Here Are Some Answers To Questions a First Time Cruiser May Have

First Time Cruisers
As a first-time cruiser, you probably have a lot of questions about purchasing your ticket, tipping policies, travel documentation, and dress codes. The facts below should help make your cruise experience smooth sailing.

BEFORE YOU LEAVE

Cruise Ticket Pricing
Included in the Price: Cruise pricing includes your accommodation, dining on board, entertainment, and activities.

Additional Charges: You are responsible for looking after your transfers between the pier and airport, and your onboard purchases of a personal nature (i.e. casino bets, gift shop purchases, spa and boutiques, dry-cleaning, laundry, etc). Shore excursions, beverages, and gratuities are also additional unless otherwise noted.

Gratuities per Guest, per Day (U.S. dollars)

Carnival Cruise Line: Dining room service $5.50 , Alternative dining service $0.75, Housekeeping staff $3.50. In addition, a 15% gratuity is automatically added to your bar bill. Tipping your maitre d' and headwaiter is at your discretion.

Holland America Line: A Service Charge of $10 per passenger is automatically added to each guest's shipboard account on a daily basis. If their service exceeds or fails to meet your expectations, you are free to adjust this amount at the end of the cruise.

Norwegian Cruise Line: Norwegian automatically applies a $12 gratuity to your shipboard account or $5 for children aged 3 to 12. You are welcome to adjust the dollar value up or down as you see fit. A 15% service charge is added directly to bar bills.

Princess Cruises: Princess automatically applies a $10.50 gratuity to your shipboard account. You are welcome to adjust the dollar value up or down at your discretion. A 15% service charge is added directly to bar bills.

Royal Caribbean International/ Celebrity Cruises: Dining room service $5.50, Housekeeping staff $3.50, and Headwaiters and other service personnel at your discretion.

Purchasing Your Ticket
When you purchase your cruise ticket, you are actually purchasing your cabin on the ship. Your food, entertainment, transportation, port charges, and other activities are all included in the cost of that stateroom. The per person price is calculated based on the assumption that two people will be traveling in that stateroom. Therefore, if you chose to travel solo, you can end up paying 200% of the per person cruise fare. See Singles Cruising to find alternatives to paying a higher cruise fare.

Purchasing that cabin isn't as straightforward as it may sound. This is because cruise lines divide their ships into categories or classes of cabins that don't always relate to the size of the room. The higher the cabin category, the higher the cost of the room. Some factors that affect the cost of your room are the placement on the ship (i.e. aft, bow), inside/oceanview/balcony/suite, porthole or window or balcony, size of room, deck number, number of passengers in the room, etc.

There are other alternatives to purchasing a specific stateroom. You can purchase a "category guarantee" or a "run of ship" ticket. These terms are explained below:

Category Guarantee:
When you purchase a "category guarantee" you are not purchasing an exact stateroom. You are, rather, guaranteeing a cabin in a certain category. The cruise line will place you in that cabin category or higher depending on availability. If you chose this option, you will not receive an exact stateroom number at the time of booking. Your assignment is made either a couple of weeks prior to sailing or at the pier.

Run of Ship:
When purchasing a "run of ship" ticket, you are buying yourself on to the ship without a pre-arranged cabin or category. You will not receive your stateroom number until you arrive at the pier. Your cabin may be anywhere on the ship, from the lowest deck to the highest, or may be an inside or an outside stateroom.

Identification
Citizens of the U.S.A. or Canada need proof of citizenship (passport or birth certificate with photo ID). All non-U.S. passengers require a valid passport and an unexpired U.S. Multiple Re-Entry visa. Passengers who can apply for admission under the Visa Waiver pilot program are required to carry a valid, unexpired passport.

Passengers are required to carry their proper travel documentation before, during, and immediately following the cruise. You will not be allowed to board the vessel without proper identification. All non-U.S. guests will be asked to surrender their passports and/or resident alien cards at embarkation. These documents will be returned the morning of arrival back in the U.S.

ONCE ON BOARD

Onboard Currency/Credit Cards
Onboard pricing is in U.S. dollars when sailing on Carnival, Holland America, Norwegian, Princess, and Royal Caribbean. On all of these ships, passengers make purchases on board with a "cruise card" that is issued to passengers at embarkation. This card is both identification and a credit card.

