| Lonely Planet™ · Thorn Tree Forum · 2020 | |
The Mystery of Tipping in the PantanalCountry forums / South America / Brazil | ||
The only person I could get a definite number from one was the owner of the tour company, who suggested tipping 15% to the guide as he said someone had done this recently, but obviously he might be biased. Searching briefly online brought up very little if anything. We asked another 10 tourists we met in the Pantanal, but no-one had a clue. We looked in the guidebook "on jungle trips...customary to tip the guide" but nothing on how much. We gave US$50 or 100R per person (some of us tipped local currency, some of us tipped greenbacks) which was around 7% of the whole 1500P per person value of the tour (including overnight accomodations and guide). This was for a 3-day tour so US$17 per person per day. He looked really happy with this, and we got the impression that we had overdone it. Obviously you can tip as much or little as you want to, but what would be helpful to know is what others have tipped, and what you think the average is. If you have ever done a Pantanal tour, please comment here how much you tipped. And also any opinions on what's typical, either as a % of the whole value of the tour, or as per day $/R number. I did a search for similar threads but didn't find one but the internet was really slow when I tried it so only tried a couple of searches, so if you know of any other threads that covered this topic, please post them here. | ||
The tipping the guides rule is pretty universal in the Amazon and the Pantanal, and a lot of other places. But never is there a fixed rate. Probably most tourists don't think in terms of a % at all. It's just my opinion, but maybe a $10-15 US per diem rate would have been appropriate, not including your departure day. Certainly more, if the tip includes cooks and housekeeping staff. | 1 | |
A lot of people don't tip at all (Americans are used to tipping, but many others aren't). 100 reais is nice and not overdoing it. Anything less than 20 reais (per person) is kind of an insult. The guides don't get paid hugely and sometimes don't get paid right away, so the tips are greatly appreciated. If you have a boat "driver" as well as a guide it's nice to tip him, too. | 2 | |
Thought of tipping the driver as well but every time we went on a drive we had a different driver (including one for the boat) so in the end did not tip any of them. Good experience though. | 3 | |
Good subject line as -- even after having just returned this morning from helping my husband lead a 9-day photo tour there -- I'm still a bit perplexed about the whole matter. Before setting out we were told (in the SouthWild literature that we were sent and also gave to our clients) that it was a simple matter of tipping the boat drivers (who would help us find jaguars) about $10 per day, per person, the main guide about $15 per day, per person, and putting any amount we saw fit into the box at the lodge for the rest of the staff at the end of the tour. Well, it didn't turn out that way at all (one lodge didn't even have a box). When all was said and done we -- as the photo tour leaders -- ended up dishing out about $900 in tips, while each set of two clients dished out about an average of $500!!!!!!!!!!!! We have never had to tip this much -- not even in Costa Rica where it is VERY expensive. We were a SMALL group, too -- only 8 of us (that includes my husband and me) so it's not like they had a lot to put up with for us. We were NOT prepared for this and felt terrible on behalf of our clients, but like I said, we just went by the literature that we were provided. Here's the breakdown of what was REALLY expected of us: Restaurant at each lodge (we stayed at SouthWild's Flotel and Santa Tereza): $15 per couple, per day -- we all thought this was far too much considering it came out to $5 per meal for self-serve, buffet style meals that were included in an "all-inclusive" package -- especially considering that in the U.S. at a 20% tipping rate we wouldn't be leaving a $5.00 tip for breakfast and probably not for lunch, either. And, honestly, at Santa Tereza, the service was NOT with a smile, we often had to wait for plates, cold water, and coffee. (With regard to the service, if we'd gone out to eat at a restaurant, we would've left a 15% tip, not a 20% tip.) Maid Service: $5 per couple per day, for a total of $25 per couple for the Flotel and another $20 at the other lodge for a total for the 9-days of $45 for maid service. Jaguar Boat Driver: $10 per couple per day, but...they really expected more. Some gave more and some didn't. Other Boat Drivers: We went out on two other boat excursions at the other lodge. They helped find wildlife. When they found something particular cool I was told, "You might want to give him a little something extra." We did, but I thought, "Isn't finding something cool his job?" Truck Drivers: One guy drove us there, loaded our luggage (with the help of our ultra-hardworking main guide), and fixed the truck when it broke down. He ended up with about $25 total. Another guy was great; he actively looked for wildlife and stopped and with a lot of excitement attempted to speak as much English as possible to point it out and tell us about it. We had no problem tipping him. Not all tipped, but he ended up with about $28 total. I'm all for tipping, but I'm going to take a minute to vent here: it's no longer tipping. It's become expected. To whit: one of our couples' rooms was skipped one day, yet it was apparent that we were expected to tip the $25. So to total it up for our clients: tipping for a 9-day Pantanal Jaguar adventure was about $500 per couple (we spent more, but were were leading the tour and felt we had make the staff extra happy in the hopes that they'd take extra good care of our clients next time...): Boat Driver for 5-days at Flotel: Minimum expected was $50 (most tipped $60) | 4 | |