Original words by Christopher Eliot, adapted By Stanley Sobari
I’m going on a
cruise. How much should I figure for tipping? You might not have to figure
anything. Many major cruise lines now add a gratuity of around $12 per
passenger, per day. The latest to take the auto tipping route, Royal Caribbean,
quietly made the switch last spring. Today, the problem isn’t really how much
to tip; it’s more a question of what to do if you don’t want to tip. After all,
for some of us old-timers, a tip is earned. “Passengers can go along with the
cruise line’s suggested tipping guidelines,” says Stewart Chiron, an
industry-watcher. “Depending on the level of services, passengers can adjust up
or down.” You can visit the guest service desk and request that the tip be
lowered or eliminated if you think the service was awful. But requiring
passengers to opt out of tips is as absurd as it sounds, and fortunately, the
auto-tipping practice may be taking on water. Proposed U.S. legislation would
put cruise line practices under tighter government control, and it might
require cruise lines to remove the “optional” gratuity from your bill.
I bought some biltong
at the Johanesburg airport and was told I could take it into the U.S. But it
got confiscated at customs. What gives? Good thing you declared it or you
could have risked a fine of up to $10,000 in addition to the confiscation of
the biltong. (For the uninitiated, biltong is a dried, salted snack made from
beef or exotic game meats such as impala). Alas, bringing fresh, dried, or
canned meat from most foreign countries into the U.S. is generally not allowed
as it could carry diseases, including bovine spongiform encephalopathy and
foot-and-mouth disesase. And please, never trust the airport vendor to give you
agricultural importation advice. For the official word on whether your meat is
allowed into the U.S., visit www.cpb.gov (then click on “Travel).
