It was the best trip I have ever been on. We did the larger boat - Silver Origin due to it's amenities. Guided by Fabulous TD Marcos Soto, tour offered an incredible diversity in terms of culture/climate/wild life. I would do this tour again.
So if you go on a land only tour, the tip is not included. I’ve been to Galapagos twice with Tauck but on the small intimate Isabella ll we are going on the Bridges tour next year. We have come across Marcos a couple of times.
It was the best trip I have ever been on. We did the larger boat - Silver Origin due to it's amenities. Guided by Fabulous TD Marcos Soto, tour offered an incredible diversity in terms of culture/climate/wild life. I would do this tour again.
We had Marcos as the TD when we went. He did a great job.
We always pay the bus driver in local currency. It costs him money to trade in US dollars. If you're in Europe or some other first world country you can get the local currency at an ATM near the end of the tour. Also, he is paid by the company that provides the bus. I'm sure they don't want to be in the middle of the tip transaction.
As far as the tour director is concerned, if he is a permanent resident abroad (US citizen or not) he likely wants the local currency. Even a US citizen would need to have an account in US dollars to avoid the conversion charges. Non-US citizens would have no reason to want large sums of US currency.
We've been told that Canadian tours are required to have a Canadian citizen as a tour director. Unless they spend significant time in the US they would not want to receive a large amount of US dollars.
If we gave the money to Tauck in US dollars, they would need to convert the tips to local currency before paying non-US your directors.
I’m pretty sure the TD’s and bus drivers know how to handle US dollars, and I would bet they know how to get a better exchange rate than what we are likely to get.
The first rule of accepting tips is "Don't make it hard for someone to give you money." I'm sure they'll take the tip in any form of money and be happy to receive it.
On our last Tauck tour (Italy) the guide emphasized the difficulty the driver would have with US dollars. She said anti laundering efforts mean he goes to the bank and they painstakingly scan each bill both sides, (takes a long time) then charge a significant fee above the exchange rate. (She was OK with dollars as she is American). Although I despise this tipping in general as long as we have to I will make an effort to tip in the local currency. Confession: I’ve never worked for tips but I can’t imagine someone in the US happy when finding, at the end of the day, they’ve got a bunch of foreign currency to deal with.
Gosh, I’ve just realized that it is maybe 8 years since we took a land tour with Tauck where there was a bus driver to tip. All our other ones had multiple countries/ drivers so driver tips were included.
This subject was discussed with the Tauck CEO on the 1925 Circle zoom meeting this morning. Here's my takeaway:
They definitely are aware of the concerns about tipping and looking for solutions.
They want to stick to the tipping model where practical (i.e. land tours).
There is no app available that would allow tipping internationally (they've looked).
They are going to try a pilot program of electronic tipping on tours in the US.
One interesting note, the reason that Bridges tours have the tipping included is that they found that parents don't tip for their kids - even though the kids require the most attention.
I registered but never receive the link for the meeting this morning. Thanks for this, any other interesting things discussed?
Re the Bridges tours, we have been on two, nine people and we were paying, that would have been a lot of cash to carry. The tour directors love to do them for that reason. There were 46 people on one of our tours!
Interesting subject and comments. I do not know the reason, but I am assuming that the reason the TDs may not be paid more is that it would cost more for expensive tours and mean less customers. The riverboat TDs are paid more (more of them on each cruise/tour) and I am also guessing that those tours have it priced into the overall amount.
Comments
our last trip was a blended one, 1 week on land transitioning onto a small ship sail spearheaded by the same TD.
Was that an Alaska one or maybe Machu Pichu Galapagos? The Alaska ship/land had tips included. Not taken the other
yes, Machu Picchu + Galapagos. It was all included
It was the best trip I have ever been on. We did the larger boat - Silver Origin due to it's amenities. Guided by Fabulous TD Marcos Soto, tour offered an incredible diversity in terms of culture/climate/wild life. I would do this tour again.
So if you go on a land only tour, the tip is not included. I’ve been to Galapagos twice with Tauck but on the small intimate Isabella ll we are going on the Bridges tour next year. We have come across Marcos a couple of times.
We had Marcos as the TD when we went. He did a great job.
We always pay the bus driver in local currency. It costs him money to trade in US dollars. If you're in Europe or some other first world country you can get the local currency at an ATM near the end of the tour. Also, he is paid by the company that provides the bus. I'm sure they don't want to be in the middle of the tip transaction.
As far as the tour director is concerned, if he is a permanent resident abroad (US citizen or not) he likely wants the local currency. Even a US citizen would need to have an account in US dollars to avoid the conversion charges. Non-US citizens would have no reason to want large sums of US currency.
We've been told that Canadian tours are required to have a Canadian citizen as a tour director. Unless they spend significant time in the US they would not want to receive a large amount of US dollars.
If we gave the money to Tauck in US dollars, they would need to convert the tips to local currency before paying non-US your directors.
Tauck says you can pay in dollars
I’m pretty sure the TD’s and bus drivers know how to handle US dollars, and I would bet they know how to get a better exchange rate than what we are likely to get.
The first rule of accepting tips is "Don't make it hard for someone to give you money." I'm sure they'll take the tip in any form of money and be happy to receive it.
On our last Tauck tour (Italy) the guide emphasized the difficulty the driver would have with US dollars. She said anti laundering efforts mean he goes to the bank and they painstakingly scan each bill both sides, (takes a long time) then charge a significant fee above the exchange rate. (She was OK with dollars as she is American). Although I despise this tipping in general as long as we have to I will make an effort to tip in the local currency. Confession: I’ve never worked for tips but I can’t imagine someone in the US happy when finding, at the end of the day, they’ve got a bunch of foreign currency to deal with.
We pay in USD on all of our 'land' tours. In general I think it is probably easier for a local person to navigate their own money exchange system.
We usually give the TD USD and the bus driver local currency.
Gosh, I’ve just realized that it is maybe 8 years since we took a land tour with Tauck where there was a bus driver to tip. All our other ones had multiple countries/ drivers so driver tips were included.
This subject was discussed with the Tauck CEO on the 1925 Circle zoom meeting this morning. Here's my takeaway:
One interesting note, the reason that Bridges tours have the tipping included is that they found that parents don't tip for their kids - even though the kids require the most attention.
Thanks Ken!
I registered but never receive the link for the meeting this morning. Thanks for this, any other interesting things discussed?
Re the Bridges tours, we have been on two, nine people and we were paying, that would have been a lot of cash to carry. The tour directors love to do them for that reason. There were 46 people on one of our tours!
Interesting subject and comments. I do not know the reason, but I am assuming that the reason the TDs may not be paid more is that it would cost more for expensive tours and mean less customers. The riverboat TDs are paid more (more of them on each cruise/tour) and I am also guessing that those tours have it priced into the overall amount.