Educate me on Carnival players club

[edrussell]

We are RCCL cruisers (been prime for a few years now).  We are very familiar with their tier benefits and have always cruised via their offers.  Last Saturday we disembarked our first ever Carnival cruise onboard Venezia.  This was via a COMP when my wife status matched with them.  We managed just below 4000 points so not a massive amount of points, but we feel we gave them a decent enough amount of play.  We had purchased cheers anyway so DOU didn't do much for us.  Even if we did want to use it there is no casino bar on Venezia and there was not enough servers anyway.

 

So please educate me on their player's club, is there a site to check for offers (we have logged in via carnival.com)?  What actually is their tier benefits etc?  How do they stack up to RCCL as far as offers go?  A new world for us.

 

[kwokpot]

Just now, edrussell said:

We are RCCL cruisers (been prime for a few years now).  We are very familiar with their tier benefits and have always cruised via their offers.  Last Saturday we disembarked our first ever Carnival cruise onboard Venezia.  This was via a COMP when my wife status matched with them.  We managed just below 4000 points so not a massive amount of points, but we feel we gave them a decent enough amount of play.  We had purchased cheers anyway so DOU didn't do much for us.  Even if we did want to use it there is no casino bar on Venezia and there was not enough servers anyway.

 

So please educate me on their player's club, is there a site to check for offers (we have logged in via carnival.com)?  What actually is their tier benefits etc?  How do they stack up to RCCL as far as offers go?  A new world for us.

 

Carnival Players Club is totally different than the other cruiseline casino players club in that there are NO PUBLISHED tier levels. In other words there are no player levels you can play up to(Obviously there are internal tiers where players are ranked but they are proprietary and have never been disclosed). Your offers will be on the main Carnival website so you need to  login, click on your profile, and you'll see a section for offers. The casino offers will be intermixed with your general Carnival cruise offers. 

Having said that there are different levels of cruise offers. What Carnival does offer are casino department hosted cruises that will offer different types of casino promotions and games throughout the cruise. There are different types of these casino hosted cruises, with different benefits depending on the type of casino cruises. 

Carnival also offers non hosted fully comped or discounted cruises again with various benefits (freeplay, drinks, etc).

This website will explain more about the program.

 

https://www.carnival.com/casino/carnival-players-club

Edited September 20, 2023 by kwokpot

[Wally Alligator]

One difference between Carnival and Royal in comp offers:  My RCCL email offers as of today are for various cruises though June 2024.  Carnival email offers have had a sail by date of December 31, 2024 for several months now.  (Australia offers sail by is currently June 2025).  Been making it hard to book a RCCL offer as when I look at the dates I find a Carnival of HAL cruise booked in the available window already.  The link I use to look at offers is: http://www.carnival.com/cruise-deals/vifp-club.aspx

[edrussell]

How often do offers refresh within their system?  We disembarked on Sept 16.  I am wondering what is the usual turn around to see if our play was enough to move the needle.

 

[edrussell]

Our offers have refreshed and are very good.  We are about to book a few more sailings.  It appears our play did move the needle with Carnival.

 

[edrussell]

We booked two sailings, one 8 night in June of next year on Vista, an oecanview with 100 each of OBC.  Also a 10 night on Venezia in Oct of next year, balcony with 100 each of OBC.  I guess we are Carnival people now.

 

[League3056]

Congrats! How many points did you end up with at the end of your last Carnival cruise, if you don't mind sharing? I'm going on my first Carnival in Jan and wondering how many points it might take to get some offers.

[edrussell]

Just shy of 4000 points.

 

[Styrofoam02]

On 9/19/2023 at 7:35 PM, edrussell said:

We are RCCL cruisers (been prime for a few years now).  We are very familiar with their tier benefits and have always cruised via their offers.  Last Saturday we disembarked our first ever Carnival cruise onboard Venezia.  This was via a COMP when my wife status matched with them.  We managed just below 4000 points so not a massive amount of points, but we feel we gave them a decent enough amount of play.  We had purchased cheers anyway so DOU didn't do much for us.  Even if we did want to use it there is no casino bar on Venezia and there was not enough servers anyway.

 

So please educate me on their player's club, is there a site to check for offers (we have logged in via carnival.com)?  What actually is their tier benefits etc?  How do they stack up to RCCL as far as offers go?  A new world for us.

 

I am also a Royal Caribbean sailor usually, but I myself went on Carnival with my 2 best friends in november.  

