In this episode of Luxury Cruising, Dr. Krystal Sodaitis breaks down cruise loyalty programs across mainstream and premium lines. She shares which perks are truly worth chasing: from priority boarding and free laundry to lounge access and status matching, and how strategic booking can help you climb tiers faster.
What if your next cruise could feel a little more luxurious just because of your loyalty status?
In this solo episode, host Dr. Krystal Sodaitis explores the world of cruise loyalty programs. She compares standout perks on lines like Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, Carnival, Norwegian, Princess, Disney, Holland America, and MSC, while sharing real-world tips on “points hacking,” status matching, and deciding when it’s worth sticking with one brand.
Dr. Sodaitis explains how higher tiers unlock tangible benefits like dedicated lounges, laundry services, priority services, specialty dining access, and more. She also discusses which programs reward nights sailed, onboard spending, or even status from other travel programs, helping listeners decide which loyalty path best fits their cruising style.
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Episode Highlights:
About the Host:
Dr. Krystal Sodaitis is a pediatrician, executive, and life coach for neurodiverse physicians—and the passionate host behind Luxury Cruising. She brings expert insight and honest excitement to every interview, helping curious travelers elevate their adventures at sea.
📍 Website: luxurycruising.net
📧 Email: luxurycruisingpodcast@gmail.com
🔗 LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/krystalsodaitis
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[00:00:00] Welcome back to Luxury Cruising. I'm your host, Christal Sodiitis, and today I wanna talk to you about one of my favorite perks when it comes to cruising that I think can really uplevel a cruise experience and create those luxury touches that we talk about, and that is loyalty and getting loyalty status.
So I'm going to go through... Now, loyalty status when you get to the luxury lines, we're talking about Regent, Silversea, Oceania they often, the primary perk is that you might have a certain percentage off of your cruise fare, which again, when you're talking, 10, 15, $20,000 per person sometimes, 10% off can be a big deal.
But that's not what we're talking about. I'm talking about the more, you know, premium And mainstream lines or contemporary lines, and [00:01:00] when you get up into their loyalty tiers what kind of perks come along with it. and I'm not gonna go into excruciating detail about every single line.
I'm gonna try and hit the highlights. And certainly I'm not gonna go into the number of the way the different lines, the cut points for what the tiers are and how you can get to those tiers. Suffice to say, though, that the majority of them, it is based on the room that you book or the number of nights that you sail, for the most part.
and where it differs, I'll sort of get into that as well. And most of the loyalty programs look pretty similar on paper with a few different caveats. obviously the higher up in the loyalty tiers that you get, the more [00:02:00] really tangible, what I think are really tangible perks that you get.
Things like priority embarkation and priority tendering. One of my favorite things, as you all know, is laundry. It may not be unlimited laundry, but many offer either discounted or a bag or so of free or included laundry. You might be invited to either a regular cocktail hour that usually has a limited selection of drinks, but there are some.
You often have a dedicated phone line and this is when you're not cruising, somebody to call in, sort of like Similar to if you have loyalty on an airline, you can call into a specific line that is just for people at your tier. So ideally, you'll have less time waiting on hold, but we know that cruise lines are notoriously bad for extended [00:03:00] hold lines.
Uh, you might get discounts on the spa, dining, maybe discounted internet, maybe some free internet time, whether it's depending on how the cruise line counts it. Sometimes it's actually in minutes, sometimes it's in days. And if you have sailed more than one brand, you may think that, "Oh, I really want to try and move up the loyalty tier status to try and get higher on the-- tier and therefore get more perks.
So I've probably mentioned on the podcast before that for Royal Caribbean, we are
Diamond Plus status ,
which gives us a lot of perks on the ship. And did we go chasing for it? Yes and no. there were some really enticing offers during, um, the COVID shutdown that I took advantage of, [00:04:00] and so those allowed us to basically leapfrog into the Diamond Plus status.
But I also do preferentially book into rooms that give me more Royal Caribbean points now. And since Royal Caribbean and Celebrity they have status matching, I also strategically, if I'm going to book a Celebrity cruise, I might strategically book a room that maximizes my points into Royal Caribbean, because now as of at some point this year, you can use your nights on Celebrity to go towards your Royal Caribbean Crown & Anchor Society points.
