Petersonfcu

I am curious as to whether and when you find the free room pricing in your online account. A previous poster said that these email offers did in fact show up online, but that was not my experience. I had to call to book when I got my email offer(s) many months ago.

The offer was on my AMEX Everyday Preferred card. I am speculating here, but the offer could be limited to those cards that generate Membership Rewards points.

Get $350 back when you spend $1000. Showed up on my AMEX Everday Preferred card.

I cut and paste the fine print below. Even if you 1) apply for the AMEX card and 2) are approved in a timely manner and 3) are given the offer, the offer appears to only cover payments made on a new reservation (e.g., booked on or after October 7). So I don't think your plan will work to get you the credit. Enrollment limited. Must first add offer to Card and then use same Card to redeem. Only U.S.-issued American Express® Cards are eligible. Limit 1 enrolled Card per Card Member across all American Express offer channels. Your enrollment of an eligible American Express Card for this offer extends only to that Card. Offer valid only for reservations booked between 10/7/2022 and 12/31/2022 with Holland America Line at hollandamerica.com, by phone at 1-877-932-4259 or by contacting your travel advisor. Must be booked on US website only. Excludes onboard purchases, gift and services, Denali Square, McKinley Chalet Resort, Worldwide Emergency Assistance Services, Cancellation Protection plan, online shops, formalwear rentals and charitable donations. Excludes if not booked at time of reservation: airfare booked through cruise line, excursions, onboard celebrations, luggage valet services, baggage insurance, Flight Ease, travel Insurance, charters. Excludes Ship to Shelter programs and Exploration Café Charges. Excludes Carnival, Cunard, Princess Cruises, Denali North Star Inn, Princess Lodge Costa, Royal Hyway Tours, Seabourn, AIDA, Costa and Fathom. Ships’ Registry: The Netherlands. Offer is non-transferable. Valid only on purchases made in US dollars. Limit of 1 statement credit per Card Member. You may not receive the statement credit if we receive inaccurate information or are otherwise unable to identify your purchase as qualifying for the offer. For example, you may not receive the statement credit if (a) the merchant uses a third-party to sell their products or services; or (b) the merchant uses a third-party to process or submit your transaction to us (e.g., using mobile or wireless card readers); or (c) you choose to make a purchase using a third-party payment account or make a purchase using a mobile or digital wallet. Purchases may fall outside of the offer period in some cases due to a delay in merchants submitting transactions to us or if the purchase date differs from the date you made the transaction (for example, the purchase date for online orders may be the shipping date). Statement credit will appear on your billing statement within 90 days after 12/31/2022, provided that American Express receives information from the merchant about your qualifying purchase. Note that American Express may not receive information about your qualifying purchase from merchant until all items/services from your qualifying purchase have been shipped/provided by merchant. Statement credit may be reversed if qualifying purchase is returned/cancelled. If American Express does not receive information that identifies your purchase as qualifying for the offer, you will not receive the statement credit. Limit 1 enrolled Card per American Express Card online account. The enrolled Card account must be active, not past due, canceled, or have a returned payment outstanding to receive the statement credit. Any benefit earned from this offer is in addition to the rewards (i.e. Membership Rewards or cash back) earned as part of your existing Card benefits, but your ability to earn spend-based rewards for the purchase will be based on the amount after any statement credit or other discount is applied. Amex Offers are available for varying and limited periods of time and are dynamic and personalized. If you navigate away from the Amex Offers page, you may see different offers when you return. For questions regarding your Card Account, please call the number on the back of your Card. By adding an offer to a Card, you agree that American Express may send you communications about the offer. POID: K4GT:0001

The four HAL casino offers I recieved this past year included a free stateroom, some funplay money, and drinks on us. I guess that would be your Category B mentioned above. I have never recieved a casino offer from HAL or any other cruise line that offered a free state room and did not at least include free drinks in the casino. So cant comment on any naked "free room" offers. Not sure why a casino would give even a naked free room offer to someone who has shown they dont gamble.

Yes.

If you are sailing a pinnacle class ship, the Club Orange includes a special small dining room and expanded menu for breakfast and dinner. In our experience on the Koningsdam, the service we recieved in the Club Orange dining room was the BEST we have ever recieved in our many cruises. We decided who needs specialty dining with this every day dining experience!!

