I usually take a cpl packs of 1's and 5's for the week and leave a few dollars everyday on the bed and tip the bartenders thru out the day and at all the meals, any Pesos that i gather thru the week, leave in the room at checkout. good Idea to keep the staff happy, they work hard for your comfort
I usually tip the bartender $10.00 upfront the first day and he always has my drink ready when I go to the bar. Then through out my stay I'll tip the bartenders as the day goes on. I also leave 3-5 each day in the room for the cleaning lady. Now when we do have a nice dinner we leave 15 (but we only eat at the specialty restaurants about 3 times, so we're really not shelling out a lot of dough there). For the buffets we leave 2-4 bucks. I, too, get the brand new dollar bills from the credit union as I have also heard that the banks in Mexico will not accept torn, worn, or written on bills. I don't know why that is, a dollar is a dollar whether it's pretty or not. I hope this information was helpful....
also a point#### us coins can not be exchanged. if friends with a resort employee offer to change out any coins they have.
tipping I tip at the restaurants and the swim up bar, I don't tip every trip to the swim up bar, I might give them a lot one time and be done with it or a little each day, different trips to the bar. At the restaurants, a little each time we eat.
I have worked as bar staff so I know how important tips are Like you said it is left for good service. A lot of people don't leave anything, I've been told it is because they were told the advertising says all tips were included hence the word "all inclusive" Since I have worked in the service industry, I know you should never expect a tip, you need to earn it. We have met some great staff over the years and we always take care of them.
I bring atleast $100-$200 in US $1 bills every time I go on vacation. I don`t always tip by any means but I try to be as generous as I can after all what goes around comes around.
Hi Everyone, We just got back yesterday and I have already been on this sight several times and trying to prepare for my very long trip report....but I saw this thread and had to comment (I will also mention this again in my report). We brought $1000 for 7 full days and did not plan to do much shopping and only one trip on our own to the Isla. With that said...we tipped, and tipped and tipped. I just want everyone to know that we probably over tipped several times (Ricardo at the Italian restaruant got $40 from us). We TOTALLY believe in tipping....but were a little bit bummed after reading this sight at how it appeared that some of the people didn't even seem to care. I have a million wonderful things to say about TTR and will tell everyone I know about it and we are already planning our next trip...but I was a bit disappointed with the tipping thing. We tipped $1 for every drink....every shot...for the first 3-4 days. We had spent about $400 at this point. I noticed that not a lot of people were tipping, so was dumbfounded at the lack of appreciation when we did tip. I literally had a few bartenders grab the money out of my hand without even saying thank you or a smile. We even took the advise of another person from this sight and got a $100 in $2 bills and decided to walk around on our last day and give them to all the obscure people that are cleaning or would not normally get tips. That was priceless. Those are the behind the scenes people...the gardners, the guys cleaning the pools, the ladies sweeping the floors, the 2 girls making the omlets at the buffet, the kid who was cleaning off the grills at the Paty'Os mini buffet....those people, they really...really appreciated it. Not sure if it is common, but we had left $5 for the maid the first day...got the pretty swan....the next day...left $3....got the heart...the next day $2 and got nothing. We still tipped every day, and did not get another "towel sculpture" but were not sure if it was because she didnt know how to make any more or if it was because the tip went down to $2 (please note I also left chocolate for her too). In our discussion about tipping, we decided that we would tip $5 to each bartender per day, the maid and the "obscure people". I know that they do not get very much, that is why it was very important to tip...but we did not get the kind of response we had anticipated.
that last post was good to read looks like it better to tip the behind the scenes people, from reading all the of the post if everyone is tipping as much as they say they do and there so many people staying at TTR the bartenders and restaurant people must be raking it in and not be too bad off themselves. my brother and 3 of his friends where at TTR in may and they said they received no better service for tipping besides one waitress so they just tipped her all the time and she looked after them well, sounds like it better just to choose one or two people to tip to let them make your holiday services better
We took a couple hundred in small bill's for tipping last time and some of the staff really seemed to appreciate it and some did not. When we first got there we gave a bartender a $20 at the sexy pool. Well the next 5 or 6 times we went for a drink we seemed to be invisible to him and had to get his pardner to get our drink's. After that we never pre-tipped again. We would just take 20 single bills and tip as we went to whomever was getting the drinks for us. We tipped $3 bucks a day to room service and never got any of the towel art. Wanted more beer one day so I left a note in Spanish in case they couldn't read English and put $5 with it......no extra beer. My wife also worked her way thru A&M waiting tables and she sometime's makes me mad at how much she tip's here in the states but she was too the point by the end of the trip that she didn't want to give em another penny. The restaurant's alway's gave us great service and at night's they put up with some very large group's of us that had way to much to drink and still did a awesome job....they got tipped very well for a job well done and alway's remembered us the next time they saw us. If ya think about it....3 bartender's all day at the sexy pool and they are waiting on 300 geusts that day. Say that each guest is tipping a minimuim of $10 thru the entire day....well they just pulled nearly a grand apiece and that is better than anybody in Mexico!!!!! I think I am gonna quit my job and sling drink's at the sexy pool!
Great post and my point exactly. We dont just hand out the tips. All the housekeeping staff actually goes through a class on how to make the different towel animals/shapes. Two times our maid actually brought in fresh flower petals to sprinkle around the swan Tips should be earned and never expected.
