UserAndCruiser

You know, Amazon knows me too well because they’ve recently suggested a gambling bank for me, which is the first time I’d ever heard of such a thing! But we travel to Choctaw at least once a month and you’ve sold me on the concept! Thanks for bringing it up, I’d forgotten all about it. I tend to lose what i win, too, and it makes me feel like 🥴 , whatever that face means. We also agree about the tips, I actually brought $80 in ones this last trip (first time doing that but it was so much easier)! I befriended a wonderful server in the casino named Shonette as my go-to, if you see her tell her she’s beloved! In general I like tipping whomever I’m dealing with in cash, even guest services, the pizza folks late at night, or the ones making omelettes in the mornings. I think they’re overlooked when it comes to tipping, but they’re the ones I end up seeing most often and they make my trip better. I’m rambling now but thanks again for the gambling bank tip, I’m about to order it!

Thank you, this was quite a helpful response. We like to gamble, so we definitely plan for plenty of that on our cruises, and I usually try to look at the comps (or whatever you want to call them) as a bonus, not something I’m trying to earn. But I like this idea of looking at it as basically paying for the next cruise even better, because that’s more in line with how I feel. I would hate to gamble enough to get 17,000 points, then come home and find out we only needed 19,000 to get the elite offer because budget wasn’t the issue. We didn’t gamble nearly as much as we usually would have because the casino was so crowded and small - I won’t do another cruise on the Vista for that reason. And the lack of casino bar sucks. We got the certificate for a free balcony with drinks all over the ship for two on the last night of the cruise, and that was nice. You said “The very first cruise I did with Carnival I had over 19,000 and received an Elite, Ultra and Premiere all at the same time.” How long was that cruise?

This was not the wedding ceremony tip. It wasn’t my wedding, i was just a guest. My boyfriend just clarified that we prepaid our gratuities, not 18% but the standard rate. But then they added them again. So that’s why he removed them and they did so without hesitation since it was their mistake. Either way, you never know why someone is removing gratuities. Best not to judge.

Double gratuity? That doesn’t make sense. We paid 18% on our cabin, on drinks, on every specialty restaurant, and tipped our cabin steward and the servers (drinks and dining) cash in addition. Why would we pay more gratuities? Seems like we’re being asked to pay the salaries that carnival doesn’t want to pay. What was the original 18% gratuity for?

Thank you for the reply! Let me add, this was our third cruise in about 14 months, and the last one was an ultra.

There are a lot of reasons to remove tips. For example, we were in a very large group for a wedding party and they charged an automatic 18% gratuity at the time of booking for the entire party - and then on the second to last day of the cruise charged everyone in the party AGAIN! I’m not paying double tips. We had them removed.

We just got back from a cruise. I only had about 2,000 points but my boyfriend had about 17,000. Is that even close to the amount of points you had when you qualified for the elite offer? I’m asking anyone on this thread who got an elite offer, not just OP.