CasiNO
On our last cruise, we were in the elevator and I was talking to my kids, telling them that I might head down to the casino. A older gentleman next to be, out of nowhere, says “No! It’s in the name- CasiNO.” We laughed and I said “Thank you. I’ll have to remember that.” Right away I knew that this would be a perfect name for my article about my adventures in the casino.
We are not a family who gambles, at least in the literal sense. We will walk through the casino on our cruises and spend our free money that we get from our status. We will participate in a Slot Pull planned through the Facebook group. I will usually spend $20 on my beloved coin dozers, and Chris might bet $100 at a black jack table before giving up defeated. On our leaf-changing cruise on the Serenade of the Seas, however, we were seated in the main dining room next to these two lovely gentlemen who were avid gamblers in the casino. They talked about all of the fun that they had at the slots, and they also mentioned all of the perks that they get from playing. This had us intrigued so after we talked it over, we decided that on our next cruise that we would give the slots a good try.
To be clear, the perks on Royal Caribbean for spending money in the casino are pretty good but they do come at a cost. For example, for every $4 to $5 spent at the slots, you get a point. You start out at the Choice Tier, which gives a credit for $200 at the jewelry store (if you spend $2000- not so great). Once you have reached 2500 points then you are in the Prime Tier and receive a credit for $250 at the jewelry store, 10% off at the spa, complimentary drinks in the casino, a discount off of the internet package, and a free cruise of up to 7-night for 2 in an interior room (potentially a $2000 value). And, if we were to reach that tier by March 31, then we would enjoy those benefits for a full year until the following March 31st. Since we have 3 Royal Caribbean cruises booked from April 1, 2024 to March 31, 2025, we figured that investing some money into the casino to see if we could reach the Prime Tier wasn’t a terrible idea.
We tried our hand at a lot of different slot machines. Some of them are really weird (a Wild Wild West Themed one complete with wolves and buffalo) and some of them are really complicated (you have to line up all of the green colored drums but not the green colored lucky cats) and some are a lot of fun (like the penny slots that you can play for hours only betting 5-10 cents per pull). It took us about a day and roughly $100 to figure out which machines we liked the best and which ones seemed to yield the most winnings. We tried to be careful to use the same Seapass card for each machine so that we would accumulate points on one account. After our 8-night cruise, we had spent $450 in the casino and accumulated 181 points. We were still 2319 points away from all of the perks. We were mainly playing on the penny slots because we enjoyed those the most but those take longer to gain points. So, if we were to keep playing until we had reached the Prime, we would have been in the casino for most of our time while at Sea. And, we simply found that we didn’t enjoy it enough to sacrifice the rest of our cruise (and our hard earned money) to reach the next tier.
The bottom line seems to be that, if you really enjoy spending time in the casino, so much so that you would rather be there than attending the shows, trivia or other events on the ship, then trying to reach 2500 points would be worth it. If you would rather spend your money in the casino than up on the pool deck, on excursions, in the specialty restaurants or at the spa, then working towards the goal of reaching the Prime Tier could be worthwhile for you.
But, if you are more like us and would rather enjoy your evenings outside of the casino, then it would be wise to remember what the gentleman in the elevator said to us. “No! It’s in the name- CasiNO.”
