CelebrationFlCruiser Posted July 11, 2015 Report Share Posted July 11, 2015 After joining Club Royale, they then track your gambling practices. I have heard that if you sit and play the $5 slots an average of 3hrs a day (or $1600 on a 7 night cruise), they will give you a stateroom for just the port fees. Or, play the tables and bet a min of $25 for an average 2 hours a day. If this is correct, this beats the tiered level system Royal has. Has a Diamond ever been comped a room because they are cruising a lot. Our cruising habits are to cruise a minimum of every 2 months. I think we cruise a lot. We have never been comped a room, never and upgrade, in fact we are just going Diamond Plus and we have never, never been given a pin or acknowlegement except it says Diamond on our seapass card. We'll be Diamond Plus on our next cruise and we'll see if we get a pin. We used to play the slots a lot but have avoided the on-board casino because of all the smoke. Are they ever going to get in line with things and just ban the smokers. We walked threw the casino on our way to a show (while they were closed), and went back to the room to shower because we both smelled of smoke. Is this correct about the Club Royale benefits? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CelebrationFlCruiser Posted July 11, 2015 Author Report Share Posted July 11, 2015 Here's the link to the casino page: http://www.royalcaribbean.com/findacruise/experiencetypes/category.do?pagename=onboard_cat_casino Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WAAAYTOOO Posted July 11, 2015 Report Share Posted July 11, 2015 Matt did a blog article on Club Royale but I could not find it when I tried to search for it. Maybe Matt will post the link. You are basically on the mark. Club Royale is a VIP players' club for RCI. For reasons which I have never fully understood, this program is very poorly marketed and advertised. You have to be "invited" to join however, in my case, we went up and asked the Casino Hostess to evaluate our play and basically invited ourselves. It's really a numbers game. When we qualified on the Allure back in 2010 you simply had to acquire a minimum of 2100 points on your seapass card and that qualified you. I don't know if that is still the threshold or not. We are normally NOT slots players but since we had a numerical target to hit and slots were the most direct way to achieve it, on this particular cruise we played slots until we hit 2100 and that was that...we were in. Since the program first began, once you are in the program you are in for good and there was never any re-qualification required. At present, that is still the policy, however, we know that changes are coming. RCI is moving to a tired program (sound familiar ????) like NCL and land-based casinos that will require periodic requalification. As the program currently exists, perks include cash rebates, free (but not normally, unlimited) drinks in the casino, waiving of the 5% "convenience" fee (this is the fee charged for a cash advance from your seapass account) and cruise fare discounts. ALL of these perks (except for the 5% convenience fee) are [apparently] based on your secret, internal program rating (they never have ever shared what "level" we are...they just tell us what our rebates and cruise fare reductions are). All of this is likely to change in the next 6 - 9 months with the inception of this new program. I have heard a number of club members say that they have received "free" cruises based on their Club Royale benefits. I know one lady who gets a free Junior Suite and $5K on her seapass card every time she steps foot on a RC ship. This is extremely rare but there are a few players at that level, apparently. We currently receive generally, $250 each in cash and a 50% fare reduction (which works out to about 43.9% somehow...it's a secret algorithm that only the program administrators understand)...but we almost always get a suite so I'm not sure if the fare reduction rate is the same for all cabin categories or not. My guess is that benefits vary for CR members now...but they are probably REALLY going to vary once the new program gets started. Right now, this program is an enormous benefit for us...we are cruising basically for half price, but once the new program is fully implemented I suspect that will come to a screeching halt. Maybe they'll comp me a drink now and then. We'll see. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CelebrationFlCruiser Posted July 11, 2015 Author Report Share Posted July 11, 2015 So, you just "acquire a minimum of 2100 points on your seapass card and that qualified you". And 1 point is the equivalant to $5 of play 2100 pts X $5 = $10,500. WOW that is a lot of gambling. Is that right? Am I figuring correctly? No wonder they give you things :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DocLC Posted July 11, 2015 Report Share Posted July 11, 2015 There was a podcast a few episodes ago as well. And if you listen to Episode 52, Stephanie (I hope I have the name right as I'm posting on memory from my phone) also discusses the program as she did on the more recent episode dedicated to the program. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WAAAYTOOO Posted July 11, 2015 Report Share Posted July 11, 2015 You're right, Doc...it was a podcast. No wonder I couldn't find it when I searched ! I know it sounds like a lot of money but it really isn't a linear calculation. Yes, it means processing $10,500 but that doesn't mean you SPEND $10,500. The truth is, a casino doesn't care whether you win or lose. They just care about how much you wager. So while a total of $10,500 is wagered only a portion of that is lost. As I recall, we did lose money on that cruise but not very much. Remember, there were TWO of us wagering a total of $21,000 and we lost maybe $3k combined. We made that back in reduced fares long ago. It's a great program currently. I hope it remains that way. DocLC 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marc Posted July 12, 2015 Report Share Posted July 12, 2015 I've grown disappointed with Club Royale since sailing on NCL. Given comparable gambling on two successive cruises, one on each line, that I took last fall, I got: Royal Caribbean: $120 cash back at the end of the cruise $875 rebate for the next cruise 25% discounts on cruise fares, but only on certain, eligible cruises A free cruise that had to be booked within 14 days of this cruise's sailing and was only valid on select sailings over the next three months NCL: About $100-150 in free play during the cruise Approximately $200 in onboard expenses credited at the end of the cruise Four free bottles of wine Two "comped" (significantly discounted) cruises of my choice (within 18 months of this sailing) in a balcony cabin (pay approximately $300/person for non-commissionable fare and taxes) In addition, NCL is offering better non-casino promotions that we can take advantage of as well. We booked their upcoming ship, Norwegian Escape, for next spring. We got a nice aft cabin with a large balcony for about $800 total, and as part of the promotion that was available at the time, we're also getting their Ultimate Beverage Package for free. In my opinion, Club Royale needs a significant makeover if they want to compete with the active casino marketing that their competition is doing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marc Posted July 12, 2015 Report Share Posted July 12, 2015 So, you just "acquire a minimum of 2100 points on your seapass card and that qualified you". And 1 point is the equivalant to $5 of play 2100 pts X $5 = $10,500. WOW that is a lot of gambling. Is that right? Am I figuring correctly? No wonder they give you things :) As was mentioned, that $10,500 is playthrough money, when you're rebetting your winnings. Assuming an average machine payback of just 85%, that means that your expected loss for that amount of play would be about $1,575. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Posted July 12, 2015 Report Share Posted July 12, 2015 Here's a link to the podcast episode all about the casino and at the end we discuss Club Royale http://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/podcast/episode-91-casinos-royal-caribbean DocLC 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AGSLC5 Posted July 12, 2015 Report Share Posted July 12, 2015 Currently Club Royale is great because as WAAAYTOOO explains you get about 40% suites and about 25% off balcony rooms. But I have never got offered a free cruise. I did get offered an extremely cheap cruise in 2013. I only had to pay $700 for a grand suite because Club Royale was running a promotion for August and September of that year. Currently I am glad I save 40% on suites because I became spoiled and now loves suites but I am nervous that my discount will be ending as soon as the new tier system comes to be. Matt 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AGSLC5 Posted July 12, 2015 Report Share Posted July 12, 2015 And Yes I am the Stephanie from the Podcast... But again I never got a totally free cruise before Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AGSLC5 Posted July 12, 2015 Report Share Posted July 12, 2015 Celebration Cruiser: One more thing I forgot to mention I just became a Diamond Plus member and I wish they would give much more discounts then they do for spending a lot of money and cruising frequently Galveston Steve 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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