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A few of the questions are a bit hard to answer, but here's my thoughts. 1) I would have to say that Carnival, Celebrity, and Royal have the best programs in that order. I explain in further detail below. 2) Carnival, hands down. Many of their best offers includes benefits for both the player and accompanying cruiser. That's not the case with almost all the other cruiseline programs. (Virgin & MSC casino invited guests have free drinks while playing in the casino for main and 2nd guest) 3) Carnival, Virgin 4) Celebrity, Virgin 5) Celebrity To elaborate on the first question, Carnival's program stands pretty much alone from all other cruiselines and even land based casinos. Reason for this is there aren't VISIBLE or explicit gambling tier levels to play towards. In other words how one ranks within Carnival's casino program is UNKNOWN;furthermore, there are no published tiers or status levels that you play and earn. So how do you know what benefits you'll get from gambling on a Carnival cruise? They do issue end-of-cruise future cruise certificates based on the gambling on that sailing and you will receive offers that's listed in your loyalty member profile on Carnival's website. They also send email offers and postcard offers that are duplicates of the offers in your Carnival member profile. Onboard you can speak to the Casino host and see if your play warrants any comps for a free specialty dinner, a bottle of wine, spa treatment,etc. Usually the hosts are very friendly and will generally seek you out if you qualify for a comp and will ask if you're interested in a free steakhouse dinner. Carnival's casino program is also different than the others since they offer regularly casino sponsored cruises which are hosted by a separate casino staff hosts and there will be nightly contests and drawings. There are four different types of hosted casino cruises each with better benefits than the next. Apart from these hosted casino cruises there are also other casino comp offers that will be either discounted or fully comped based on your play. All these offers are for a certain list of cruises that you can choose from on their website. All their offers can be booked online on your own, you do not have to call the casino department. As you rightly are thinking you only know when you qualify for any comp and what type when it shows up in your account. There's no published formulas, for example, to figure out how much you need to gamble to be considered for an Elite hosted Casino Cruise Offer, which is considered the top hosted casino offer. Celebrity and Royal's programs are more like your standard land-based casino program, with published tier levels and the benefits that come with each. Even though they are owned by the same parent company the casino programs WERE totally independent and different;however, Celebrity's Casino department is now being run within Royal's Casino Department and although as of right now they are still separate and independent programs the writing is on the wall that they MAY eventually merge the two programs. As it stands right now Celebrity's program has a slight lead in that there are guaranteed freeplay amounts when you achieve the higher tier levels and take a Celebrity cruise, whether comped or not. Additionally on the higher tier levels one of the benefits is a free beverage package (primary gambler only) which isn't offered at any level on Royal. Having said all that each of three cruiselines I mentioned are different in the CRUISE product they offer. Anyone that says differently isn't being discerning enough. Is a Chevy, Toyota, and Lexus car all the same? We sail on all three, enjoy all three, but for different reasons (As of today, 113 cruises in total, we have 33 cruises on Royal, 29 Carnival, 27 Celebrity, the remaining on other lines ) For us Celebrity is our favorite cruiseline, although my husband will say that CARNIVAL has the best cruiseship casinos without question. Carnival consistently updates their machines even on their oldest ships, and not just the slot machines but they will renovate the whole casino even if the cabins hasn't been touched in 30 years. We like Celebrity for the quality of the ships and food the overall cruise experience is more upscale than Carnival or Royal. Royal's forte is the the number of ships and the sheer variety of the size and type of ships they offer. One can debate whether they like Royal's Oasis Class of ships but they are unique and offer features other cruiseline can't touch. What is up for debate is whether those features are important to you. Carnival offers a superior cruseship casino experience. Carnival's cruising style is laidback and as their tagline states, they are there to provide a FUN cruise experience. Everything, from the guests, employees, and cruise programming, is meant to embody having a fun vacation. In the end, what I would say is to decide which cruiseline offers the best vacation experience for you, then cruise and play in their casinos, and utilize their comp cruise offers. Let me know if you have other questions.

I'm not understanding your logic. With regards to cruise pricing, the taxes are fixed, unlike, for example, US State and/or City Sales taxes on certain purchased items that will vary according to where you live. The taxes on a cruise are the same no matter where you live, so why would you NOT include taxes on a cruise?

I'm looking at reviews on Google specific to the worm cave Seems like there are literally a handful of worms that are actually MOVED by people from the water to the caves. I know the City Center is a bit aways from the cruise terminal but we had a nice time touring the City Center. We went to the Old Town Hall, the Botanic Gardens are wonderful and they are right downtown, and the southbank area is really nice to have a meal at. There's a portion of the Brisbane ferry system that's free and we rode that and got to enjoy seeing the city from the river. Then there's a section of the river that has this great catwalk promenade right over the River that was a great walk. SO there's would be plenty to do if you went right into the City Center and did your siteseeing there, then make your way back to the crusie terminal.

