FIRST CASINO OFFER

[The Greater Fool]

I think there may be a miscommunication with the word "expect."

 

Expect as in commit to?  Their are usually no play commitments the passenger is required to agree to to accept the cruise.  Gamble or not, it's up to you.

 

Expect as in anticipate? The cruise casino folks anticipate that as someone who enjoys gambling that you will gamble, and as is often the case you will lose.  But you can confound their anticipation by not gambling.  The casino folks may reconsider future offers.  They may not.

 

Good luck,

Tek

[azbirdmom]

On 3/4/2022 at 12:57 PM, JimmyVWine said:

Which raises a question (of little importance, I suppose).  Do the cruise lines own and operate their own casinos, or are they third-partied out like most of the Art Departments and Retail Shops?  If they are owned and run by third parties, then I suppose that all of the offers are actually coming from the casino operator even if they are marketed through Princess. In other words, the casino operator buys out a block of rooms at a consolidator price, and then re-sells them to casino regulators at a "loss", expecting to make back the difference and more through onboard play.

 

Carnival Corp owns and operates the casinos for all of its lines through the Ocean Players Club https://oceanplayersclub.com/ .  For the free casino offers, there is an amount that the casino area is expected to pay to Princess which they do closer to the cruise date (well inside the final payment date for the customer).

 

As for the "free" offers, I had never received one of those pre-pandemic.  I have been / still am eligible for discounts for years (recently they have reduced these discounts by category by roughly 3% - still a good deal) and the free play that I got in the past was based on my actual play.  Those are the CBS offers where you earn 1 point for every $3 played through the slots (tables are based on bets and time spent).  They do have a chart that determines how much you get in free play for a future cruise, and at the higher thresholds you start to earn a free room.  They still have this program in place and you get a letter delivered on the last day of the cruise indicating the free play / free cabin you've earned.

 

During the pandemic I started to receive offers for a free inside cabin with free play.  I booked two of these offers but unfortunately they cancelled one of those and I had to cancel the other.  These are a good deal, if you don't have to cancel that is.  You need to pay port fees, a non refundable $200 deposit pp (which becomes OBC once onboard), $40 pp per day if you want Princess Plus (if the offer didn't include it - some of mine did, some didn't), and the upcharge if you want to move to a higher category (a great deal up through mini suite).  EVERYTHING has to be paid when you are booking, even Princess Vacation Protection and Flexible EZAir.  I believe that they've sent these offers to a much broader group of people during the pandemic to fill rooms and once things return to normal these offers will stop for the majority of us.

Edited March 6, 2022 by azbirdmom

[XSWABBY]

I booked a Princess Plus package and saw that I have a $500 casino credit. How is this used? Do you receive special casino chips or do you have to use it in the slots?

Please explain. Thanks

[c-boy]

21 minutes ago, XSWABBY said:

I booked a Princess Plus package and saw that I have a $500 casino credit. How is this used? Do you receive special casino chips or do you have to use it in the slots?

Please explain. Thanks

promo; go to the casino and play with it, have a good time, cause you can't use it for anything else.

[mina]

If you want to play tables with it, they give you special chips.  When you win, the chip is replaced with real ones.  For slots, the amount is added to your medallion and you have to play all of it thru.  To get either, you need to go to the cage and request it.  Bring your travel summary showing the amount.  I have had several experiences where they tell me I am not on the list.  You then have to wait a day for them to contact headquarters to validate your documentation is correct.  

[memoak]

43 minutes ago, XSWABBY said:

I booked a Princess Plus package and saw that I have a $500 casino credit. How is this used? Do you receive special casino chips or do you have to use it in the slots?

Please explain. Thanks

In the past you would go to the casino cage and choose either chips for the tables or casino credits for the slots. Not able to break it up. Don’t have a cruise slated till late April with free balcony and $500 free play.  Then in August an Alaskan b2b without casino discount but $800 free play between the wife and I and a specialty dinner on each leg

[azbirdmom]

23 minutes ago, mina said:

To get either, you need to go to the cage and request it.

 

On the Regal last month, the free play was already on the slot machine, I didn't have to first go to the cashier cage.  Ditto my Majestic cruise last summer when I was told that I only needed to see the cashier if I wanted to use free play at the tables OR if the free play I was expecting didn't appear on the machine.  Agree it's an excellent recommendation to have a copy of the travel summary to support that you have free play just in case there's a glitch and the casino doesn't show it.  And there have been a LOT of glitches lately!

[justafem]

On our cruse last month, the casino credit was preloaded to the slot machine.  I had to set up a pin after scanning my medallion.  Then had to chose the amount of free play to transfer to the machine.  No points were earned on free play.

 

I originally loaded $100 in free play.  At one point, I noticed I was earning points, which means I'd cycled through the free play.  I banked the money and loaded more free play.  I played until I saw I was earning points again.  Repeated until my loadable free play was at zero.  

 

I only ended up with 22 points on that trip.  Mostly because I'm a smoker and it was a pain to stop everything to get my fix.  I didn't spend a penny of my own money and left with $288.  

 

I don't expect I'll be getting any casino offers for a while GRINS.  

[justafem]

22 hours ago, MsSoCalCruiser said:

Oh no, you’re not missing anything. I wouldn’t spend that much money.  I’m not seeing seven day cruises for $299. Which ship?  🏃🏻‍♀️ to book another cruise, lol. 

We booked a 5 day out of SF April 11 for $69 per person ($250 with taxes and fees) and we received $125 in on board ($100 from princess and $25 from an online TA). It was actually cheaper to book 2 rooms than to have 2 in the room and we received more in onboard.

 

This was NOT a casino offer, it was available to anyone who'd ever cruised with princess.  

 

That fare disappeared on Friday and was raised to $270 (still no extra charge for a single) with no on board.  Glad we jumped when we did!

[WAvoyager]

2 minutes ago, justafem said:

I don't expect I'll be getting any casino offers for a while GRINS.  

The Casino marketing department isn’t that on top of things.  I’m guessing you’ll still get them for a while.

[MsSoCalCruiser]

13 minutes ago, justafem said:

We booked a 5 day out of SF April 11 for $69 per person ($250 with taxes and fees) and we received $125 in on board ($100 from princess and $25 from an online TA). It was actually cheaper to book 2 rooms than to have 2 in the room and we received more in onboard.

 

This was NOT a casino offer, it was available to anyone who'd ever cruised with princess.  

 

That fare disappeared on Friday and was raised to $270 (still no extra charge for a single) with no on board.  Glad we jumped when we did!

Wow, I wish I saw that. I would have booked that one for sure.