marvina444 Posted October 3, 2023 #4776 Share Posted October 3, 2023 On 9/19/2023 at 7:35 PM, JessyCruises said: Was anyone on the 1st of the Signature cruises on Wonder? Just wondering what swag was given out. We are on the Oct 15th one and was hoping to know how much space to leave in my suitcase 😂 The swag wasn't much. Just an 18 oz thermal water bottle; a t-shirt; and a lanyard. No need to save space. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edrussell Posted October 3, 2023 #4777 Share Posted October 3, 2023 For the next little while my wife and I are trying as much as possible to restrict our sailings to Baltimore/Bayonne to keep costs down. We can easily drive to either port. For the past 2 years at this time of year we'd have had lots of options to choose from. So many that we often commented about a lack of vacation to take them up on the offers. This year, there is ONE, yes ONE sailing offered to us out of Bayonne. Quite the difference a year makes. We have one sailing booked with RCCL right now, our Prime certificate booking on Wonder in Feb of 2024. Lean times... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marvina444 Posted October 3, 2023 #4778 Share Posted October 3, 2023 We live in South Georgia so prefer to cruise out of Port Canaveral. Used to we would get lots of offers for 7 night cruises on Wonder of the Seas. Lately it seems that all we get are 3, 4, or 5 night offers on other ships. We don't want to drive down there for such short cruises, so we end up using 2, 3, or 4 offers combined to make the trip worth our while. --- Wonder of the Seas is my favorite cruise ship but getting free cruises on it seems impossible right now. We just booked a cruise on Carnival Mardi Gras for next year. We are Signature and Diamond Plus and I really DON'T WANT TO "jump ship" to Carnival; but if this drought continues we may not have a choice. My husband heard that Princess is coming to Port Canaveral, does anyone know about that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PigsCanFly Posted October 8, 2023 #4779 Share Posted October 8, 2023 On 10/3/2023 at 12:50 PM, edrussell said: For the next little while my wife and I are trying as much as possible to restrict our sailings to Baltimore/Bayonne to keep costs down. We can easily drive to either port. For the past 2 years at this time of year we'd have had lots of options to choose from. So many that we often commented about a lack of vacation to take them up on the offers. This year, there is ONE, yes ONE sailing offered to us out of Bayonne. Quite the difference a year makes. We have one sailing booked with RCCL right now, our Prime certificate booking on Wonder in Feb of 2024. Lean times... We have several Royal offers that include Bayonne, Liberty ots, Symphony ots, Anthem ots Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edrussell Posted October 8, 2023 #4780 Share Posted October 8, 2023 The lack of offers finally pushed us to take advantage of the plentiful offers that Carnival have sent us. We booked 2 sailings for 2024 on Friday. One 8 night and one 10 night. One was a balcony with 100 each of OBC and the other was an oceanview with 100 each of OBC. Hard to pass that up. We will make Prime on our Wonder sailing in Feb of 2024, as we only need 600 points but unless offers improve we will continue to make the switch to Carnival for the time being. Too bad as we have only sailed Carnival once and we did like it, but still would prefer RCCL. Checked our offers this morning and 3 are showing with only 1 sailing from Bayonne. We hit 1900 points on our Grandeur sailing which I guess doesn't register for RCCL anymore. So be it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
texasreb Posted October 8, 2023 #4781 Share Posted October 8, 2023 (edited) Carnival has gone downhill just since November. We did Glory. Then just finished Dream. Carnival re=worked food menu in January. Not as good as in November. They did not get hardly any food items right. I have been on 40 cruises. 3 this year on Royal. One coming up. Royal food not as good as it was. However for sure beats Carnival. As for Royal offers ? I guess they want us to quit. Wife played 2660 points one sailing April and totally worthless offers. None from where we sail, Galveston. We both are PRIME and Diamond. Edited October 8, 2023 by texasreb Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edrussell Posted October 9, 2023 #4782 Share Posted October 9, 2023 Oddly enough we went into the Carnival cruise with LOW expectations as far as the food went and I am very happy to say that we were proved wrong. The MDR on Venezia easily outshined any RCCL ship we've ever been on for 7 out of the 8 nights of our sailing. Service was OK at best, but the food was really good. The whole 15 drink limit was annoying and especially signing for every drink. We did like the comedians as well. Truth be told despite all of what we like we'd still rather RCCL. However there are NO offers we can (want to) currently take advantage of. Not sure if this an annual occurrence with RCCL or they are thinning the herd. If the offers return, we will return, if not so be it. We really have no specific attachment to any cruise line. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
texasreb Posted October 9, 2023 #4783 Share Posted October 9, 2023 When did you sail Venezia ? Royal was much better dining PRE covid. The Sept 23 we did on Dream was one of the worst of 40+ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
texasreb Posted October 9, 2023 #4784 Share Posted October 9, 2023 Royal just sent me another free cabin and FP, from Florida. I need Galveston. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skiiergirl Posted October 9, 2023 #4785 Share Posted October 9, 2023 6 hours ago, texasreb said: Royal just sent me another free cabin and FP, from Florida. I need Galveston. Agree! I get offers for FL and CA but need Galveston!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daghis Posted October 10, 2023 Author #4786 Share Posted October 10, 2023 I just checked my two latest offers, and they both have a few Galveston sailings. Is that because I'm not in Texas? 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
