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Test Cruise Invite


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So the only test cruises left on the schedule are Mariner and Oasis. 1,125 winners. I won’t be fully vaccinated by Mariner and I’m not paying to fly from Fla to NY/NJ for oasis…so I guess I won’t bother. 
 

p.s. I was trying to time my vaccination so I’d get a full year coverage from October to October (4 cruises) but damn Delta got me to go sooner but not soon enough to get on a Florida test cruise. Not meant to be. Good luck y’all! 

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Well, I think we've found yet another thoughtless, stupid questionnaire design that's going to result in a lot of people wasting a lot of time and effort sorting out the volunteers.

The very least they should've had a way to select the test cruises one wanted to be considered for. So now they'll randomly pick people for particular sailings and have to endure lots of rejections and then continue repeating the process till they get the number of volunteers they need for each.

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58 minutes ago, dswallow said:

Well, I think we've found yet another thoughtless, stupid questionnaire design that's going to result in a lot of people wasting a lot of time and effort sorting out the volunteers.

The very least they should've had a way to select the test cruises one wanted to be considered for. So now they'll randomly pick people for particular sailings and have to endure lots of rejections and then continue repeating the process till they get the number of volunteers they need for each.

Then, you have to wonder if this process will be repeated for the rest of the ships.  Pretty labor intensive!

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We received an email this morning from Royal to register for a chance to secure a test cruise. Funny thing is, when I initally filled in the form, I did put my country as AUS (Australia) so would think they may have filtered out all non US citizens as we do not qualify.  

They are teasing us poor Aussie, stuck in lock down in fortress Oz.  

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Sadly the "extra" entries to the lottery don't give any improved odds for advanced C&A status. EVERYONE can get 12 entries. Pinnacle can enter once and get credit for all 12. Diamond (my current level) get 8 entries for the initial effort and I just completed the "form" 4 additional times to get to the 12.

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9 minutes ago, HeWhoWaits said:

Sadly the "extra" entries to the lottery don't give any improved odds for advanced C&A status. EVERYONE can get 12 entries. Pinnacle can enter once and get credit for all 12. Diamond (my current level) get 8 entries for the initial effort and I just completed the "form" 4 additional times to get to the 12.

Correct, but most people don't read all the rules and/or don't take time to do that.  

Basically, being in C&A saves you some time.

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3 hours ago, PG Cruiser said:

Being Emerald, I had to keep track of the seven additional entries I filled out

image.thumb.png.7e4c12a2fb21215d7b7974cc5d510bf6.png

OK maybe I am missing something......

Emerald C&A member gets 5 additional entries for each submission of the sweepstakes form (i.e., 1 submission + 5 additional = 6 entries). So @PG Cruisershould only have to enter 2 times to get to 12 since each entry gets 5 additional entries (2 submissions + 10 additional entries).

I want to make sure I submitted the form the correct number of times. I probably will not get picked but I still can dream of a nice 6 day Oasis cruise from NJ.

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The mechanics of this sweepstakes only reward C&A members with convenience, not more chances of winning.  It would have been better if only one entry is allowed and then C&A members get additional chances to win according to their level.  But then again, RCG might not really want to reward their loyal customers that much.

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39 minutes ago, PG Cruiser said:

The mechanics of this sweepstakes only reward C&A members with convenience, not more chances of winning.

You are correct, and I think that has to do with U.S. laws concerning sweepstakes, of which this is technically one.

Remember the old "no purchase necessary to win" statement? Same basic idea.

Otherwise I think it falls into a different category (raffle?) and there are different rules.

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On 8/6/2021 at 12:15 AM, dswallow said:

Well, I think we've found yet another thoughtless, stupid questionnaire design that's going to result in a lot of people wasting a lot of time and effort sorting out the volunteers.

The very least they should've had a way to select the test cruises one wanted to be considered for. So now they'll randomly pick people for particular sailings and have to endure lots of rejections and then continue repeating the process till they get the number of volunteers they need for each.

I agree. It would have been better if each sailing had a check off box next to it so we could choose. That would eliminate a lot of time waiting for the chosen to respond yea or nay due to dates and location. I’m a go for Oasis from NJ if I am lucky enough to get picked, but I would probably have to decline the others. Just sayin’….

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18 hours ago, PG Cruiser said:

@Matt, weren’t you in a test cruise last July?  Are you making a blog post about it or did they make you sign an NDA?

Nope, I was on the first revenue sailing of Freedom. Not the test cruise.

I did, however, go on the Allure test cruise in July. No NDA.

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@Matt is correct here - it takes me back to the old law school days but there is a distinct difference between a sweepstakes and a raffle but regardless, there's always a lot of legal work that goes into any big company doing a giveaway of any kind.

I signed up, there was a lot of boilerplate, running anything nationwide runs into a lot of issues with varying state regulation but I thought this was a good idea, as I did when we discussed the initial volunteering a while back.  Gives Royal a lot of free advertising across social media, the travel industry outlets give them various write ups, and the all important actual word of mouth.  Gives RC more data on potential customers, we get excited about cruising even more and some of us will even get to go.  Makes sense to me.

Like others have said the last minute nature of the travel/airfare etc was probably keeping a lot of folks out of the individual invites, this way folks get three options depending on their schedule and where they live - win/win in my book.  Like everything else the last year and a half, learning as we go....

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