Suncoastsailors

On 10/1/2022 at 10:26 AM, FlorenceItaly said:

My last one expired September 15.  Since then only receiving casino discounts.  We sail on a complimentary cruise beginning of November so we will see if this helps.

We are sailing next week on Volendam and then November 19th-Dec 3rd on the Statendam. 

On 10/1/2022 at 10:53 AM, Mosaic said:

An offer code for someone else will not work for a different person.

Yes it will. We are supposed to get the offer , but due to some glitch in HAL system we never get the e-mail. Although the e-mail is said to have been sent. I have booked several casino offers using the offer codes I have seen online. I may not get the same category cabin but otherwise the offer is the same. I am thinking however that these free stateroom offers are going away.   

Has anyone received a new "free stateroom" casino offer. We never receive the e-mails. Not seeing any $200 cruises while searching on HAL web site. If you have received could you give the offer code. Thank you.  

22 minutes ago, sofienummer said:

I'm sailing this upcoming Sunday!! On the ms Rotterdam 😄 So excited! 

I downloaded the Navigator app and it already shows a lot of events for each day. 

Is this schedule correct/complete or will the 'event itinerary' be a bit different once we board and get our official planning? 

 

Is something like Bingo where you can win prizes free? Or do you need to pay to join Bingo and similar game shows? 

 

On the app it says that every night there is a movie night by the pool, but it seems they play the same movie every night. Is this correct? 

I would love to experience a movie night by the pool one day, but the movie doesn't sound interesting at all...

 

The movies at the pool are often repeated. They do have a good selection of in room movies on demand for free. The evenings on HAL lack the entertainment seen on some other cruise lines. There is billboard onboard or dueling pianos, Lincoln center or classical music, Rolling stone and/or BB king which play popular music with a dance floor, sometimes comedian's are onboard. If it is your first HAL you may enjoy the dance shows or talks in the main theatre. Overall HAL is a more relaxed cruise with excellent food and service. I think you will enjoy your cruise, but I doubt you will attend many movies at the pool. 

On 9/14/2022 at 2:28 PM, FlaMariner said:

For whatever it is worth.....

 

We are boarding the Nieuw Statendam in Port Everglades for the 11/19 & 11/26 B2B sailings.  

 

We got an email today for both departure dates.....The email says "due to operational reasons" we will depart at 3pm instead of 4pm.  All aboard is 2pm. 

 

Work for us.....get the party started earlier!

 

 

 

 

 

Hello North Florida. We will join you on these B2B cruises. Not sure what operational reasons means, but it is not a problem if you drive to the port.  

On 9/6/2022 at 6:45 PM, DaveOKC said:

You should contact the casino department.  Perhaps there is a problem with your email or HAL account.

 

Carnival casino department is not available by phone, email only. E-mails go to a third world country. The e-mail response is just a  scripted response that does not answer your questions. 

On 8/28/2022 at 7:04 AM, jeff74 said:

DaveOKC, how do you check your account to see what casino offers are available?  Is it just logging into the website to see which cruises show up as costing $200 pp and assuming all those are also casino offers as well?

 

Unfortunately I've been in the situation for the past 18 months where all communication about casino offers have been going into a black hole somewhere.  When I called HAL they said they've been sending me about 5 offers a month to my email but they haven't been showing up in my inbox, spam or anywhere.  I gave them a different email address and they said that should take effect in about 14 days.  I've got my fingers crossed that works but unfortunately I've missed out on a ton of free cruises and only found out about this when I received a random email from a PCC that an offer was about to expire.

 

Thanks!

I have the same problem. Have changed e-mails and have had multiple attempts to fix by HAL. Still no e-mails. Let us know if it works for you.  

On 8/14/2022 at 9:18 AM, -The-True-North- said:

Interesting topic. And will continue to monitor.

 

We are first timers, so on our upcoming sailing my gf and I will play a few hundred and report back if we did enough to get anything at all.

 

2 questions: do the casinos take cash and do they have video roulette?

You will probably get a printed offer in your room the last night of the cruise. This offer is not that attractive. The question is will you receive the free cabin offers for future cruises. You won't know this until later. 