There alot of mixed reviews about that tour, or the worm cave specifically.

What do plan on doing in Brisbane?

LOL, I'm surprised you remember how I feel about the Spendor, you must have been doing your Cruise Critic research! We really love those Carnival Repo cruises. I'm sorry we didn't jump on the chance for the Panorama repo from Singapore to LA, THAT itinerary has so wonderful Ports! I think you'll do just fine with the seadays. But people do have to 'know' themselves and too many seadays can drive people crazy. That happen last year on the Luminosa repo from Seattle to Brisbane. Due to missing our Alaska ports the first Port of call after leaving Seattle was 12 days later in Japan! People were going crazy. In fact there were people who left the cruise early at the last Port in Japan, in which we still had 9 more seadays until the cruise ended in Brisbane. The seadays were too much for many people. The thing is this cruise was ALWAYS a 30 day cruise with only 9 ports of call, so it was always a cruise with over 20 seadays. Carnival was literally giving this cruise away to many casino players, and I think for many the thought of get a $5,000 cruise for free overrode the thought of whether they could handle that many seadays. Having the itinerary adjusted due to weather issues ultimately reduced the Ports of call from 9 to only 7 out of 30 days, so by the end of the cruise in Brisbane many people were so glad to get off the ship and actually didn't have a good time on the cruise.

To answer your question then in your specific case most definitely take the 5 day vs the 3 day, if looking solely on the number of days as you asked. As others of said the key is the overall length of the two cruises. A three day is really very short, but if that's the only time you can devote then it's certainly a worthwhile vacation choice. A five day cruise, even with two of the days as sea days, gives you more vacation time. The two extra days is worth the added cost if you just look at food and room, which would certainly cost more if you were to spend those two days on a land based vacation. I think if your decision was between a 7 and 9 day cruise, with two extra seadays, the answer could be different depending on how you enjoy your leisure time.

Thank you for your overall reviews and opinions. We will be trying our first Holland America cruise in January and it seems for you nothing really stood out with them either positive or negative? Is that a correct assumption? The only observation I may have a differing opinion with is your feelings with NCL's buffet. I was on the flagship Viva in December and Celebrity's flagship Ascent in January and the two buffets were like night and day with us preferring Celebrity hands down. While I agree Celebrity's E-Class ships buffets can be a little challenging in getting a table we do eventually find a table and try to sit down in the double-height section (E-Class ships) for those wonderful views. On the Viva we were never able to find a regular table and always ended up sitting at the communal high top tables. Additionally the layout of the buffet on NCL's Prima Class, which is the traditional straightline buffet (vs Celebrity's scattered stations layout), causes alot of crowding due to the long narrow layout vs a more square layout of Celebrity's E and S Class ( Celebrity's M-Class buffets are a more traditional layout) buffets. Having said that you aren't alone in how you feel about a square - station type buffet layout and you are certainly not the first person not to like that type of buffet arrangement. I'm surprised you didn't highlight NCL's other complementary eateries which are more varied than on Celebrity which meant you could go elsewhere for your lunch. We preferred going to The Local or Indulge Food Hall than the buffet for lunch,and on seadays Hudson's Dining room was such a pleasure respite from the chaotic buffet.

Traditional High end I would say Royal Hawaiian.

This is an odd question to ask for opinions because it goes to the root of how someone enjoys their leisure time. It's really not a question someone else can answer for you. What one person deems as boing,restless, and trapped another sees it as a wonderful way to relax and do nothing. It's very easy to know whether one likes or dislikes seadays on a cruise from just knowing how one spends their leisure time and vacation time.

That's one of the unfortunate eliminations of the E-Class ships, free single sex saunas. M and S-Class ships still have them,and even Revolutionized M-Class ships have them albeit 1/4 of the original size due to reconfiguring two locker rooms into the space of one. Celebrity isn't the only cruiseline to eliminate complementary spa facilities. Royal Caribbean and NCL have eliminated free facilities on their newest ships and even remove them on older ships when major refurbishments are done.

There are free saunas available to all passengers in the respective locker rooms within the spa/gym area.

Did you actually go through passport control? All we did was hand in the declaration form. No one checked anything, NOTHING.There was less checking than a Caribbean cruise!

Exactly. It would have been a lot smoother with more accurate crowd management in the departure deck.

We changed lines 4 times in 90 minutes. At least the line were in now is moving decently.