Many lines suggest the use of U.S. travelers' cheques when paying your shipboard account. Only cash is accepted in casinos and for medical charges. Visa, Mastercard, and American Express are accepted by all cruise lines. Royal Caribbean International also accepts Diners, Carte Blanche and Discover cards. Discover is also accepted by Holland America and Norwegian Cruise Lines. Celebrity Cruises has ATMs aboard all of their ships.

Attire
Cruise passengers attire is casual during the day. In the evening, Carnival, Holland America, Princess, and Royal Caribbean have three types of dress code: elegant casual (comfortable, relaxed clothing), informal (dresses/dress suits for women, jackets for men) and formal (evening gowns and suits/tuxedos). This attire varies by the night. Norwegian Cruise Lines' ships always have a resort casual attire for dinner with some optional formal nights offered.

Smoking Policies
Smoking policies vary by cruise line in terms of designated smoking areas. In all cases, smoking is, however, not permitted in food services areas, restaurants, or show lounges. Carnival Cruise Lines' Paradise is the first ever totally smoke-free ship.

Liquor Policy
Passengers are not allowed to bring alcoholic beverages on to their ship. Alcoholic beverages can be purchased in the ship's gift shops or in foreign ports, but may be retained by the cruise line until the end of the voyage. If you are celebrating a special occasion, fine wines and champagne can be brought on board during embarkation only. If you choose to consume the wine in the dining room, a $10 per bottle corkage fee is charged.

Wine, beer, champagne, and mixed drinks are available during the cruise except when U.S. Immigration personnel are inspecting the vessel.

All cruise lines follow U.S. regulations in regards to drinking. That means that no one under the age of 21 years is permitted to buy or consume alcohol while on the ship.

Seasickness
Ships nowadays are so big and well-stabilized that passengers can barely tell that they are moving. Caribbean cruises and Alaska's Inside Passage cruise are known for extremely calm waters. It is unlikely that you will feel sick during your cruise to these locations.

If you run into rough waters and begin to feel queasy, your symptoms can be relieved by an over-the-counter medication like Dramamine. If you are very prone to seasickness, ask your doctor, prior to sailing, for the Transderm patch (available by prescription). Or buy some ginger capsules and acupressure wristbands at a pharmacy before boarding the ship.

Staying In Touch
All of today's cruise ships have TVs in every stateroom, many with CNN. A daily newssheet with stories from the major newspapers is available for passengers. Norwegian Cruise Lines has major newspapers available for sale aboard many of its newer vessels. In addition, you can make phone calls and send emails both at sea and in port.

Safety
There are many rules and regulations adhered to by cruise ships so that passengers and crew members are kept safe from harm. In addition, the Coast Guard conducts rigorous quarterly inspections of all ships operating from U.S. ports to make sure that the ships comply with its emergency-response requirements. Ships also operate under international rules known as Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) to protect against fire. The rules require ships to have smoke detectors, sprinklers, and low-level emergency lighting for escape routes. To ensure that passengers know how to evacuate in the event of a real emergency, drills are held for passengers and crew at the beginning of every cruise to simulate an evacuation.

Security
International rules have recently been established requiring all ships and ports to have security officers and security plans. Cruise lines are required to report the names of passengers on each sailing to the Coast Guard and identification policies are very tight.

Verbal Etiquette

Always refer to your vessel as a ship not a boat.

The ship is always referred to as a female.

"Port" refers to the left side of the ship.

"Starboard" refers to the right side of the ship.

"Aft" refers to the rear or back of the ship.

"Bow" refers to the front of the ship.

A ship has decks not floors.

A ship has staterooms not rooms.

"Tender" is the vessel that you take to and from the shore when the ship is at anchor in a port.

The "bridge" is the place where the Captain and his crew steer the ship.

The "brig" is the ship's jail.

It is a "Purser's Desk" not an Information Desk or a Front Desk.

FOLLOWING THE CRUISE

Past Passenger Programs
Many cruise lines enroll all past passengers into a program that is designed to keep you informed about upcoming offers and provide you with special amenities and pricing for your next cruise.

Carnival Cruises: Carnival's past passengers receive a free, two-year subscription to "Carnival Currents" (the line's onboard magazine). This magazine contains discounts for future cruises.

