Carnival Cruise Line explains key casino perk
Carnival offers some gamblers impressive perks in its casinos.
There are several different forms of “free drinks” offers Carnival extends to its casino players. Even if you’ve never been on a Carnival cruise or have no previous record of play in its casinos, all cruisers can earn free drinks in the casino (for the remainder of their current sailing) by earning a certain number of points while gaming.
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After reaching the threshold, you’ll be able to order free drinks from casino servers (not the casino bar) while actively gambling.
Related: Carnival Cruise Line makes a surprising casino move
In addition, the cruise line sends targeted casino offers to cruisers who have a known playing history. These generally include a free stateroom on a selection of future sailings, which can be an interior, oceanview, balcony, or suite depending on the cruiser’s level of play and the particular sailing.
They also typically include some type of free drink package. Image source: Carnival Corp.
Carnival free drink offers can vary
The exact formula Carnival uses to determine who gets which casino offer is anyone’s guess, but there are three different “tiers” of free drink offers that often accompany offers for free rooms on future cruises:
- Drinks on Us (often abbreviated as DOU) in the casino - Usually for the offer recipient and a companion. They must be actively playing to receive free drinks.
- Drinks on Us Everywhere (DOUE) for one person – the one who received the offer. This is the same thing as Canival’s Cheers drink package that includes up to 15 alcoholic beverages per day, as well as sodas, premium coffees, bottled water, and more.
- Drinks on Us Everywhere (DOUE) for you and a companion – Same as above, except it applies to you and one other person booked in your cabin (assuming they’re 21 or older).
Obviously, the last one on the list is the Holy Grail of Carnival free drink offers. While you don’t have to necessarily be a high roller to get it, in my experience, it typically requires an average of about 7,000-10,000 points per cruise.
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Note that a “point” in Carnival’s casinos is equal to $2.50 bet on slot machines. So, if you are playing $5.00 per spin and hit the button 100 times, that would be a total of $500 bet, which would get you 200 points — regardless of how much you win or lose in those spins.
Carnival clarifies a casino offer pain point
Recently, the DOUE for one person offers have been more prevalent. While we don’t know exactly why Carnival has decided to emphasize drinks-for-one offers, it does create a bit of uncertainty for many passengers.
More Carnival casino news:
- Carnival Cruise Line explains big changes to its casino program
- Carnival Cruise Line makes a casino change passengers don't like
- Carnival Cruise Line, Royal Caribbean make major smoking change
Specifically, while one person gets a free drink package, the second person in the cabin will often still want a drink package, and that means purchasing the Cheers package for one person only.
The problem is that when you log into Carnival’s cruise planner online, you can’t buy it for just one person. One of the rules of the Cheers package is that it must be purchased for every guest of legal drinking age in the same stateroom.
Technically speaking, while DOUE and Cheers are effectively the same thing, they are two different drink packages in the eyes of Carnival’s system.
Carnival Brand Ambassador John Heald recently clarified how this works in response to a question on his Facebook page,
“It’s (DOUE) part of the casino offer. If you accept the offer from the casino, please know that it is part of that offer that you can only purchase the Cheers program once you are on the ship and not pre-cruise,” he wrote.
In a nutshell, once you’re on the ship, you can purchase the Cheers package for one person, if the other person in the cabin has Drinks on Us Everywhere from the casino. Unfortunately, this means you can’t take advantage of any discounts for buying it ahead of time online, but it still works out favorably to only have to purchase a package for one.
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