44 minutes ago, foggyphils said:

Great thread! I just went on my first HAL cruise since 2005. I spent most of my time at Roulette. Probably 4 out of 7 nights for 2-4. hours. I also played a bit on the slots. I always used my cabin card to take $100 out at a time for Roulette and I funded my slot account with $500 on my first day. I would say no more than 30 mins total on slots but I played about $50 each night that I played roulette. After all that play, I ended up about $20 ahead. Cheap entertainment and fun 😉

 

Oh, ALSO, I emailed the casino team before our cruise and let them know that we get Carnival casino offers. They set me up with $50 Funplay and my Hubs got $25 in Funplay. 

 

We got off the Koningsdam on Aug. 6th and I got my first email with the following offers:
Casino Promos Campaign ID: HEP2238CO Promo UX7

Includes $150 OBC, Free drinks, and some other "VIP" stuff. (see screenshot)

I do have a question...on the email it says "Book an advertised VIP sailing to receive an exclusive invitation to the Holland America Line Players Club ultimate VIP sailings."
Is this a different tier of promotional cruises?

I am not sure if this is a different tier promotion. These are the same benefits my wife receives and she is not a big gambler. The only real benefit I see is free drinks while playing and complimentary entry to casino events. That is if they have an event on that sailing. The question is  will HAL cut back on these promotions once the ships start filling up.  We never received the offers until after Covid. 

9 hours ago, daisy-mae said:

I'm confused. If you don't get the emails, then how are you eligible? 

 

I've only booked one casino offer and that was after receiving the offer by mail addressed to me personally with the name of a cruise consultant. Can anyone who manages to find the list go ahead and book?

When I search the list of cruises after signing into my account the $200 cruises appear. I can then call and book these directly or thru my PCC. Apparently there is some problem blocking my e-mails that HAL has never been able to repair. I have tried several times to get this fixed. 

55 minutes ago, kangforpres said:

Here is the list of the 2023 cruises that came out today.

 

 

HEP2237CO_SAILINGS_USD.pdf 183.62 kB · 13 downloads

Thanks for posting.

There were a new round of the "free" cabin offers that stated today. Found them on accident by searching through all 46 pages of cruises. Still don't get the e-mails but we were able to book 14 days Copenhagen to Norway July and August next year. 

3 hours ago, firefly333 said:

Lol I always choose deck 6. One deck to run up and down. I like across from the cafe so I can see in the morning when its opening and people are there. Its quiet. No parades since restart. I've heard over a bar can be noise but I've only been over stores or the safe. This is liberty and this time over the cafe. I prefer the other side but this was available. 

 

Deck 7 is 2 flights up, lol I prefer closer. 8 even worse view. 

We have been in the exact same location and really enjoyed the room. I think I prefer deck 6 because you are closer and can see what is going on better. 

7 hours ago, Euby said:

Let me add this to the "logarithm" conversation.  My upcoming cruise is a "free-cabin" casino offer.  However, I do not play at the tables or machines.  I play BINGO at each opportunity at the highest package available.

I also received another "free-cabin" offer that I'm considering for next year.  So I somehow got on the list.  I hope that I stay on it, because it really helps me afford to cruise as solo.

That is one I have not heard. Well done, hope you stay on the list.

5 hours ago, DaveOKC said:

But how do you explain my real life experience where two people played about the same amount of time on the same machines but one got 6 times as much in free play?  No way the one person played six times as much.  I have seen this with others as well - the time was about the same but the size of bets were much higher and the result was that the free play on the offers (even those received while still onboard and based on that week's play) were FAR greater (by factors of 4-6 times).

 

First the free play offers you receive on the last day of the cruise are different than "free cabin". Those free play offers are usually worthless since they can not be combined with a "free cabin" casino offer. From my prospective the "free cabin" offer is what counts. So the question is did either or both players receive the " free cabin" e-mails. I am not saying you are wrong, only saying what I have heard from several of the casino regulars on the ships. This has also been discussed on cruise critic before and others have said the same. We have a four cruises coming soon, all "free cabin" offers, maybe we will try the time at the machine method and see what happens. I think " free cabin" deals will become more difficult to get. Probably not worth gambling 5-10k to get a "free cabin" deal. 

4 hours ago, DaveOKC said:

I would be surprised if this is the case (only time matters).  First of all, the casino tracks points on the machines which are based upon "coin in", not time played - just like land based casinos do.  So, why not use that measurement as they already have the data in hand PLUS it is too easy to manipulate time played (IMO).  Second, my wife and her sister both played on a recent cruise (sister's first) about the same amount of time, but sister plays more $ per spin, so thus had much higher coin in points.

 

Result, the sister got SIX TIMES as much free play as my wife on last week's free cabin offer.

