Casino Promos

[allinthesameboat]

Anybody out there ever been offered a free cabin on select cruises? I go to the casino every night I am on a cruise so I have been given casino discounts added to my cruise fare but now, for the first time, I received an offer for a free cabin. Has anyone ever taken advantage of this? I had my TA look into 2 of the cruises offered and learned there were no more cabins available on either for that casino promo but HAL offered other cabins at a discount...not free. Does one have to act immediately to actually score the free cabin?

This is new territory for me so I would appreciate any advice.

I have cruised with HAL a lot and I know they are famous for nickeling and diming so when I see the word "free" I take it with a grain of sea salt.

[roxybear135]

We did a free casino cruise to Mexico for NYE this past year.  When we called they only had oceanview left for free so we booked that and then called in each day to see if they had any cancellations for a balcony room (which was what the free cruise offer was).  Luckily, after about 3-4 days of calling in, they had a cancellation and we were able to snag a balcony room.  Depending on the cruise, the casino offers can book up super fast because they only have a limited number of them per cruise.  You can see what's still available for you to book as a casino offer by logging into your account and searching for the cruises you're interested in.  If they still have the casino offer available for that cruise, the fare will show up as $200 (the deposit you have to put down on a casino offer that gets converted into on board credit). 

[Kozimoto1209]

1 hour ago, allinthesameboat said:

Anybody out there ever been offered a free cabin on select cruises? I go to the casino every night I am on a cruise so I have been given casino discounts added to my cruise fare but now, for the first time, I received an offer for a free cabin. Has anyone ever taken advantage of this? I had my TA look into 2 of the cruises offered and learned there were no more cabins available on either for that casino promo but HAL offered other cabins at a discount...not free. Does one have to act immediately to actually score the free cabin?

This is new territory for me so I would appreciate any advice.

I have cruised with HAL a lot and I know they are famous for nickeling and diming so when I see the word "free" I take it with a grain of sea salt.

Hello,

 

We get the offers all the time and like you were unsure of what to expect on availability. We decided to act on the last one and booked a free balcony to Alaska in May. The fee was $268 per person for port fees and taxes plus additional $250 each for deposit which will be returned as room credit. I was told by my TA that they don’t make really anything on these promotions (pretty much saying to book direct with the cruise line 😀) hope this helps.

 

Ron

[highscar]

I upgraded the free inside to a balcony (got my favorite cabin) and instead 

paying double for solo it was less than if two shared. 

[Djptcp]

We have been on 3 Rotterdam cruises since Dec. and I have received free ocean view and balcony cruises on each. Have taken advantage of all three and upgraded to Vista Suite s on each offer. The last one in March, we were upgraded to a Neptune Suite (for a small fee) a week before the cruise. The offer we received on the last one we upgraded to a Vista Suite for a Feb. 2023 N. Statendam cruise.

 

 

[mr. godfredo]

3 hours ago, allinthesameboat said:

Anybody out there ever been offered a free cabin on select cruises? I go to the casino every night I am on a cruise so I have been given casino discounts added to my cruise fare but now, for the first time, I received an offer for a free cabin. Has anyone ever taken advantage of this? I had my TA look into 2 of the cruises offered and learned there were no more cabins available on either for that casino promo but HAL offered other cabins at a discount...not free. Does one have to act immediately to actually score the free cabin?

This is new territory for me so I would appreciate any advice.

I have cruised with HAL a lot and I know they are famous for nickeling and diming so when I see the word "free" I take it with a grain of sea salt.

We got a casino offer for a free cruise yesterday morning and booked it right away. We have been offered discounts before, but never a free 14 night cruise like this. I called my TA right away and even he was shocked. By the time we booked all of the free verandah cabins were snapped up, but still this was too good of a deal to pass up. So, we paid $350 pp in taxes and fees and got a 14 might cruise and $400 OBC. In essence, they are almost paying us to cruise. The airfare was reasonable and so we will be heading to the Land of the Midnight Sun in June! 

[DaveOKC]

The free cabin offers do seem to be snapped up fairly quickly (at least in the past), so if you find something you want, jump on it.

 

A couple of points - First, these free cabins are generally non-refundable fares, so get insurance to cover yourself.  Normally it is very inexpensive since the cost is so cheap. 

 

Second, you cannot combine this deal with some other things, such as stockholder credit, so check this out carefully.  I do not think you can get the Have it Now package with it either.

 

Third, the free cabins are in guarantee categories only, so if you are not happy with this, consider stepping up and purchasing a higher category (which normally is also a guarantee).  

[roxybear135]

1 minute ago, DaveOKC said:

Second, you cannot combine this deal with some other things, such as stockholder credit, so check this out carefully.  I do not think you can get the Have it Now package with it either.

 

Third, the free cabins are in guarantee categories only, so if you are not happy with this, consider stepping up and purchasing a higher category (which normally is also a guarantee).  

You can't combine it with the Have It All package (we asked about it when we booked our last cruise).  One way to get around the guarantee only cabin (which is often an obstructed cabin) is to pay for Club Orange, which lets you have your choice of any cabin in that category (so any available Oceanview cabin, any available Verandah cabin, etc.).  The cost is $25 a day for cruises 7 days or less and $15 a day for ones longer than that.  It's often worth the cost of adding it just for the cabin choice alone.

