Royal Caribbean is tweaking one of its most popular Crown and Anchor Society benefits.
The line announced two changes on Thursday that will slightly affect how the Diamond level drink vouchers work.
Both changes are intended to make redemption and tracking of this benefit easier.
If you are Diamond, Diamond Plus, or Pinnacle, you can get a set amount of complimentary beverages every day of your cruise, which includes alcoholic beverages.
Both of these changes go into effect on all sailings departing on or after December 16th, 2022.
Changing the time vouchers rollover
The time of day when your Diamond drinks reset is the first change.
Royal Caribbean provides complimentary drinks each day to its Diamond, Diamond Plus and Pinnacle guests.
Prior to the change, your daily drink vouchers would get reset at midnight. This meant if you didn't use up all your drink vouchers before midnight, you'd lose them and any drinks consumed after midnight would count against the next day's vouchers.
Instead, Royal Caribbean is changing the daily schedule so that these vouchers are now redeemable from 5:00 AM to 4:59 AM the next day.
This means that your daily complimentary vouchers will now reset at 5:00 AM every morning allowing you to get more out of this benefit during prime hours of each day, including your after-midnight drinks.
The logic here is to allow the late-night festivities to continue past midnight, since most people think about the entirety of a night out as still the same day.
Drink voucher count
The other change is a formal announcement of a policy we heard was changing.
To make it easier to track how many drink vouchers you have left, Royal Caribbean is adding a tracker to the printed receipt that is given upon receiving your complimentary drink.
At the bottom of the receipt, there will now be a line of text which indicates how many vouchers you have used towards your daily balance, e.g., “C&A Beverage Voucher [# Used] of [# Total].” You’ll never lose track of your complimentary drink vouchers ever again!
This change was first announced in early November, when Royal Caribbean said it would start giving guests a paper receipt with the Diamond drink voucher redemption.
Prior to this change, there was no receipt to sign and the vouchers were all managed in the backend.
Giving guests a receipt allows for easier billing discrepancy tracking.
For instance, you ordered a $3 coffee and they may have applied your voucher – and you don’t learn about it until you’re at dinner, wanting that nice $13 cocktail and you’re out of vouchers.
How the Diamond drink vouchers work
Royal Caribbean provides complimentary drinks each day to its Diamond, Diamond Plus and Pinnacle guests.
Guests who are at a lower tier of Crown and Anchor Society (Gold, Platinum, or Emerald) do not qualify for the drink vouchers.
- Diamond: 4 beverage vouchers valid all day at any bar (except Starbucks)
- Diamond Plus: 5 beverage vouchers valid all day at any bar (except Starbucks)
- Pinnacle: 6 beverage vouchers valid all day at any bar (except Starbucks)
Drink vouchers are loaded automatically every day on a guest's SeaPass account.
This includes alcoholic and non-alcoholic options, and includes any beverage up to $14 per drink.