Celebrity Cruises: "Captain's Club" is Celebrity's program. Members are offered discounts or cabin upgrades on futures cruises. They also receive club baggage tags, pins, videos of the ships and destinations, advance notice of offers, and an invite to a private cocktail party on their next cruise.

Holland America Line: Holland America's past passengers are enrolled in the "Mariner Club" to receive discounts and upgrade offers five times a year. They also receive baggage tags, separate check-in, medallions, and an invite to a captain-hosted cocktail party on their next cruise.

Norwegian Cruise Line: "Latitudes" is Norwegian's past passengers' club. It provides fast check-in, a captain's reception, bridge and galley tours, special cruises, and additional onboard credits. Members also receive a newsletter and discounts on selected cruises.

Princess Cruises: Offers a club called "Captain's Circle." Members are invited to a captain-hosted cocktail party on their next cruise and are welcome to participate in a club photo contest with prizes. Recognition pins are presented with amazing gifts (i.e. Tiffany Crystal) to those who travel frequently. All members are put on a list to receive a special Princess newsletter.

Royal Caribbean International: Royal Caribbean's past passengers join "The Crown and Anchor Society." This club has three levels of membership based on the number of cruises taken. Members receive a quarterly magazine with special offers. Couples can enter members-only sweepstakes and participate in shore-side events.

Hope this has been of some help. If you have more questions head to the web site by clicking on the title.

Photo of the Miami Cruiseship terminal showing the contrast of a weary traveler and an alert one taken by Ian Hughes who has other photos on Flickr.

P.S. There is only a few more days remaining to enter in the win a free cruise contest so if you haven't already you should.

Jessica Spengler from Suite 101 Has Some Delicious Ice Cream Cocktails for this Heat Wave

It may be September 2 but there is still a bit of time to run to the Liquor store and pick up some ice cream on the way home.

Chateau Mango In India?

Here is a post on how wine made from mangos is looking to hit the ground running in India. Now that would be something to try. This post is courtesy of www.luxuo.com

8 Most Exotic Drinks in the World by Katie at Tripbase.com

Click on the title for these delicious drink recipes.

Here are 8 beautiful exotic cocktails to enjoy while cruising on the high seas. Thanks Katie!

Who to Tip and How Much By Josh Smith at Walletpop

Click on the title to see Josh's article on who gets what in the tipping world. Do you agree or disagree?

Wine Word of the Week by Tim Burke of the Palm Beach Post

Wine Word of the Week

Well I am back to posting on wine and food as well as cruiseships. But this time I am going to use my twitter feed to pick out interesting articles for your reading pleasure.

It is much easier and this way I can concentrate on the other blog about cruise ships and destinations.

Renaissance VIII 1992 ( I opened this one )

Renaissance VIII Cruise

Feeling a bit nostalgic right now. I helped open this ship back in 1992. When you click on the link above it will give you the details and the photo.

First I opened the seventh ship named Regina Renaissance and during the same contract headed to this one to open it as well. It was a pretty heavy duty 6 1/2 month contract.

I didn't realize how small it was until I looked at the gross tonnage of just over 4,200. Nowadays they are built way over 100 - 200,000 gross tons. All the Renaissance ships were the same build.

114 passengers was really sweet. The dining room had open seating and the relaxed personalized service you could give each guest made it enjoyable. Notice 70 crew for 114 passengers as well.

When you are choosing a ship to travel on a good indicator of how pampered you will be is noting the crew to passenger ratio. Two or less crew for every one guest is great. You can usually find that on the smaller ships.

For you waiters out there working on cruise ships you probably get your $50 a month plus gratuities. Well when I started with Renaissance the waiters got $625 a month plus tips. That would be unheard of today. Later on after the registry changed from Italy to Liberia we all made $50 a month salary. That happened soon after.

Renaissance as I knew it went bankrupt shortly after September 11 ,2001. Their margins were pretty tight and were barely making it then and with the flux of cancellations following that dreadful day it had to shut operations. Other companies bought the ships and remodeled them.

They were not like this ship though. It was like a big yacht!

Good times!

Tomorrow another destination!

My Goals Are Set

I am really enjoying this summer so far. Been to Iceland for a couple of weeks and been to the beach a couple of times.

But what excites me is continuing to work as a waiter and the two other things I am doing. One is I am studying Icelandic. That will take a couple of years I figure. My in-laws would probably say finally after all these years! Secondly, I am starting to get involved with the cruise industry again.

