Tip Help!

Hi there! Happy New Year! Isn't it great to think that you're going to WDW this year?!

Anyway, for the service staff (housekeeping aka mousekeeping) $1 to $2 per person staying in the room per night is standard. You can either tip every day (we prefer this in case the staff changes from day to day) or you can leave it all as one 'lump sum' tip at the end of your stay. This can be left with the concierge and they will distribute it between the cast members who worked on your room. If you have bell services move your luggage (separate of Magical Express) $1 per bag is customary.

As for meals. Standard is 15% of the entire bill. You can tip more for better service (they certainly won't turn more away! ) Disney is very helpful with this. All of the meal receipts will show what an 18% tip would be. This isn't mandatory though, it's just a suggestion to help you out.

The tip envelopes are just something many of us create to spread the magic for mousekeeping. It also makes it easier for them to identify their tips. Sometimes if the money is just placed on a table without any indication of what it is, they aren't sure if it is for them or not so they will be cautious and won't take the tip.

Hope this helps!

....and it's a tie between Tigger and Tinkerbell

Ocarina, your gong to get a lot of different answers on this one. We tip mouse keeping $5 per day. Dinning tips are usually 18% to 20% of bill. That's what it is here where we live. If the CM is very good or really plays into character, I'll tip more. We are fortunate enough to be able to tip well, and we get a lot of repeat servers that know us and treat us very well. We actually left our mouse keeper Rosamayer an extra tip in November because she did so much, left so many animals and did turndown for us every night. She was amazing. She loves her job and making people happy.

If we are staying DVC, mouse keeping gets $20 once since thy only come once while we are there.

Dining we always tip 20%, more if they add a little extra fairy dust!

I think housekeeping is optional. I know a lot of people who tip and do not tip. With DVC, $15 - $20 for a week would suffice.

We are from the UK too and when we first went to the USA (about 18 years ago) we didnt know about the tipping culture and were 'those brits' but now we know we more than make up for it! We usually tip the 18 - 20% tip at restaurants. $1-2 per person per day for mousekeeping, $1 per bag for bell services. A few $ for valet when they bring the car back.

Unfortunately lots of brits either dont know the tipping culture or are ignorant enough to not tip even when they DO know better and that gives us all a bad name we sometimes find that service slips slightly when they know we are british. Sad but true my friend is from the UK and works as a waiter in GF at the min and he hates getting the british guests.

Ocarina, you shouldn't have to worry about towels. They have bins with fresh towels at all the pools, don't take them from your room. Regarding the tipping, yes I do think you get a better level of service sometimes. Numerous times I have had CM's come back to our table to thank me for the tip. As you said , a large amount of people do not tip well, or at all, and the CM's get frustrated about it.

The quiet pools at POR do not have bins of towels, only the main pool. If you want extras, it's easy to pick up a few there on your way to the room. The quiet pools do have a bin for leaving your used towels though, so you don't have to take them back to your room if you don't want to.

We typically tip 20% for dining (a little more if really good services or anything stands out), and anywhere from $2-3 to $5 per night for Mousekeeping. It really depends on the service. This last trip we were at POFQ and our CM kept leaving towel animals - more than we had on all other trips combined! We gave her a bit extra. She was so friendly.

We made tip envelops in advance of the trip and left them on the bed each morning when we left.

Oh we'll that stinks! I'm used to the deluxe resorts, they do usually have them at the quiet pools, or at least the Poly does. See, learn something new everyday.

Both SSR and OKW have towels and towel return bins at their quiet pools.

Ooo sounds good - may is a lovey time to go
If you have dining plan included it will be counter service unless you up-graded
We tend to do minimal restaurants if we pay extra !!
If we have dining plan with a restaurant meal we double up to signature restaurants a lot
The amount of tip is worked out on the total of your bill - so if you have an expensive bottle if wine and a few beers it tots up quite a bit
It's a good idea to factor the cost in to the holiday before you go and in the grand scheme of things it's a small amount compared to the cost of getting there in the first place.
Most servers are lovely too so it's rare you begrudge leaving a healthy tip

Regarding the tips - I think it does take a while to get used to it!
The first time we went in 97 we'd never tipped in our lives really as growing up we never holidayed abroad
I do think the guide is a good idea and we usually give the max (at home my friends go mad and say I'm too generous!)
We do give cash too and tell the server when doing our bill (I'm sure they get the money anyway)
If you pay as you go then its not added on to the final bill at the end of the holiday so you don't notice it as much

We tried the Flying Fish for the first time ever and loved it - cant believe we didn't do it before.
We still have lots to try too but when you like somewhere you keep going back and unfortunately we can't do then all in one vacation!!

I do like the idea of the maid tip though - leaving it daily. At least then if the one doing it the majority of the days is off when it's your last day she will get nothing! Then again if you forget one day will they be offended mmmm - choices choices