So, that's probably more detail about the Royal Caribbean Crown & Anchor Society and Celebrity Captain's Club memberships than you all wanted to know, but as an example, just an example that I do a little bit of points hacking in order to up my tier, because I do think that the [00:05:00] perks are worth it.
And so I'm gonna walk through some of these, and I don't think that you should choose a cruise line just because of the perks. It is not worth it for you to endure days and nights of a cruise line that is not ideal for you just for some loyalty status. But if you do find one that you like, it is something to consider to stick to that cruise line until you get to your desired loyalty status.
So I've already talked a little bit about Royal Caribbean and Crown & Anchor Society. I'm gonna just go out there right now and say I really think that Royal Caribbean has one of the strongest loyalty status programs out there. And I won't go through all the levels, but when you get to what they call Diamond level, that's when it really makes a difference.
Once you get to [00:06:00] Diamond and above, the first is you have access to the Diamond Lounge. So this is a separate lounge only for Royal Caribbean Crown & Anchor members at the Diamond and above level. It's just a quiet place away from everyone where, yes, they have a happy hour that can get actually incredibly crowded.
And they do provide some little appetizers. And they also have a very small selection for breakfast that is actually repetitive. But it's a small place, a small quiet place where if you want to be away from the crowds for breakfast, you can go there. One of the things I love is they have a coffee machine.
You can just go in and make yourself a cappuccino, sit in a quiet place, read, whatever. There is a Diamond Lounge concierge that can answer some questions. Now granted, they might be helping, you know, hundreds of people. It's not the same as somebody who's, like, in the Suite Lounge, for [00:07:00] example, that has a smaller number of people they're helping.
So usually there's a line to talk to the Diamond concierge. It's helpful, but it's not sort of like a panacea. It's not all that. as you go up, you get some, discounted sailings. You got laundry as I said. And when you get to their highest tier of Pinnacle, I mean, it really is nice.
You can eat in their suite restaurant, Coastal Kitchen, for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. You get, a priority lane just for most of the suite. You can be in the Suite Lounge. You don't have to be in just the Diamond Lounge. You can be in the Suite Lounge. So there's a lot of perks when you get up to that level, but I think that's like 700 nights.
You do get double points if you stay in a suite. You get double points if you stay in a regular room by yourself, and you get triple points if you stay in a suite by yourself. now for Celebrity, which again is a sister brand to Royal Caribbean, [00:08:00] and they have one-to-one
status matching ,
and which I think is really fantastic because as a Diamond Plus member in Royal Caribbean Crown & Anchor, that puts me to Celebrity Elite Plus.
when I was Diamond, it was Celebrity Elite, Diamond Plus is Elite Plus, and then their pinnacle is what Celebrity calls Zenith. And what I loved about Celebrity is their breakfast offering for the higher tiers was really nice. It was in one of their specialty restaurants.
It does have a buffet, but it's a much larger buffet than is in the Crown Lounge on Royal Caribbean. Amazing pastries, lots of, offerings in terms of like juices and smoothies and whatnot in a large restaurant, beautiful view. I'm not sure that
There was a menu to order off of, but you could order some specialty [00:09:00] coffees. At Elite Plus, I had unlimited specialty coffee, actually. there is a cocktail hour, again, a short period of time, limited drinks, but it's a little something. There's some loyalty events.
when we compare it to Royal Caribbean, You don't get, let's say, like, quote, "as much," but what you do get is really elevated.
So next I wanna jump to Carnival, uh, VIFP Club. And I know that this is going under some, changes, but they still have a very solid, loyalty program. It's fun, it's very simple, and they really reward their frequent cruisers. at their platinum and diamond level, that's when the free laundry kicks in.
you get free drinks at their C day brunch, all the priority stuff, embarkation, tendering, da da da da. You get your dedicated phone line so that you're not waiting on hold. And
[00:10:00] It's really intended to reward those Carnival cruise lovers
Norwegian Cruise Line has its Latitude program, it's called Latitude Rewards. And it's got really strong bonuses in the top tiers and, when you book a suite. It rewards people both with frequency in terms of the number that you cruise, and also spending. So when you spend more, that also helps to get you to higher levels within the Latitude program.
similar to Royal Caribbean, you get bonus points for staying in a suite or the Haven. You get access to behind-the-scenes tours. And their ambassador level is really considered one of the most, prestigious and has some of the highest perks and the best perks of any of the [00:11:00] mainstream cruise lines.