Success in either one requires some will, determination and planning but you need some challenges in life I say. But if your heart is into it then the rest is easy.

Click on my other blog at the right of the page and have a look. If you like cruising sign up for the newsletter and the chance to win a free cruise. It doesn't matter where you live. If not that is fine too. I know waiters like to travel though. We go a lot from job to job. We are nomads. So vacation instead. Ha!

Have a wonderful day!

A New Blog Starting Up Soon

In a couple of weeks I am going to be switching to another blog. Yes I will still be waiting on tables but I am also going to work for a travel agency starting in a few weeks specializing in cruise ships , land packages , airline flights and just about anything else you can think of.

This blog will be coming to an end as I do not intend to talk anymore about the restaurant industry. Not that it hasn't been good to me but really other than rude guests there wasn't much else that I felt I could have covered.

This new blog I will be talking about travel destinations. In other words places you and I would like to visit or know more about. The blog is up and ready to go so I am hoping when the time comes you can all join me and together we can talk of travel. Having traveled a bit myself this should be loads of fun.

As well , when I get started there will be a link to a free monthly newsletter informing you of what is new in the travel industry and some real good deals going on out there.

Lastly there will also be a link to a web page where you can browse different vacation packages without leaving the comfort of your home.

The blog is at this link http://cruisingeverywhere.blogspot.com The profile picture is of me and my oldest son on the ship while whale watching in Iceland.

I will be back in a couple of weeks once the training is over and I have written the exam that Ontario travel agents have to write.

Till then , be well..

Back to Work Tonight

The biggest motivating factor for me going back to work tonight after having a great vacation is now thinking about next year's vacation. Yes I know there is a lot of room in between for other things to take place but this past two weeks has made me decide that everyone should take a couple of weeks at the very least.

Last night I started thinking about work and I thought about the last table I served before I went on vacation. It was 9:45 and a couple came in with a one year old and ordered an appetizer and a couple of steaks. An hour later after taking turns holding onto the child who was obviously overtired and whiny they asked for the bill. It came to a whopping (kidding) total of $75.32 and the guy says that is a day's wages. He leaves $6.

I hope that family sees better days because when he said that I felt bad for him. Nice enough family too. Seriously if people are going out to eat where I work and cannot afford it maybe I might just look around and find a place to work where people can afford it.

In a couple of weeks I am starting a new blog or at least by that time will let you know of it. Life is about to get a whole lot more exciting for us.

Plan Your Future Now And Get Started

Just a little post to catch up on what has been happening lately in the waitering profession. Happy it is June 1st cause May hasn't been great.

I never liked May for many reasons. It is the time when you know that summer is around the corner and the slow days at work begin so you have to make hay while the sun shines. Sick or not sick.

The beginning of May I caught what seemed like the 24 hour flu. I missed a day off work and went back on my next shift. Mother's Day was coming which pretty much meant feeling good or no good I had to work cause the money was going to dry up later. All that week I was suffering from heavy chest congestion which meant working and throwing up stuff at work.

Mother's Day I worked. We did 968 covers that day. I worked a few shifts after then one morning got out of bed and it felt like my upper back was punched in all night. Went to the hospital to find out I had pneumonia. Well that was almost 3 weeks ago and I still have a bit of it hanging on. Throughout I have missed quite a number of shifts.

Now being a waiter I am entitled to a slew of benefits. Not!!

So just as a thought I would like to talk about planning ahead. Waitering is a lot more fun when you are single and can come home if you are sick and sleep a whole day to get rid of it. It is fun when you are single and banking a bunch of money planning your next holiday.

But on the reverse side don't forget too if you are planning to stay in it for an extended length of time and planning on having a family later on, continue working on Plan B whatever that may be. I know I know you are having a blast right now. Partying maybe , or like a co worker of mine having gone to teacher college was wondering if he should do that or work in restaurants. I told him a while back this is fun but think of your future.

Now that he is serious with a girl and probably after seeing me sick he is re applying to get in the school boards here. Teachers in Canada get paid very well I might add with all the benefits. He has come to his senses.

I did a lot of traveling while doing this profession which is why I probably stayed in it as long as I did.

What I didn't do was think of the time I would settle with someone and raise kids when I was younger.

