Buckeye_Siggy

can also attest that if you have a 'free' drinks package as a casino offer - that works immediately and you can use on day one.

except for that idiot who asked about Alice - every other post in here is about spot on. The piano bar is sometimes by favorite place to be on the cruise if the entertainer is great and the crowd is good. There can be people who hog the seats around the entertainer for the entirety of the cruise but they usually are the ones tipping the most and buying shots for said entertainer. there are some really poor performers who keep me and the wife out of the piano bar after the first night. there are others that allow my wife to sing along multiple times during the week with a mic and it makes her trip. To each their own.

Alice? who dat?

this reminded me of a thread about another troop cruise from a few years ago. this may have some good info for you:

We did the 10-day at end of June and there were PLENTY of kids running around the ship.

Was on Legend twice in past year - on New Years Eve and also in early April. They definitely had Quest both times. I was on Magic in August 2022 and they had a quest game. I was on Miracle in June and it was also available. So definitely on my last 4 cruises.

Hello. Adding people to your cabana has been a wasted charge in my experiences. You are only paying for extra food, drink, and rental equipment. If you can get away with the stuff provided for 4 people, no one should hassle you if you have more than that in your area. i have always been partial to cabana 5 and 6. But in fairness, i have not tried any past 6. havent needed to.

I have spent too many hours sitting at 3rd base watching the dealers and their little machine. This includes the renovated casinos and newer ships. All the dealer enters in there is the amount of the buy-ins and what player is sitting/playing at each seat number. They do not enter or have anything to do with the amount played per hand. If you play two hands, they click a button telling their system that X is now playing seat 4 and 5. If you drop a hand, they now click a button saying X is only playing seat 5. Playing multiple hands DOES help you rack up the points faster. Some dealers will just leave you playing 2 hands even if you drop - so that is another way to help build your comps faster. keep playing on and off two hands until you notice that when you are playing 1 hand, you are still being credited for two hands. this is a huge life hack i have found over my time in the casino.

Total loss really has nothing to do with getting cruise offers. It honestly has to do with average bet and time spent playing. I have never been a slot player, so i have little experience with how that stuff is accumulated. So, everything in this post will be about table play and specifically blackjack. I had a casino host in Vegas tell me about 20 years ago that the key to getting comped free rooms was playing 4 hours a day and betting at least $25 a hand. He said if you did this at any casino in the world, you would get rated high enough to be able to get a room for any length of time required and have some meals comped. To this day, this has not been proven wrong to me. If you get comped for 5 nights, they expect at least 4 hours of game play every day you have been comped. Getting a free cruise is the same as getting free rooms at a land based casino. they dont care if you win or lose - just the amount of time spent and the average hand amount bet. Someone who walks in to the casino (for the first time) on the last night, plops $2000 on a hand of blackjack, loses, and leaves the casino will not get comped and have nearly the points as someone who has spent 20 hours on the cruise at $25 a hand and is total down $300 for the trip.

Bingo. This is why i 'bribe' the pit bosses with cans of soda, energy drinks, and coconut waters. I only play blackjack and always try to sit at either first or third base. So that enables me to be able to chat with the casino bosses who watch the tables/dealers. They are the ones who rate your play in the computer. I like to find out what kind of drinks they like and order them with my 'drinks on us, anywhere; offer that i have/ Anytime a waiter comes by asking for drinks, i try and add a Celcius or Monster or whatever they pit boss likes. it is basically free to me and it makes their day. they typically have to buy these things - they dont get for free - so i am doing them a favor. i know for a fact this has gotten my rated for much higher play than i am doing.

Joedel, If your booked cruise is not until 2024, i would suggest just waiting a few months until the new offers come out that cover your date. Once you get an offer that you like that covers your booked cruise, contact your Carnival rep and have them apply the new cruise offer to the existing cruise. My PVP has done this for me 10 times over the years and has never been an issue. I once made the mistake of booking through the website and found out the hard way that you should just have a PVP handle it, even if it is all the same. The PVP are linked to your booking and will help so that you give them referrals. Worst case, cancel your current and then rebook with the new offer.

Make sure that the gratuities are now part of the new final price (port charges, taxes, etc). https://www.reuters.com/article/travel-cruise-value/cruise-operators-plan-to-hike-prices-as-costs-rise-demand-swells-idINL4N38R3H6 If the prices are going up, they might as well include this added expense in. Quit playing this shell game once and for all.

I am sort of in ECHO and here is what i know. In April, i did a 7-day Carnival cruise with my brother. Every day on the cruise, i spent at least 7 hours at the $25 blackjack table. I played mostly one hand and would guess my average bet was $250. On the last night, i was presented a letter from the casino hosts saying that i was being assigned my own personal carnival casino host. the letter gave me an email address and told me that i should email my new host for more information about the benefits of ECHO. As soon as i got back to land, i emailed the host and was told that ECHO starts every year in the fall (September) and i would get more information when the time came. On that April cruise, one other person who was always at the blackjack table was a high roller (i saw him play three hands at $5k a hand on multiple occasions) and he was already in ECHO. He told me that some of the benefits i would get are - No 3% fee on sign and sail charges in casino. $10,000 daily sign and sail limit (standard is $5,000), Table limit raised for my play to $5,000 a hand (normal table limit is $2500 a hand), ability to play 3 hands at once (normal rules say only two hands), higher on board credits and casino cash. I just did an Alaska cruise a few weeks ago, and even though i am not yet ECHO, my casino host notified the ship that ahead of time so that i was allowed to play 3 hands, had a daily limit of $10K, and had no interest on my casino charges. I must say that i have taken 6 Carnival cruises since the pandemic re-opened and have gambled the same on all of them. it was not until the 5th cruise when i got the ECHO letter. The only change was that this specific cruise was not with my wife and kids - so i spent an extra 4 hours a day in the casino. Later this year when i get more info, i will be sure to post it.

i can verify that the earliest Baltimore cruise ships allow for embarkation is the noon time slot.

Was on Legend for the last two NYE cruises out of Baltimore. Big Lido deck dance party and countdown. They left hats/tiara's/other NYE swag in our rooms for us to wear. Free champagne toasts. Special items on the menu in MDR to celebrate. It was fun enough to keep up coming back.