on what month you are cruising, you might be surprised at just how nice the weather can be. Temps can reach into the 70's on a sunny day in July-August.

Room service is free; it is customary to tip the steward when he delivers your order; $2 or $3 is about right.

Have a great cruise.

Rick

Hi Mysalian,

In my experience, room service is free, but not the tip, which you need to pay when the food is delivered. Perhaps I am wrong, though, since it has been two years since I have been on a cruise.

MamaofEnS

Apparently this is true except on some cruise outfits which enforce "Auto Tip". On Princess, each cabin is charged $10pp per day, $11 for minis and suites. Then you have the option of tipping more, or asking them to adjust that day's tip if you recieve something horrid not resembling good service. A large portion of crew share in the tip pool whether you see them in your day to day adventures or not.

Seemingly Auto Tip will disencumber you of ever having to tip if you so chose except in casinos and lounges/bars where those staff do not share in the "tipping pool."

There is a great debate as to whether this Auto Tip feature is simply a shrouded tax to pay salaries for lower wage employees, or whether it is simply a fair solution to a complex political problem the cruise lines have long had with their employees.

I tend toward the former.

quote:

Originally posted by Detroit Mark:
There is a great debate as to whether this Auto Tip feature is simply a shrouded tax to pay salaries for lower wage employees, or whether it is simply a fair solution to a complex political problem the cruise lines have long had with their employees.

If there is a debate for cruise employees then the debate should be broadened to food and beverage employees on land as well. Most servers in restaurants make HALF of minimum wage on an hourly basis and have to depend on tips to earn a living. I believe that the auto tipping is to ensure that people do actually tip the employees SOMETHING. Although I do not like the shared tipping because some people work harder than others and deserve more of a tip. This is even the case within some restaurants. I always ask a server who has given exceptional service if the must share their tips with the rest of the wait staff. If so, I will give them a little extra in cash just for them to keep for themselves.

Well the only debate I've read was whether it should exist at all, and it was between passengers, not crew. Of course crew are going to be thrilled to recieve tip money for jobs they didn't do.

We have no way of knowing whether there really are that many cheap people who refuse to tip someone for their services, anything said on the matter is anecdotal and basically an opinion.

If there are that many people who so loathe so part with a 5 dollar tip on a $10K cruise, or other crew members are so poorly paid that there's a war between them and those who recieve tips ... then the cruiselines should just raise the rates to meet salary demands and be honest about it. Either way, people who tip get punished by policy.

Let's see...the definition of thread drift...when a thread veers away from the original topic such that the original topic gets lost among the tangents. Yep, this one qualifies.

Since the question was answered - yes, room service is included in the price of the cruise - we'll now wave aloha to this thread.