Reva and I just completed our third year of gambling (investing) in the casino on Royal Caribbean Cruise Ships and its time to share our results!.
You can refer to my previous blogs on cruise ship gambling for the details on how it all works, but here is a small recap. The casino year goes from 1 April to 30 March. In order to get a free cruise and free drinks in the casino, you must obtain a minimum of 2,500 points. If you play slots, you will earn one point for every five dollars you play through the machine. Points accumulate throughout the year. To reach “prime” level, you must play $12,500 through the slot machines during the year. On any one cruise you can get a free cruise if you earn a certain number of points in addition to the annual cruise. On our current cruise, 1,200 points and up would generate a free cruise. Of course the more points you accumulate…..the more money you lose….and you will get better “offers” from the casino. If you are going to gamble, its not a bad perk……as long as you understand the rules.
At the beginning of the year, you can request a win and loss statement from the casino which summaries how you did. This year I lost $1,089.83 and Reva lost $1,057.21 during our 15 Royal Caribbean Cruises. Six of these cruises were free or mostly free from the casino. We “earned” over 2,500 points each during the calendar year and had an overall return of 91.28% and 91.54% ….surprisingly very consistent? We had been told that the casino return had increased to 92% by some other gamblers and this would be consistent with what we experienced. However, I would not put to much faith in this observation due to the large swings in casino winnings per machine.
In addition to our cruising and gambling with RCL, this last year, Reva was given a 10 night cruise for two on Celebrity in balcony cabin from their casino just to get us to come aboard. We both also, created accounts with URCompted.com and I was given a free two night balcony cruise on MSC. We have been offered mush more but we haven’t had the time to take additional cruises.
So, bottom line, we have qualified for two additional free cruises and free drinks for another year (up to 31 March 2025) on RCL. We still have two complimentary casino cruises next month with a value of about $1,750 each and we will have two more to take after 1 April 2024. So, unless there are significant changes made to the program, we will continue to play this game and “invest” in cruise ship gambling!
Wow! That’s a lot of perks and a lot of days at sea. The airline fares would be a huge cost for us.
Its a good deal overall. The Japan to Seattle portion is cheap enough to make up for the Celebrity and Singapore cruise portions. The airfare will be expensive but we use credit cards to generate FF miles to offset much of that. Its too early for airfare, need to be 11 months out to plan the FF portions. In the meantime we need to pile up miles and hotel rooms. See you this fall…if not before.
Good to hear from you and Reva! Noi has 2 1/2 years until she qualifies for SSA, so I won’t be
retired again until she completes her SSA requirements. We are looking forward to sailing with you guys again on Royal or Celebrity. We are on Oasis of the Seas in April on a TA returning to Thailand and next April, 2025 on Celebrity Constellation TA to Rome and then back to Thailand. When she completes her retirement goals, we look forward to learning more from you on earning free cruises in Royal’s Casinos. Hopefully, you will accept us as your Trainees! How was your Tour of Thailand and SE Asia last year? Sorry we didn’t have an opportunity to meet you during your tour! Have Safe Travels and we look forward to sailing with you in the very near future! Noi & Tom
Hi Tom, nice to here from you as well. Our Thailand tour got cancelled on us, but we will be around sometime. We will look forward to seeing you out on the Sea! We have TAs on Odyssey, Adventure (2), and Apex (2025) Also doing Transpacific, Singapore to Seattle on Anthem in 2025 (working on a loop around the world). I was thinking about you guys when I saw that the Quantum was going to Japan and on to Seattle this fall……has Tom and Noi written all over it. Always nice to hang with people that like to live and enjoy living….have fun on your adventures. Oba and Reva