Nothing is Free - Blue Chip "Free Verandah" Offer

[Sunset329]

We are booked on a ten-day cruise on the Edge, using a "Free Verandah" Blue Chip offer. Like all cruises, I put together a cruise budget to see what is coming out of the bank account. After budgeting for transportation, hotel, shuttle, drinks, casino donations, port excursions, shopping, special dining, gratuities and port fees, our "Free Veranda" disappeared like a daydream. Granted, the complimentary verandah offer from Blue Chip is a great deal, but it certainly isn't "free". 

[jelayne]

The offer wasn’t a all expense paid trip just a free verandah😄

[20165]

To tack a question on to this, how much do you typically have to spend in the Casino to get one of these offers?  My wife and I arent big gamblers, couple hundred per cruise, but thats all cash so its not tracked.  Maybe i should be using my ship account to gamble?  thx

[cruisestitch]

Yes, you need to give them a way to track your gambling if you ever want to get an offer.

[Dylan0474mac]

Well yeah….

[Cruising89143]

Surely you didn’t book this cruise thinking that there would be zero cost? We use RCI’s casino program and yes there is an added cost but the staterooms/suites given are out by just paying taxes and fees. Very low cost. The rest of the cost is entirely up to the cruiser to choose what’s within their budget. 

[NutsAboutGolf]

 

29 minutes ago, Sunset329 said:

We are booked on a ten-day cruise on the Edge, using a "Free Verandah" Blue Chip offer. Like all cruises, I put together a cruise budget to see what is coming out of the bank account. After budgeting for transportation, hotel, shuttle, drinks, casino donations, port excursions, shopping, special dining, gratuities and port fees, our "Free Veranda" disappeared like a daydream. Granted, the complimentary verandah offer from Blue Chip is a great deal, but it certainly isn't "free". 

 

You left out the internet, spa services, fitness classes, behind the scene tours, photo package, laundry/dry cleaning, wine tasting events, room service after 11pm, etc... 🙃

[grandgeezer]

We haven’t dropped as much as a penny in the ship’s casino in the last 20+ cruises and have received four offers in the last several months, two by e-mail and two through regular mail. I never followed up on it as we have no interest in doing it.

[Sunset329]

3 minutes ago, cruisingator2 said:

Surely you didn’t book this cruise thinking that there would be zero cost? We use RCI’s casino program and yes there is an added cost but the staterooms/suites given are out by just paying taxes and fees. Very low cost. The rest of the cost is entirely up to the cruiser to choose what’s within their budget. 

 

Oh, I certainly knew that the cruise was not without cost. When comparing the cost of this cruise to our other cruises, the Blue Chip cruise is substantially cheaper than our other cruises (even our Princess casino cruises). I just put together a cruise budget to see the impact on our travel budget. Actually, with the Blue Chip offers, we are able to cruise more frequently. 

[Cruising Divers]

6 minutes ago, grandgeezer said:

We haven’t dropped as much as a penny in the ship’s casino in the last 20+ cruises and have received four offers in the last several months, two by e-mail and two through regular mail. I never followed up on it as we have no interest in doing it.

We’d love to go, feel free to send any of those unused offers our way! We will definitely be spending a little bit of time in the casino during our next X cruise to increase our chances of receiving them in the future. 

[Sunset329]

46 minutes ago, NutsAboutGolf said:

 

 

You left out the internet, spa services, fitness classes, behind the scene tours, photo package, laundry/dry cleaning, wine tasting events, room service after 11pm, etc... 🙃

 

Thanks for the reminder. Rebudgeting . . . . . . . . 

[mahdnc]

1 hour ago, Sunset329 said:

We are booked on a ten-day cruise on the Edge, using a "Free Verandah" Blue Chip offer. Like all cruises, I put together a cruise budget to see what is coming out of the bank account. After budgeting for transportation, hotel, shuttle, drinks, casino donations, port excursions, shopping, special dining, gratuities and port fees, our "Free Veranda" disappeared like a daydream. Granted, the complimentary verandah offer from Blue Chip is a great deal, but it certainly isn't "free". 

Reminds me of our first puppy we got for free from our neighbor and the experience we received from raising it. 

 

 “There’s no such thing as a free dog”

[NutsAboutGolf]

I’ve repeatedly lobbied the Exec team to give comped cruisers the internet based and included three datapoints of land based casino have free internet, other cruise lines like NCL and CCL include perks like the internet in their offer and if they’re not willing to give the internet for free, they offer a 15% off the drink package and therefore should be the same for the internet…Their reply?  Gamble more and you’ll get it for free (lol)

[dlh015]

Wow...what was that term...oh...looking a gift horse in the mouth...yeah, that's it...

