I always bring a Yankee hat for some of the bar tenders ive known for years, I always bring Pablo a Yankee shirt or something that say New York on it...
We try and make a visit to the dollar store before we go. We take things like pencils, pens, small toys etc for the maids to give their children as these simple items are not as easy for these people to get as it is for us. Also candy, gum, whatever along with hair elastics etc. Also some cash as well for the maid staff as they work the hardest and make the least. Bartenders ans wiaters/waitresses.. Cash is king tip well and tip often and you will get great service plus at the end of the day a few bucks out of our pockets makes a huge difference to them...
We leave a tip for the maid daily, rather than weekly. The maids will have a day off somewhere in the course of your week's visit. We want our "regular" maid to get the bulk of the tips, and then the maid who only does the room 1 day gets something as well. Same general theory with bartenders. Also Veronica (hoping she's still there) who works the lounge chairs at the sexy pool. All the people who work there are extremely friendly!
HOLY COW!!!!! That is a lot of money.... We tip but nothing like that. I don't even tip that much here in America. I know they work very hard for us and I tip what I think is fair.
Why do'nt you bring them a hat/shirt of a team they would be proud of instead of the Shankees? :aktion060:
I always tip my fav bartenders $20 per week, then a buck here and there..keeps them happy, and certainly keeps my hands full of drinks, no matter who's waiting in line for a drink
unfortunately, the 'Skankees' are the most popular team in the world....of course there`s no accounting for taste, as I`m a second class (according to Skankee fans) Mets fan! :anon: No offense, Jim! LOL
We tipped on the following scale - and we follow the rule, tip heavy the first day to get "in favor" with key people, tip "regular" the rest of the days, and then if you feel there are those at the end of the trip that desrved special tips - hand deliver those at the end. Therefore: First Day: Maid: $10 (got us a great supply of water, beer and towel critters for the rest of the week) Pool bartender (Humberto?): $5 on the first round of the day, $1-$2 thereafter, but EVERY drink, every time - that way they get to know you. Front Desk - tipped the check in desk supervisor $20 and that got us moving on getting us a room and it was a very nice room. Because the wait staff in the restaurant was variable, we tipped $2-3 at breakfast, $3-4 at lunch, and $5-7 at dinner in the buffet. In the speciality restaurants, we tipped $10.00 plus 20% on the wine we ordered (we always ordered a bottle of wine). Day by day, we tipped our maid $3 and at the end of the trip, another $10.00 - delivered to her face to face. Also tipped the pool bartender another $10 at the end. All US currency - it allows them to play the float on the exchange - I was told this by a friend who lives in Cancun and runs a tour service there - he said the staff prefers US$ over any other currency, even Pesos.
We were originally scheduled over by the quiet pool as we mistakenly took some advice of people we knew here - AND when we got to the resort, they said it would be 45 minutes before our room was ready. Ok, that's cool, so we went outside, walked around and scouted and realized that the great views were above the sexy pool - both of the ocean and of the pool, so we went back and asked when our room would be ready. The desk person said "well, probably another 90 minutes or so." At this point, I asked for the desk manager, he came over, I shook his hand and deposited the $20 and said "do you have anything by the fun pool that might be open now." He said "give me a minute" and came back in a less than 2 minutes and said "we have a room available now overlooking that pool - it is on the top floor though and you'll have to walk up stairs." I said "sounds perfect" and took the room. And it was perfect for sure.