Your explanation makes sense, but time played is also tracked with your players card inserter in the slot machine. I have heard from several sources that it is time spent at the machine that gets you the most rewards. I have watched them as they play the lowest bet on a penny machine slowly to get rewards. Is this fact, who knows. It does not make sense to me that they would not go by total points. Perhaps they figure time spent in the casino will eventually equal money spent. Maybe they like the casinos full of players. Maybe it is some combination of time spent and points. 

33 minutes ago, blueexpedition29 said:

Can anyone post a copy ( de-identified of course) of their  covid test results letter provided by Walgreens /PWNHEALTH.  i am looking for the exact description provided.  My son is traveling to CHINA and wants to make sure it is described as a PCR test!

 

Thanks in advance. 

 

NAAT is what they use. 

On 7/27/2022 at 10:43 AM, kangforpres said:

The Club 21 algorithm is a mystery to all of us. Some people get great offers after just one cruise, some sail multiple times and never get offers. Logically it would seem you should play some on a casino offer cruise so the offers keep coming. Just think of it as a roll of the dice.

I have been told by some frequent players who get free balcony or better cruises, that it is time spent gambling not points. Since I don't gamble, while my wife does, I walk around the last day of the cruise and look at total points displayed on the slots for each player. Many of them are well above 20,000 for a 7 day cruise. If you gamble this much you should qualify by points or time spent at the machine. My wife is a small time gambler with usually less than 1500 points. We got free cruises after Covid until just recently. Now they seem to have dried up. Was fun while it lasted. 

On 7/22/2022 at 11:08 AM, DaveOKC said:

As someone above suggested, I went into our HAL account and did a dummy booking on some late 2022 and early 2023 Caribbean cruises.  Result was a number of free cabins ($200 actually listed) for 7 days in an Oceanview and some 10-11 day partial Panama Canal cruises.  

Interesting part is that we have not received an email from HAL casino on these deals yet (usally we get the email prior to the website showing them).

 

I have checked and not found any $200 deals under our sign-on. Of course we are one of those who never receive emails. For us the last $200 deals were in Mid-June. Nothing since. But thanks for the heads up.

2 hours ago, IamHungry said:

How usual is it for people booking on Casino offer got a complimentary upgrade or an upsell? 

Not sure how usual it is but we have received a complimentary upgrade on a casino offer. We also have received paid upgrade offers. We have also called the upgrade phone number and gotten the price of upgrades without the offer. I think the number is 888-628-8107. Not sure how much Mariner status has to do with upgrades. 

27 minutes ago, timbom said:

Yep nothing special in these offers

 

I agree.

7 hours ago, FlorenceItaly said:

Nothing here.  The good times may be over, lol.  @Suncoastsailors I keep meaning to ask you if you are a twin, and if so, you have a sister who ever lived in OK?

Funny. No not a twin and although we lived many places never in OK. We are retired travel ICU nurses. Yes I think you may be correct, the good times may be over. We still have 3 cruises booked with HAL this year under the "good old days". If you see her tell my "twin sister" I said hello. 

11 hours ago, Laminator said:

Here is a list without having to download 26 pages!

Thank you from those of us who do not receive the e-mails. 

On 7/12/2022 at 6:57 PM, kangforpres said:

Dang Nabbit! I guess my PCC was misinformed. Maybe something will still come later this week.

We have not received any offers either. In checking the 47 pages of cruises only discounts off regular prices. This is what we received pre-Covid. Would not be surprised if the $200 special deals are done for us. But it was fun while it lasted. Actually we needed a break after all of those cruises. I will keep checking. 

10 minutes ago, Project-College said:

I guess for me is that term 'REPORTED'.  Since at home tests are so prevalent,  and since so many people do NOT report results... how accurate are the numbers?  Plus, there was a poster on that other site of a person who felt they had COVID on Carnival (and they did) but said there was no way he would let the Ship know since he was vaccinated  and the symptoms were mild (I think his comment was "I'll be damned if I am staying in my room and eating tuna sandwiches, I am on vacation".  Yes this is very self-centered but considering the cost of cruises for most... probably not uncommon! 

There is a middle ground with this argument. If you test positive in your room with your home test. You have mild symptoms. You could choose to wear a mask, eat in the Lido away from other guest, sit in the Showroom away from other guest. Stay out of elevators and away from crowded areas. Not reporting does not mean you need to go on as if nothing happened. Be responsible.