The upgrade prices were not good at the time we booked our free cabin cruises. On one of those cruises -- on the Volendam sailing this Saturday, October 8 -- we recieved an upgrade offer just las week that was really good. But the roll call indicates many folks on this cruise are now receiving good upgrade offers, so dont think these upgrades are necessarily connected to the free cabin deal.

Not sure what your point is. If you spend nothing in the casino . . . you should not expect to get subsequent casino offers.

Lest there still be any doubt in your mind . .. IT IS A GOOD DEAL!!! 🙂

We have gotten three free room casino deals in the past 14 months. In our experience, the offers only come via email, there is no reference to any of them when you log in to your HAL online account. The offers include a 1.800 number for booking purposes. We have booked four cruises using these offers (two recently completed, and another two to be completed by the end of 2022) Prior to recieving these offers we had not sailed with HAL since 2017, and we were only one star mariners. We did use the casino on those earlier HAL cruises, but not to excess (that is subjective, I know). As someone else has pointed out here, don't expect to recieve these offers if you regularly book HAL cruises at close to retail price. HAL has no incentive to offer you these special deals!

Actually, AARP still has discounted Princess gift cards. But when you go to search you have to choose "redeem" and "all rewards" (NOT member rewards) to find the Princess (and HAL) gift cards. Still, as others have pointed out, the AARP gift card purchase function is not working on their website right now. Who knows when AARP will fix that.

Where does the 10% house edge figure come from? Is that percentage an educated guess based on your personal experience, or is it based on something that Princess or another cruise-related entity publishes? Just curious.

I am pretty sure the 20% discount on cruise cash was a one time IT error and not some sort of intentional cruise cash sale. In any event, I am only aware of this discount happening once. It occurred a few months ago. The discount was only available for a few hours and Carnival pulled it fast when folks started going wild with it.

Does Carnival always waive the single supplement on casino deals? And if you don't mind me asking, what was the most recent time you cruised single on a casino deal? Thanks.

I have never understood what the casino opening rules are. We are on the second leg of a HAL B2B up in Alaska now, and for the next four days the ship will never leave Alaska waters or be more than a couple of miles from land that belongs to the state of Alaska. Yet the casino will open between 30 and 45 minutes after departure from Juneau, Skagway, and Ketchikan.

I expect that I will arrive for embarkation in Barcelona without a medallion. Will Princess issue me a medallion at embarkation, even if they mailed one previously to my home address and I left for Europe before the medallion arrived? I apologize if this has been asked and answered before.

I will be on HAL next week for the first time in four years. So will try the Dive In Burger. I love Guy's burgers, but of course I hope you are right about the HAL burger!!

Thanks. I looked at a picture of the ore dock, and that ore slide looks like a pretty fun way to get off the ship . . . 🙂

Does anyone know where the Koningsdam docked? I believe it was scheduled to be in Skagway yesterday (Tuesday).

Thanks for this report. We are considering taking the train the opposite direction (Venice St Lucia to Trieste) in October to embark our HAL cruise. How was the train ride? Was it full? Seats comfortable? A place for luggage (realize you were on a day trip, but maybe you noticed . . . ). Any interesting views?

Looks like there is another cruise ship that will soon be homeporting in SF. And it cruises to . . . Stockton. https://www.sfgate.com/travel/article/Bay-Area-river-cruise-costs-6000-17357489.php

Hope you enjoy your next cruise as well.

Ah, gratuitous SF bashing. I guess it was inevitable.

Yes, you did! I can see that you view the funpoint collection as a sort of forced savings toward a cruise. Not the way I think about credit card rewards, but I do understand your point of view. I was not aware of the Barclay's Rewards Boost shopping portal, but I also magnify my credit card returns by using different online shopping portals. I usually check with evreward.com to see what portal will give me the greatest return for a particular purchase. And to get back on topic, i am pretty much unconcerned about Carnival's cutbacks. The only one that affects me directly is the loss of the filet mignon at sea day brunch, but, heh, I am already over it. Someone pointed out that the various cutbacks can indirectly affect everyone through increased waits and lines, but I guess that remains to be seen.