kwokpot

Thank you for the clarification. That makes sense!

My husband is a casino gambler and we benefit from sailing on casino comped cruises from a variety of cruiselines. We were on the Carnival Pride last summer in Europe for 32 days on three separate cruises, all casino comped. The ship was old and tired, but we had some amazing Ports of call, Norwegian Fiords, Bilbao, Lisbon, Porto, etc, none of them repeating and many were new to us. The food was subpar but I looked at it as a floating hotel and with all the casino benefits we had some really, really great experiences. I cannot complain (But I did.lol)

Thank you. That makes it very clear where the source of your information is coming from. I did not know you were a TA and it now makes your comments on my now deleted Cruisehive article more relevant. Edit: I was correct in my observations that the cookie test results weren't openly discussed here on CC until you brought it up on your summation thread, which is why I questioned it's validity.

NOWHERE on this thread, and especially on the opening paragraph of the initial post, did the OP revel that is where this 'summation' information is coming from.

Really? they must not have opened the entire Beach club.. The Bimini beach Club is HUGE, with two separate large pools and surrounding chairs and a huge beach front. I have gone there via a Virgin Voyages cruise: photos below.

Hence my initial query as to whether those statements were tongue in cheek. I've gone back to the two threads directly related to this issue and to the CruiseHive articles and there isn't any mention of test results.

Was that information discussed here on a CC thread? I don't remember seeing it nor any subsequent discussion about the validity of this reported successful test.

I was specifically referring to the couple of statements referring to the success of the cookie sales and 'hundreds' of cookies were sold in 2 days. The last line seems especially tongue in cheek, don't you think? Cookies *Test pilot at the gelato bar. *Apparently sold hundreds over two cruises *Did not replace free cookies/pastries anywhere else onboard *Discontinued and won't be back ***Reason given -They needed to implement a fee to temper demand since it took some time to heat the cookies

Yes, on Deck 2 right outside of Red frog Pub.

I'm curious about your opening statement. I have never seen a Carnival cruise being offered through URComped. They work with Royal, Celebrity, Virgin, MSC and just recently some limited NCL, but I have never seen Carnival. Can you speak about that? Do you see additional Carnival cruise offers in your URComped account?

That seems leaving synergistic savings on the table.

Just to be clear, are some of the statements facetious?

Very interesting news and I can't say I'm surprised. TBH this could be a good thing, IF a combined Casino program between Celebrity and Royal brings about a Players Club status that bridges both lines, allowing a greater pool of cruise choices for the gambling one does.

I think what many Celebrity cruisers like about the line is the more premium cruise experience on a large ship with all the features and benefits only a larger ship can provide. Azamara ships are 30,000 tons. Only the very first and only Celebrity ship, the Meridian was of that tonnage. The M Class is 3x the tonnage. For me I would never want to sail anything smaller than the former Century Class at 70,000+Tons.

Based on what you're saying it most definitely seems Celebrity is trying to get insight to move the cruiseline into a different direction and attract a wider demographic and provide a different set of activities that will bring those new demographic to the cruiseline. This is another example of Celebrity heading towards Royalization.

For those that didn't get the survey, can you give a sense of what insight they are trying to gather from the types of questions they are asking?

Thank you for your write up and I await for further postings! We did two cruises last month(July), the Apex to Iceland and Northern Europe followed by the Odyssey of the Seas from Rome to Greece and Mediterranean. We've been to Europe too many times to count but like you NEVER in the summer, only Spring and Fall seasons. Like you our Odyssey ship was at capacity but it was the families with kids that was overwhelming. I know Royal is a family oriented cruiseline but I was not prepared for the literal mobs of people on the pool decks, more so than any Caribbean cruise during Spring break or any major American Holiday. I will never again sail the Mediterranean during July and August!

Correct. If you compare the three cruiselines you mention with Carnival, they are indeed a step up from the baseline Carnival. Even Carnival's newest Excel Class ships, although a step up from even the last newbuild ship class for them, is no match in terms of the overall cruise experience when compared with Celebrity. Conversely you're seeing NCL trying to come up to what we all perceive Celebrity is/was with their new Prima Class ships. Previous to the Prima Class I would put NCL on Par with Royal.

The 2nd one this past January was, but on that cruise my husband gambled enough to generate a direct free XL Sea Terrace cruise from Virgin themselves. The certificate had a book by date, 30 days, sail within 6 months, but we missed the deadlines;however, calling Virgin's casino department they allowed us to use the expired certificate for a cruise for NEXT February, so they were very generous about that.

That was another level from Carnival that I had never heard of until someone here on CC posted a photo for the mailer for that program. My husband is the gambler in the family, so when I speak of offers and such I'm speaking on his behalf. We live in Philly so being only 1 hour away from Atlantic City we're there quite often. Although my husband is part of most of the mainstream cruise casino programs he enjoys Carnival's casinos the most. Overall we prefer Celebrity for their upscale ships and more diverse itineraries. We wish Carnival had more interesting destinations, which is why we're taking the 30 day TP in two weeks on the Luminosa, knowing that it's an older, smaller ship than the Excel Class. We were on the similar size Pride last year in Europe, 3 cruises B3B, all comped, total 32 days. We lucked out having the first and last cruises being Elite, and were able to use the Elite transfer benefit from Dover to London City Centre in a private Mercedes that would have costed us over $300 if we had to pay. We then use the remaining transfer from our London hotel to Heathrow for another comped private transfer that otherwise would have been costly. .

Congratulations on your amazing win! One question about the Elite benefits. Is it true they no longer give you the option to choose between the selected excursions or spa credit?

You're absolutely right about that! I have no argument with you. I was just trying to see what type of casino offers people are getting and if it's something I've never heard of I would like to try that avenue also. I learned about URComped, the independent 3rd party cruise casino hosting company, from Cruise Critic posts, and now we use that company multiple times a year to book comped casino cruises. We used URComped to try out Virgin Voyages and we liked them so much were going on our third comped Virgin cruise in February!

I understand what you're talking about, we do multiple free casino offers ever year. At issue is we have multiple people describing different types of offers, which confuses the issue. The Carnival Players Club offers that include large OBC but no freeplay aren't fully comped rooms. We have those offers too. I'm inquiring about what offer the OP received. Here's that offer from our account. But as you see there's charges besides taxes and fees, but $1,000 OBC and no freeplay. So yes, if you net everything out, you're getting back more than you're paying, but the way some posters are describing the offer makes it sound like something entirely different.

I know what you're talking about, we do those Carnival casino cruises all the time. We're on a 30 day TP on the Luminosa in a spa cabin that's free and includes drinks everywhere on the ship for 2, $1,000 freeplay, and the $200 obc which is the deposit you're talking about. We've done Multiple Elite cruises too. It's the way that the offer was described that unusual.

There shouldn't be any changes in the food stock, but you may see work already starting towards the last few days of your cruise.