[DaveOKC]

43 minutes ago, roxybear135 said:

You can't combine it with the Have It All package (we asked about it when we booked our last cruise).  One way to get around the guarantee only cabin (which is often an obstructed cabin) is to pay for Club Orange, which lets you have your choice of any cabin in that category (so any available Oceanview cabin, any available Verandah cabin, etc.).  The cost is $25 a day for cruises 7 days or less and $15 a day for ones longer than that.  It's often worth the cost of adding it just for the cabin choice alone.

Good point and we have done this also.  However, I think the cost per day varies by ship, with the Pinnacle class ones being more (they have a dedicated Club Orange dining area).

 

[grest]

Though we both play blackjack every day we are onboard, we have never received one of these offers....some money for free play, but that's it....what is the secret?

 

[DaveOKC]

Just now, grest said:

Though we both play blackjack every day we are onboard, we have never received one of these offers....some money for free play, but that's it....what is the secret?

 

Just a GUESS, but likely you are not betting enough per hand to get a high enough rating for free cabin offers.

This is how I THINK it works:  each game of chance has an expected profit per dollar bet for the casino.  Blackjack's expected profit is alot less than slots (for example).  On BJ it might be 5% while on slots could be 20%.  Then you have to consider the size of the respective bets AND how many bets the player makes per hour.  So, a slot player often results in a greater expected win than a BJ player for the casino, thus is valued higher (in terms of comps).  Further, table games cost more to run than a slot machine.

All of this together most times results in the casino favoring slot players over BJ players.  So guess who they are going to send the best offers to??  Before someone objects here, let me say that high dollar betting BJ players do get good casino offers.  Its all a formula that casinos use, either on a ship or land based.

Let me share a real life example in a Vegas casino.  I found a slot machine that plays BJ.  I played the same amount on the machine and per my usual routine and lost about the same in about the same time (as sitting at a table).  However, the comps I earned were MUCH higher from the machine play than the table play, I suspect this was due to the casino system counting my play as being from slots not tables (not all systems are perfect of course).

I hope this helps.

 

[roxybear135]

1 hour ago, DaveOKC said:

Good point and we have done this also.  However, I think the cost per day varies by ship, with the Pinnacle class ones being more (they have a dedicated Club Orange dining area).

 

We just booked a 14 day cruise on a Pinnacle class (Nieuw Statendam) and it was $15 a day.  Helped us upgrade from a fully obstructed balcony to a category V (and one of the ones with the huge balconies!).

[DaveOKC]

3 hours ago, roxybear135 said:

We just booked a 14 day cruise on a Pinnacle class (Nieuw Statendam) and it was $15 a day.  Helped us upgrade from a fully obstructed balcony to a category V (and one of the ones with the huge balconies!).

That was quite a good deal IMO!

 

[Ryten]

We've always hoped to receive one of these promo offers and wondered what it would take to get one. We  usually play a few nights of a cruise which would appear to be longer than some of the reports previously posted. Finally today we received an offer......On PRINCESS. Ironically we haven't cruised on Princess since 2013, so clearly the offer isn't related to our level of play there. So my question to you all who regularly receive casino offers, have you noticed any cross brand casino offers once you are included on one brand? Thanks in advance.

[rodndonna]

50 minutes ago, Ryten said:

We've always hoped to receive one of these promo offers and wondered what it would take to get one. We  usually play a few nights of a cruise which would appear to be longer than some of the reports previously posted. Finally today we received an offer......On PRINCESS. Ironically we haven't cruised on Princess since 2013, so clearly the offer isn't related to our level of play there. So my question to you all who regularly receive casino offers, have you noticed any cross brand casino offers once you are included on one brand? Thanks in advance.

 

Sometimes I could swear Carnival Casino player offers have a direct tap into everything i book or even look at with HAL Casino offers. 

[Linguist208]

On 4/15/2022 at 8:42 AM, rodndonna said:

 

Sometimes I could swear Carnival Casino player offers have a direct tap into everything i book or even look at with HAL Casino offers. 

I wouldn't be surprised, since Carnival owns HAL...

[grest]

On 4/15/2022 at 8:47 AM, Ryten said:

We've always hoped to receive one of these promo offers and wondered what it would take to get one. We  usually play a few nights of a cruise which would appear to be longer than some of the reports previously posted. Finally today we received an offer......On PRINCESS. Ironically we haven't cruised on Princess since 2013, so clearly the offer isn't related to our level of play there. So my question to you all who regularly receive casino offers, have you noticed any cross brand casino offers once you are included on one brand? Thanks in advance.

We always get offers from Carnival and RCI, sometimes on other lines, but not HAL....???

[silversneakers]

I think the Casinos are all operated by the same company so it seems the offers are crossing Carnival Corp's brands.  Correct me if I'm wrong....

[DaveOKC]

Some of the cruiselines have joint agreement with land based casinos such as Caesars and MGM.

 

[Laminator]

8 minutes ago, DaveOKC said:

Some of the cruiselines have joint agreement with land based casinos such as Caesars and MGM.

 

They seem to mostly be in bed with NCL