kwokpot

I was on the Ovation during the sailing in question and it didn't appear that we were too close to the shoreline. These are the photos taken on Wednesday, May 1st from my balcony. As an aside our disembarkation in Vancouver is delayed approximately to 7 hours due to a medical evacuation which diverted the ship to the San Francisco Coastline for a helicopter transport ( which due to the distance required a midair helicopter refueling maneuver) .

That should be the spa area. Every forward deck of the spa area has whimsical sculptures. Actually that's basically all there is, besides a couple of rectangular blocks that I assume are meant to be used as a sitting bench.

Hmmm. You should be earning tier points on funds charged to your onboard account even though it's going against OBC. You don't earn tier points on casino provided Freeplay. You can call BCC and find out how many tier points you earned on your previous sailings. Are you tapping and/or using your room card when you play the slots?

We are trying our 1st Holland America cruise in January (casino complimentary,of course).

While you may not have had any problems,that doesn't mean that it's allowed,which it isn't.

Exactly, or a bicycle. The views can be wonderful ( don't pay attention to the hunky guy😉).

Hmmm, that's interesting. Something new. That's why you never see anyone out there. A total waste of space.

A pocket knife/swiss army -type knife aren't allowed.

Exactly. To further clarify there's no open deck in front of the fitness center,so it's not like there's a staircase from the open deck 14 up to Deck 15

Yes,if you're Aquaclass and/or have a Thermal suite pass then you can access the forward outside deck in front of the Thermal suite. There never anyone there,so you'll have it all to yourself. You can get there anytime the Thermal suite is open.

Yes S-Class fitness centers have outside access.

That's a W-2G form,not a 1099. Please don't confuse the two types of tax forms.

https://www.thetaxdefenders.com/irs-and-gambling-w2-g-forms-casino-winnings-and-deductible-losses/

You're talking about a W-2G,which is the IRS tax form on gambling winnings(of certain types,like slot machines)of $1,200 or more. W-2Gs aren't 1099s. Those are two distinct IRS forms. They aren't remotely interchangeable.

You are confusing a Win Loss Statement sent by casinos and the cruiseline casino departments with a 1099. They are not the same thing. Casino winnings aren't reported on a 1099. Occasionally 1099s are sent for certain casino gift drawings. For example, on Carnival cruises, on an Ultra cruise where there's a drawing and guarantee winning of a gift or Freeplay, Carnival issues a 1099 for the value of the gift or Freeplay that everyone that signed up for the Ultra cruise will receives.

It depends what was meant by a 10K win from a Vegas trip. You can easily be up 10K without hitting a single slot jackpot; furthermore,table games winning of ANY AMOUNT aren't subject to W-2G reporting.

One of the mailings we receive.

Technically yes,in practice,no. Technically if you win $20 on a lottery scratch off you should pay taxes. How many people REALLY DO?😉

Quite honestly It's been a wild. We are both retired and my husband has been earning W-2Gs more than his annual salary ever was. We live in Philadelphia so Atlantic City is 1 hour away. We regularly treat the whole family to multiple comped rooms in both Vegas and Atlantic City, along with food and entertainment comps. Our basement is filled with casino gifts - do you need any luggage, foot bath,crock pots, or stick vacuums,lol? I think the party's over, though. We have re- evaluated our multiple Atlantic City trips and my husband has decided to pull back what he spends towards his gambling both on land and at Sea. On our current trip, which included a comped Carnival cruise from LA and the current Ovation cruise from Honolulu, he played very little of his own money and came out ahead from both his play and the Freeplay given. And on the current Ovation cruise he hasn't played any additional money besides the $1,500 Freeplay which we netted out $1,800.

So my husband is the gambler,so the $1,500 Freeplay was all his. I helped him play it out but more importantly helped him KEEP IT by frequently cashing out the wins every so often and holding onto the tickets. What was great about the winnings was none of them were 'jackpots' $1,200 and over so we never got a W-2G for any of the $1,800. The biggest win was probably $300 so the $1,800 was earned through slow and incremental cashing out of small wins over the course of two hours.

It depends on how much your annual W-2G's total. Ours total over $100,000/yr, so it behooves us to try to reduce the tax liabilities.

We won't be docking until 2pm on Thursday.

The captain just informed us our arrival to Vancouver on Thursday, May 9th will be delayed from early morning to 2:00 pm. The delayed docking is further exacerbated by the tides schedule and having to cross a bridge in The Vancouver area at 1:00 pm, otherwise the ship would not be able to clear the bridge. So as we see lots of moving parts when a medical evacuation is required.

Thank you for your insight on the Ovation rescue. Let's all hope the Edge medical transfer goes similarly. As an aside unbeknownst to me the patient transfer was actually shown on the in room TV cam.