 

My goodness...you would have paid all those things anyways, right?? But you're *not* paying for the verandah...sounds free to me...

 

 

[kwokpot]

1 hour ago, Sunset329 said:

 

Oh, I certainly knew that the cruise was not without cost. When comparing the cost of this cruise to our other cruises, the Blue Chip cruise is substantially cheaper than our other cruises (even our Princess casino cruises). I just put together a cruise budget to see the impact on our travel budget. Actually, with the Blue Chip offers, we are able to cruise more frequently. 

You're speaking from both sides of your mouth. What was the point of your post? Noone thinks there's ZERO costs to take a casino comped cruise, NO ONE. 

[ORV]

1 hour ago, dlh015 said:

Wow...what was that term...oh...looking a gift horse in the mouth...yeah, that's it...

 

My goodness...you would have paid all those things anyways, right?? But you're *not* paying for the verandah...sounds free to me...

 

 

I was going to point out the same thing. You're going to have all these costs on any cruise. So you're way ahead of the game. I have one in February, we're using miles for the flight, points for the hotel room, and Elite perks for some drinks some internet. But we'll still spend a bit. But like many others we might bet $50-$200 in the casino when we cruise. Certainly not big spenders. On our last cruise we pre-bought $50 of play and she put her card in to access it. Maybe this triggered the free offer. We've had two others since we booked this one, so apparently we're on the list. We didn't book either of those as they couldn't work in our schedule. 

[retird]

3 hours ago, Sunset329 said:

We are booked on a ten-day cruise on the Edge, using a "Free Verandah" Blue Chip offer. Like all cruises, I put together a cruise budget to see what is coming out of the bank account. After budgeting for transportation, hotel, shuttle, drinks, casino donations, port excursions, shopping, special dining, gratuities and port fees, our "Free Veranda" disappeared like a daydream. Granted, the complimentary verandah offer from Blue Chip is a great deal, but it certainly isn't "free". 

Well we are currently booked on a BCC verandah for 10 days on Edge, and if I had booked it on my own with any discount for elite, residency etc, the cost of the cabin including taxes would be $6642.00 Cdn.     To me that is a nice freebie.    Anything I will spend on top of the cabin, I would have paid anyway.   

[eddieg07410]

11 hours ago, 20165 said:

To tack a question on to this, how much do you typically have to spend in the Casino to get one of these offers?  My wife and I arent big gamblers, couple hundred per cruise, but thats all cash so its not tracked.  Maybe i should be using my ship account to gamble?  thx

Ironically enough my wife has gotten t2o different offers in 6 weeks. If she gambles more than 10 dollars an entire cruise it is a lot. She is on the lowest tier. So I have no idea how this thing works.

[IslaSarah]

I swear they're doing this so all of us non-gamblers think "maybe I should throw some money in a slot machine and hope to win a free cruise even if I lose my money"!

[kwokpot]

You would have gotten much better responses if you titled your post 'Look how much money I saved booking a free veranda from Blue Chip Club' and writing from THAT perspective. Now it's just clickbait. 😉

Edited November 27, 2022 by kwokpot

[Stem to Stern]

Does one earn club points on one of these free verandahs?

[gold1953]

5 hours ago, Stem to Stern said:

Does one earn club points on one of these free verandahs?

Yes we do earn points

[Ex-Airbalancer]

We never received any offer , but we never gamble 

do they offer TA or EU cruises ? 
might be time to play at least once per cruise 

[Georgia_Peaches]

20 hours ago, 20165 said:

To tack a question on to this, how much do you typically have to spend in the Casino to get one of these offers?  My wife and I arent big gamblers, couple hundred per cruise, but thats all cash so its not tracked.  Maybe i should be using my ship account to gamble?  thx

Even if using cash you should put your key card in the machine. You show them you are playing and wrack up points. Not sure how they track if you’re at the tables. 

[kwokpot]

9 minutes ago, Georgia_Peaches said:

Even if using cash you should put your key card in the machine. You show them you are playing and wrack up points. Not sure how they track if you’re at the tables. 

The pit boss will watch a new player for the first couple of rounds then enter the amount bet each hand into the system. At least that's how's it's supposed to work.