So my suggestion to anyone waitering or bartending is if you are doing this past 30 it is time to start making a Plan B if you haven't started already. Just look around at the people you work with who are older. Look at how excited they are to be working holidays and weekends missing out on the kid's ball game and working New Year's Eve. Wow see the steam coming out of their freakin' ears! They are fired up alright!

Don't get me wrong my life is good and am extremely happy but I am not immortal. When you are younger you think you are. Things start going funny when you are older and your body can't put up with working long hours on Mother's Day. I had too cause the week after the income dries up.

If you work at a bank you get a doctor's note and you are off. Fortunately my wife gets benefits where she is or it would be tough paying for the meds.

So my thought for this post is plan ahead.... Plan your future now and get started. It is never too late but why wait till later.

Twitter

Hello everyone! Right now I am using twitter a lot for such topics as tourism , food and beverage , cruise ship information , dining experiences , and other hospitality related ideas. This is a growing medium and is pretty simple to send out messages and network too. I want to concentrate more on this aspect.

If any of you want to see what it is all about have a look by clicking on the title or this link at http://twitter.com/stevennicolle

Once in a while I may blog but for right now I will concentrate more on the twitter.

Thanks again for your support and may I take this time to wish everyone a great Easter!

It Has Been Totally Awesome!

It has been a week since my last post. The next day I was going to post something but with the kids out for Spring break I decided to delay it a day. Then the next day came and I didn't post anything and the whole week just continued like that.

For the past year and a half I have been writing about anything and everything I could think of about the restaurant industry. I have even regurgitated old things and put a different slant on them just to post something. As the week wore on with me not posting anything a strange thing occured. I got more accomplished. I was more relaxed. I started to read a book I put aside a while back.

We bought the tickets for Iceland where we will be going the end of June to mid-July to spend time with my wife's family. I finished my third assignment for my home study course. On my day off headed to Toronto to visit my brother Blair and where he worked and took the kids on their first subway ride on what was a beautiful balmy day. Got our passport photos done.

My wife and I have been working steady. Today and tomorrow are my first two days off in a row since before Valentine's day. A couple of more months till the end of May I plan on working just as hard. I think I am the only one getting five shifts a week right now which is great and if the bartending course gets enough people to sign up beginning on April 12th that would be an added bonus.

Honestly if people read blogs to get the scoop on some silly request by a guest this is not a blog to read. I just work through it and keep every thought I can possibly come across positive. We are getting it done. Goals are being reached and I am in a happy place.

The battle is won between your ears. Len Lobby from the Las Vegas Weekly sent me a link to an article that talked about waiting on tables and other positions that rely on tips. Check it out by clicking the title. The one I like is about the 60 year old waiter who basically says that bad tips come with the good tips and really he just accepts there will be bad ones. Probably why he is still a waiter. He knows it is just a numbers game. That is all it is.

As long as you can work in a place that is busy enough so you can have enough people to serve to overcome the bad tipper you will always make some money. It is just the law of averages.

As for the blog I will not post as much. Unless I get ideas from you or have questions you would like to have my opinion on I will keep it to perhaps a couple a week. In the past I have posted stuff just to post something and usually it has been about some silly guest. To be truthful except for that idiot couple I have posted about a couple of times not much gets to me. By the time I walk out the door and driven home for half an hour my night is forgotten. When it comes to writing about serving , clearing tables , or other stuff concerning waitering and bartending there are others that are doing that already and doing a good job at it.

For those of you who I am grateful for following me right up till now the part I have really enjoyed is talking about jobs I have had and my travels. This business I have enjoyed immensely and still do. I couldn't think of doing anything else except to write about it someday in a book.

It has been totally awesome!

So when I do post now it will be on something that you want to hear about or that I think may be of some significance going on in my thoughts. I will try to make it as fresh as possible.

By the way if any of you out there want to keep in touch more often via the email drop me a line. I know I have made some friends out there in the blog world. We are all the same in this world just doing the same thing trying to make it happen.

steve@stevetalks.ca

I Think I Won Again

Yes that is right another contest for highest average check was held this week and unless someone makes a huge night tonight I obtained the highest. This month I said this was going to be a good month and so far it is. Today enjoying my third day off in March.

I have been upsizing the steaks , selling the feature martinis , making sure everyone has a drink in front of them , selling add-ons , getting guests to share appetizers or desserts if they cannot have one all their own , selling coffee. You name it.