Princess Cruises has the Captain's Circle. And what makes this a little bit different is everybody's favorite is the laundry. And when you get to Princess Elite, you get unlimited laundry, which is so awesome. whether you're taking a five-day cruise or a 15-day cruise, it is just really nice to be able to do your laundry on a regular basis.
They also give you a minibar setup. there are room service perks associated with being Princess Elite as well, which is something different. there's no room service perk. There's no room service included Disney Cruise Line their loyalty program is called Castaway Club.
And what makes that difference what everybody loves is access. Access to Disney reservations to character meet and greets. You get [00:12:00] gifts. You got, early booking windows. You can book your cruise sooner if you're at a higher tier or not. So really it's not about freebies.
It's not about free drinks or free laundry, even though I'm pretty sure Disney has laundry on their ships. I think they have actual self-service laundries, but don't quote me on that one. But it's not about giving stuff away. It's about priority, which for Disney we all know is so important. I'm gonna move on to Holland America Line.
Their loyalty program is called the Mariner Society. And here you definitely get more rewards for spending over nights. It's one of the few lines where when you spend more on board, it really can bump you up through those tiers if you buy specialty dining. Or it gives you specialty dining rewards.
Obviously the laundry. You also get, some shore excursion discounts, and you get access [00:13:00] to a champagne brunch. So, you know, Holland America is generally for, well-traveled cruisers who want a quieter, more traditional experience, and they are also rewarding frequent cruisers. Now, the last loyalty program that I wanna talk about is honestly, to me, one of the coolest, and that is MSC, the Voyagers Club.
And what I love about MSC is that you can status match from any travel program. Do you travel for work? Do you have a high status on an airline or a hotel or even another cruise line? You can directly status match and get to diamond status, which is their highest status, immediately.
I think that you have to cruise a second time within a period of time to maintain that status. [00:14:00] But I mean, MSC's, it's such a great price point if you are okay with just, you know, a standard entry-level, even inside stateroom, you can definitely keep that status.
But also, we know how amazing-- We've had on the podcast how many people have said how amazing Yacht Club is. And when you status match, you do get a discount. And so again, Yacht Club can be a couple thousand dollars, maybe $10,000. Even a 5%, 10% discount makes a difference. And what does that diamond status get you?
Gets you free specialty dining, spa discounts. You can get a late checkout so that you can wait until you get to enjoy the ship a little bit longer, and you wait until the crowds have gone and you walk off the ship. So MSC's program, I think, is just great for people who maybe have built status in something else, another kind of vacation, [00:15:00] and wanna try cruising, and also want the perks that status gives you.
So I absolutely love MSC's status match program their loyalty program for that. So which one is the best? It's really hard to say. And like I said at the beginning, I do think that Royal Caribbean has some of the strongest perks, but also, I wouldn't cruise Royal Caribbean just for the perks.
You want to find the cruise line that is best for you, and then if you like it and you want to go higher in the loyalty tiers, keep coming back. Figure out, how do I get more points? Whether it's, watching videos, like I know that
Celebrity has ways to earn points in its Captain's Club by watching their webinars. We know it, for some of them, like Holland America, it's really about onboard [00:16:00] spend. Maybe you book a less expensive room, but if it helps you to spend on board to get you up through those loyalty tiers, you go ahead and do that.
And then if you've got status someplace else and you just wanna try cruising, maybe you wanna try a luxury cruise and get some status matching, go for MSC I would love to know if you have loyalty status on any of these cruise lines or any of the luxury lines how do you like it, what do you like about it, and what do you thi- would change?
And if you've sailed on any of them, I would love to have you on the podcast. So a quick review of the loyalty tiers, and I really feel that Some of the perks can really elevate your cruise experience and bring just that little bit of luxury that we are all always looking for. So until next time, I wish you safe and luxurious cruising.