Free cruise as bingo prize, questions...

[bigcruisefan]

Just got home from the NE/Canada cruise that we took as the prize for the bingo game. The cruise was certainly very nice and we enjoyed it; the weather had been very bad before the cruise apparently but during our cruise the weather was good. When we got on board the ship we noticed that our cruise cards and the room name tag were the first-timer "blue" and I was a little surprised. It doesn't really matter to us much since we don't take part in the events normally and that is all that you get with being "gold" as we are since we cruise other lines as well as Princess. In any case I went down to the Captains Circle desk when I had some free time and it was open and asked about this, they indicated that there records showed that we were on some sort of complimentary or special fare and their policy is to not recognize the status of cruisers in those cases. I was a little surprised since nobody had mentioned this to us prior to sailing, but since we are only "gold" it didn't matter much to us. If you are a higher level and getting the benefits and you win the cruise I would suggest that you talk to the folks at Princess prior to the cruise about the policy otherwise you might be disappointed when you board and don't get all that you expect.

 

I will post the tax information when I get the 1099 from Princess in case anyone out there cares about this. Now that the cruise is over they might send the 1099 right away or they might just send it after the end of the year.

 

Also, we didn't play bingo the last day of the cruise in an attempt to win either the jackpot or another free cruise. My wife said that if I won the cruise that I should give it to someone else and since I didn't think I could do that I decided not to play and since I couldn't not play for the cruise if I played for the money (this is a personality disorder most likely!) I decided that I wouldn't play for that either.

[work4cruising]

I had the same problem when we took our "free" alaskan cruise. We had a blue card, but when we went to the desk they took care of it. I would call princess to make sure you get credit, that doesn't seem right. The only thing I could think of is we paid an extra $500 for a balcony upgrade for us.

[ajl111]

Thanks for the info on this. I'm going on my free cruise next month. I upgraded to a mini suite, paying the difference. The ticket packing has the "platinum" label on the outside and I'm going to be depending on the free internet service, so I will definitely be at the desk if we get the blue cruise card!

[bigcruisefan]

I paid to upgrade to a mini-suite, but I really didn't push the point with the young woman at the counter since she assured me that I'd get credit for the cruise. I also checked my account online and things seemed fine there for getting credit as well so I'm pretty confident that it will happen.