Coffee is a biggie. Something so easy to serve adds a couple of dollars to the average guest check.

Hey 14 years ago this week I left the ship for the last time. March 10th in Singapore. Time flies but this streak I am on makes me realize there is still a lot left in the tank.

Feels good......

The Job Interview Of A Lifetime ( A Short Story )

I couldn't believe my stroke of good luck when Stephen Peter telephoned me from Switzerland to ask me if I wanted to join Renaissance Cruises on their new ship being built in Italy. Here I was unemployed in Jasper Alberta during the slow season. The restaurant where I was working had closed for the winter about a month earlier. Now I was hoping that I would get a call from one of the cruise ship companies I had mailed a resume to just a couple of weeks before.

To my surprise the conversation started off on a friendly personal note. " Hello Steven, this is Stephen Peter, do you remember me?" Thrown completely off guard by this opening I responded with a hesitant sound in my voice indicating I recalled nothing of this person. He then reminded me that we had met two years earlier in Switzerland. At that precise moment it became clear how fortuitous I was meeting Stephen while I was in Switzerland.

I was working at the Hotel Eden au Lac in Montreux Switzerland. It was my second and final year that I would be working there and my future hinged on finding employment the following year. The difficulty was finding work elsewhere in Switzerland. Being a foreigner I was required to leave the country and apply while outside their border which would mean a long period of waiting for work permits to come through and worse still a period of little or no income. So the plan was just to wait till my contract expired in December and head home and take it from there. One thing I didn't want to do was put an end to my travelling days. My return home was going to be temporary.

As mentioned, even though my odds of finding a job while working in Switzerland was near impossible I used to enjoy looking at the hiring announcements available in the hotel newspaper that circulated every week. While looking one time an ad caught my attention. It explained a new luxury cruise line company was launching it's first ship and was hiring for all positions. In addition, the interviews were being conducted in Rapperswil, a suburb of Zurich. What excited me even more was the ad and contact name were both in English. I checked out my schedule and noticed I had a couple of days off the following week. Going by my motto of always checking things out I decided to give them a call. The appointment was set.

When the day of the interview arrived I was hemming and hawing about calling the interview off. I was glancing at the train connections and how long I would be traveling before I got there in the afternoon. I recall it being a nice sunny day and thinking how nice it would be to sip a beer on a patio and soak up the sunshine. It was Fall at the time and days like that were getting further and further apart. I thought long and hard about cancelling the interview.

Finally deciding that this might be a once in a lifetime opportunity I got myself cleaned and attired then headed up the hill to the train station. Four trains and five hours later I was sitting opposite Stephen Peter talking about Renaissance Cruises. It sounded wonderful and I applied for a bar tender position on their first ship.

There was however one hurdle. My contract at the hotel did not finish till just before Christmas and the first ship was going to be ready for November. So I was hired on the condition that I could get an early release from my work at the hotel which I didn't really want to ask for or there was an unforseen delay in the opening of the ship. As it turned out the ship was right on schedule. Shortly after the interview I received a letter stating my position was filled. I never gave it much thought after that and moved on with my life.

I did go to England in 1990 and now had just worked from January to November in Jasper. I still had a yearning to travel more and make some money working on cruise ship. I chose a few companies and forwarded my resume on to them. All I had to do was wait for an answer back. I didn't realize that one of the companies I applied to was one I had an interview with two years earlier. Lucky for that too because it was the only answer I got back!

In retrospect, that interview in Rapperswil changed my life. I am glad I decided to go and not cancel the appointment that day and thankful I made a good impression on Stephen. I was hired to join their seventh ship called the Regina Renaissance as a waiter.

Two months later I was in the Red Sea working on 10 day cruises. I saw the pyramids in Giza and the Lost City of Petra in Jordan. It was surreal. Just a short time before I was watching elk graze in the Rockies and now here I was in a totally different landscape. That first six month contract I visited 23 countries.

To top it all off on my fourth contract I met my wife who also worked on the ship. You could say this was the job interview of a lifetime.

It definitely was worth checking out!

Never Ask A Waiter If He Is Too Busy To Take Another Table

I just got triple sat and one of the tables was a party of 10. The GM comes over and ask if I can do it. Of course I can I replied.

