The booking page says gratuities are included. Then you land, and the couple next to you at the swim-up bar is handing over a dollar with every drink. Both things are true at the same time, and here’s how they fit together: what your rate already covers, where you can’t tip at all, what guests actually give, and what to put in your wallet before you leave Canada.
What “gratuities included” actually means
Most all-inclusives build a service charge into your rate. That’s the part that’s included. Riu, Excellence, Hyatt Ziva, Palace, Secrets and Dreams all include gratuities, and it means you can walk away from every bar and every table without paying anything and nobody will chase you.
What it doesn’t mean is that tipping stops. At the same resorts, staff welcome and appreciate extra tips. That’s the reason for the stack of ones. It’s optional, it’s small, and in Mexico and the Dominican Republic it’s customary.
Want to see what an all-inclusive week actually looks like?
We stayed at Riu Negril in Jamaica, and our honest review covers the rooms, the food and the beach.
Where you can’t tip
Sandals and Beaches are the exception, and it’s a real rule, not a suggestion. Tips are in the package price and staff can’t accept them. Sandals’ own checklist for Barbados puts it plainly: tips are strictly prohibited for all staff except personal butlers. That applies at Sandals Royal Barbados, Sandals Royal Curaçao and Beaches Turks & Caicos.
Three groups can take a tip there. Butlers, if you’ve booked a butler suite. Spa therapists, who at Sandals work for a separate company and already have a 12.5 percent gratuity added to the bill. And anyone off the property: your airport driver, a tour guide, a taxi. If a bartender or a housekeeper looked after you at a Sandals, put their name in your review.
What guests actually give
These are the going amounts, in US dollars, at the resorts where tipping is welcome. You don’t have to give any of it. It’s what regular guests report doing.
Bartenders get a dollar or two a drink, or five to ten dollars at the start of the afternoon if you’re settling in at one bar. Servers at the à la carte restaurants get two to five dollars a meal, and buffet servers a dollar or two for keeping the drinks coming and the plates cleared. Housekeeping gets two to five dollars a day, left on the nightstand each morning rather than in one lump at the end. Pool and beach attendants get two to five dollars a day. The bellhop gets a dollar or two a bag. If you’ve booked a butler, twenty to thirty dollars a day is the usual figure at Sandals.
Spa treatments are separate from all of this. They’re usually an extra charge, and a tip of about fifteen to twenty percent is normal, unless the bill already shows a gratuity line.
How much to bring
For a week in Mexico or the Dominican Republic, guests who tip along those lines land around ten to fifteen US dollars per person per day. Jamaica runs a little lighter, five to ten. So a couple on a seven-night trip is looking at somewhere between 140 and 210 US dollars in small bills, and they’ll come home with some of it. If that’s more than you want to spend, tip less. It’s a thank-you, not a fee.
Which currency
US dollars, in ones and fives. That’s the answer for Jamaica and the Dominican Republic. Ask your bank for them before you fly, because getting change at the resort is hard.
Mexico is the one place worth going a step further. Staff accept dollars, but they prefer pesos, because they lose money exchanging a dollar bill. If you can get 50-peso notes or smaller, that’s the better tip. Skip the 20-peso bill, which Mexico is phasing out.
Two things not to bring. Canadian dollars. In Mexico, staff don’t want them, and US bills work everywhere on this list. And coins of any kind. Nobody can exchange US coins in the Dominican Republic, so a handful of quarters is worth nothing to the person you hand it to.
The bottom line
Your rate covers the service. Extra tips are a choice, and at the resorts that welcome them, small and daily beats large and once. Bring US ones and fives, or pesos in Mexico, and leave the coins and the Canadian bills at home. At a Sandals or Beaches, bring nothing and mean it. Every resort in our guides says up front what the rate includes, so you know before you book, not at the bar.