I spent about 6 hours maybe 7 total in the casino playing slots, and about 1 hours at the craps table.  on my 5 night cruise, i ended with right at 6000 points.  I got a free specialty dining for me and my friends, and a bottle of wine at dinner.   

After i got home, about a week later, I logged into my account and checked "my offers"  and i was offered free balcony rooms (100 deposit given back to me as OBC) as well as 100 free play in the casino, and Drinks anywhere onboard for myself.    Other offers as well, including 1500 OBC for cruises 6 days or longer with drinks anywhere, which, on certain sailings in an interior room with prepaid gratuities, even after paying in full came out to them paying me around 300 dollars to sail.

I settled on a balcony room on the Carnival Jubilee in May.  This is a $2700 cruise i'm getting for taxes and port fees.  

At the end of the day, i've been getting far more from carnival than Royal ever offered me. I don't know if this will continue, but i had to book this cruise by Dec4.  I did.  After Dec4 they are already offering more that need to be booked by Jan3.   I expect these will come monthly.  we'll see.

[edrussell]

@Styrofoam02 your experience directly parallels ours.  We actually booked a third sailing, a 12 night European cruise in early 2025.  My wife receives so many offers she cannot keep up.

 

Currently only 4 offers open from RCCL and none of them are particularly attractive.  Further to that she has received more than one offer with just free base fare for 1 PAX!  Ya right.  

 

Don't get me wrong we are looking forward to our Wonder OTS sailing in Feb of 2024, but that is the last one we have on the books.  We will make prime on it and get one more annual certificate but I would think that will be our last.

[Styrofoam02]

1 hour ago, edrussell said:

@Styrofoam02 your experience directly parallels ours.  We actually booked a third sailing, a 12 night European cruise in early 2025.  My wife receives so many offers she cannot keep up.

 

Currently only 4 offers open from RCCL and none of them are particularly attractive.  Further to that she has received more than one offer with just free base fare for 1 PAX!  Ya right.  

 

Don't get me wrong we are looking forward to our Wonder OTS sailing in Feb of 2024, but that is the last one we have on the books.  We will make prime on it and get one more annual certificate but I would think that will be our last.

It's a shame too, because overall, I prefer the atmosphere of Royal, and the food on royal is just slightly better IMO too.  Their loyalty program has the best perks from what I've seen.  But discounts on balcony rooms, and discounts on drinks, don't particularly mean that much to me if I'm being offered essentially free cruises and free drinks.  I was originally focused on getting to Diamond level on Royal, but if the Carnival Casino wants to keep sending me these offers, I don't honestly know if I care to. 

The differences are slight enough, that the value i get from these offers more than makes up for it.  

[edrussell]

Totally agree with you, all things being equal we would prefer Royal, but the offers just don't justify it.  As for the loyalty perks we don't much care about those at all, as we don't use them.  We almost always buy the drink package anyway and I don't particularly need a robe.  We've actually never paid base fare for any cruise we've ever taken and hope not to have to.  With 3 Carnival and only 1 Royal on the books our choice is obvious.  Have to admit not being able to go to Coco Cay or Labadee we will miss.  We just LOVE those private destinations on Royal.

 

[noshoobie]

Can't agree more! We love Royal and were on a cruise last February playing slots all week. (Don't remember our points) and the only offer we have been receiving from them is a complimentary cruise for 1 and a discounted fare for the 2nd passenger. We cruised on Carnival in September and played the same amount of money and we have been getting weekly emails for both my husband and I  (2 cruises!) for a free cruise (paying only port fees and taxes). We are cruising MSC in February on a promotion from a land based casino but definitely plan to book a Carnival Cruise soon. Although I love Royal how can we pass up these kind of offers?

 

Royal should take note.........

[edrussell]

RCCL is riding HIGH on Icon, star etc no doubt.  Charging whatever the hell they want on these ships.  They can and they WILL continue to get big bucks on them.  They will sail full.  Families will be happy etc.  However, how many times per year can these families afford to sail?  What about older ships in their fleet?  Etc.  Make no mistake RCCL is going NOWHERE, but I strongly feel they are treating a large number of their 'loyal to royal' folks, including gamblers poorly.  It will catch up to them in the long run.  I bet even money that the TC required to hit Prime soon goes up as well.  Truth is once we get used to the Carnival experience we won't go back to RCCL.  Is what it is.  Maybe they couldn't careless and that is understandable if we don't hit their radar anymore.