I am in the weeds big time. I have tables all over the place and somehow I have to take this order from the 10 top quickly before delivering the drink order for the 4 top that I just took. Only 6 of the 10 speak English and the rest need translation. Great I finally get their order and run my ass off catching up on my other tables.

End result , I walked out with $232 last night and the highest check average. If this keeps up I am going to win the contest again.

A waiter would sooner be in the weeds and take more tables than say no and be standing around. Ask a waiter if they can handle another table and it is sort of a stupid question. They will always say yes.

A Dream Close

The other night I was closing and had no new table for close to two hours. Then just when I thought we were close to shutting the dining room a couple walk in.

Alright I guess I am here for a while longer I thought. The thing was not so much what the time was but when you have basically been doing nothing and you get a table so close to the end it is like okay here we go. It is going to be a slow long night like last Monday's 12:30am departure.

They sit down and are taking their time when they finally order a drink. Then I get their salads and with their steaks medium well and well done punched in that order a few minutes later. Well it turned out these people were really nice so it was no trouble I thought if they stayed a while.

Their main course came out and I walked away to let them enjoy it and went to do some closing duties. A few minutes later I was coming by to do the quality check when they guy says we need this all packed to go. The babysitter had called and I guess they had to head home.

Stunned and trying not to show my inner happiness I packed their food and settled up with them on the debit machine. Not only did they tip but they tipped well and even offered myself to join them the next time while they were eating for a drink. Not sure I would be able to do that I said but thanked them and added I hoped everything was okay.

So the end result was for a change got out early on a bit of a fluke and made decent money on just 5 tables.

Sometimes things just go your way.

Read Your Guests

The other night we got slammed and the kitchen was running behind. I had this couple who had a some appetizers and salad and were waiting for their main course to arrive.

My other table got their food and I was running food all around in that area to different tables. I saw them start to have that look on their face like when is mine arriving? I head back to the kitchen and I see it on the pass waiting for the steak to be put on the plate. Asking how long it will be I went back to the table and said to them it will be a couple of minutes.

Now here is the deal if you say it is going to be arriving in a couple of minutes it better arrive in a couple of minutes. Any longer and the guests really begins to wonder what the heck happened.

I go back to the kitchen and it is still not ready. I give a heads up to the kitchen manager and he checks the time and sees it is running way late. Knowing it may take a couple of minutes more he heads to the table to speak with the guest.

The guest is fine and the meal arrives shortly thereafter. It was a great thing the manager did by going over there to speak with the guest. He said thanks for letting him know and we put out a potential fire by letting the guest know that we were sorry for the delay and it will be out shortly.

Here is the deal and that is when you are waiting a longer than usual time for something and you feel the guest starting to lose it by changes in their facial expression or a total lack of silence at the table let your supervisor know. Chances are they are peeved off.

Don't try to remedy the situation by yourself. If you have done all you could and you see the guests' face going sour tell someone. By someone who is higher up going to the table not only will things get smoothed out but they will know that you the waiter are doing your job by showing you care enough to have someone come over and explain the problem.

A waiter who puts out fires before they go full out is on top of his section and communicating all the time. This is providing excellent service!

CNN Article

Here is a waiter article I participated in that has been posted today. Unfortunately it lacks a link back to the blog but I enjoyed adding a few comments to help out.

Just click on the title to view the article. I found it amusing the restaurant that wanted to ban a bad tipper.

Waiting is a tough profession that has a lot of good and not much bad. My motto has always been if I cannot afford to tip well then I cannot afford to go out either. Better just to buy some groceries and have a nice family dinner.

Great Verbal Tips This Weekend Grrrrrrr....

I don't know how many times people said great meal and great service and left me just the minimum. I mean how many tables do I have to do to make great money when people are leaving 8 , 9 , and $10? All I can do is hurry through the numbers and hope by the end of the night I get a real good one sometime during service to bump my take home up.

I see very quickly that Spring is almost here and although I am not complaining that warmer weather is coming very quickly it also means the slow season is coming upon us. So the more shifts I work till about Mother's Day the better. Then I can take some time off during the summer.

Hopefully we will be heading to Iceland the beginning of July for two weeks. Hot Springs , Blue Lagoon , camping and lots of daylight hours to enjoy there.

I would estimate in this 6 day stretch I just worked during the past week I probably served about 140 people. Come to think of it I had to make some good money somewhere during that time. How could I not?

How was your last week?