texasreb Posted October 10, 2023 #4787 Share Posted October 10, 2023 18 minutes ago, Daghis said: I just checked my two latest offers, and they both have a few Galveston sailings. Is that because I'm not in Texas? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
texasreb Posted October 10, 2023 #4788 Share Posted October 10, 2023 Say it ain't so Joe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daghis Posted October 10, 2023 Author #4789 Share Posted October 10, 2023 Y'all are being dissed. 23RCL1003.pdf 23FEB102.pdf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edrussell Posted October 10, 2023 #4790 Share Posted October 10, 2023 22 hours ago, texasreb said: When did you sail Venezia ? Royal was much better dining PRE covid. The Sept 23 we did on Dream was one of the worst of 40+ Sept 8 - 16. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
texasreb Posted October 10, 2023 #4791 Share Posted October 10, 2023 Just got another offer. Florida and one L.A. No Galveston. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edrussell Posted October 10, 2023 #4792 Share Posted October 10, 2023 3 current offers, not ONE SINGLE sailing from Bayonne in them now. Not one. Just yesterday my wife received yet another set from Carnival with more balcony offers. I guess RCCL wants to see the back side of us. Too bad. Oh well, we still have Wonder in Feb of 2024 and will make it to Prime, but I'll cap it at that. We can use our prime certificate from next year again. However unless offers improve and/or change we will be switching to Carnival. Breaks my heart but it is what it is. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daghis Posted October 20, 2023 Author #4793 Share Posted October 20, 2023 New offer today (23CTH102) Of note: In addition to Florida sailings from all 4 major ports, there are 14 sailings from Galveston, 10 from Los Angeles, 4 from Baltimore, and 4 from Cape Liberty. Also new is freeplay being conditional on making a guarantee booking. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RFerrington Posted October 20, 2023 #4794 Share Posted October 20, 2023 1 hour ago, Daghis said: New offer today (23CTH102) Of note: In addition to Florida sailings from all 4 major ports, there are 14 sailings from Galveston, 10 from Los Angeles, 4 from Baltimore, and 4 from Cape Liberty. Also new is freeplay being conditional on making a guarantee booking. Interesting. I always thought that casino comps could NOT use a GTY category. Not worth a measly $75 to me....but I don't even get the comp offers so easy for me to say !! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
texasreb Posted October 20, 2023 #4795 Share Posted October 20, 2023 My wife played 2600 points first week of May. Still nothing but 3-5 day sailings out of Florida, and those are usually one person. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daghis Posted October 21, 2023 Author #4796 Share Posted October 21, 2023 13 hours ago, RFerrington said: Interesting. I always thought that casino comps could NOT use a GTY category. I know that the comps were only valid if there were direct cabin bookings available; if a sailing was guarantee-only for the comped category, you couldn't book it. I bet that's still the case. Could one, with a comped balcony cabin on a sailing with available cabins, elect to book a guarantee cabin instead before this recent offer? I wonder whether anyone even tried... seems risky for a comp. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edrussell Posted October 21, 2023 #4797 Share Posted October 21, 2023 Current offers, not one single sailing from Cape Liberty. Not one from Baltimore. Only 1 sailing on the books booked from RCCL. Sad. Too bad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daghis Posted October 21, 2023 Author #4798 Share Posted October 21, 2023 (edited) I wonder whether those are more expensive ports (or if it's merely the much more limited number of ships and sailings from those ports) are restricted to higher offers. As I've posted, I get offers from all those ports. My offers are currently ending in 02 or 03. (My "jackpot offer" doesn't seem to count by that reasoning, though. It was just a handful of four older ships' 4-night sailings. And that was an 01 offer.) Edited October 21, 2023 by Daghis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edrussell Posted October 21, 2023 #4799 Share Posted October 21, 2023 Last year almost every offer we received had at least one sailing out of there. Not sure what is going on. We've sailed on Oasis/Anthem/Adventure from Cape Liberty all on COMP. Maybe demand is changing? We'd happily go back to RCCL as our primary line without a second thought. While we did have fun on Venezia, we would rather RCCL any day. However if offers stay like this there is no option. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daghis Posted October 24, 2023 Author #4800 Share Posted October 24, 2023 On 5/9/2023 at 8:35 AM, Daghis said: I got a letter from the IRS saying that I failed to report three W-2G forms totalling $11,133 from Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd in 2021. The problem is that I didn't win any jackpots anywhere in 2021. In fact, I didn't do much gambling at all that year. I have an epilogue to this story now. After a couple of months, I received a letter from the IRS basically saying, "We're still investigating. Don't call us, we'll write you." Then, a few weeks ago, I received the letter stating that they accepted my information (the corrected W-2Gs from Royal Caribbean showing that those wins were actually from 2020) and the matter is now closed. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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