When you step on board a Royal Caribbean cruise ship, you're enrolled in the company's Crown & Anchor loyalty program.
Earning points and advancing in the program's status levels is straightforward: Your status is based solely on the number of nights you spend on board, whether you sail in a suite or a standard room, and whether you travel alone or with other people.
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Here's how you earn points:
- 1 night in a cabin with at least two people: 1 point
- 1 night in a cabin sailing solo: 2 points
- 1 night in a suite with at least two people: 2 points
- 1 night in a suite sailing solo: 3 points.
If you have more than two people in a cabin, everyone earns 1 point while anyone in a suite with more than two people earns two points per night.
Every passenger, including each child, has a Crown & Anchor Society number.
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How does Crown & Anchor status work?
"The Crown & Anchor Society is our way of recognizing and rewarding our most loyal guests," the cruise line says on its website. "All you have to do is come aboard — you’ll be automatically enrolled into our loyalty program once you complete your first sailing. Points add up to perks you can enjoy both on board and on land. And as your points grow, so do your benefits and status."
Earning more points advances passengers to different levels of the program. This is how many points you need to reach each level:
- Gold: 3 points
- Platinum: 30 Points
- Emerald: 55 points
- Diamond: 80 points
- Diamond Plus: 175 points
- Pinnacle: 700 points
Benefits at the lower levels are relatively minor, but when you reach Diamond status the perks become meaningful.
Diamond-and-above members get access to the Crown Lounge, a dedicated on-board space with a high-end espresso maker that operates 24/7 as well as a continental breakfast and evening snacks and hors d'oeuvre.
The Crown Lounge also posts a concierge who can help with dining and show reservations along with other issues. In addition, Diamond members get four free drink vouchers for each day of their cruise. Diamond Plus members get five each day while Pinnacle members get six.
These vouchers can be used anywhere on the ship or at Royal Caribbean's CocoCay private island. The Crown Lounge also hosts a happy hour each night, where members can use their vouchers and drink packages or pay for individual drinks.
As you earn higher status, the benefits improve and include things like a free day of internet (Diamond) and a buy-one-get-one for specialty dining on the first two nights (Diamond Plus).
A full list of benefits can be found here.
Royal Caribbean now offers a status match
Royal Caribbean will now match status across its namesake brand, Celebrity Cruises and Silversea. That program enables its passengers to sail with the comparable status they have earned on any of the three brands at the comparable level on the cruise line they are sailing with.
"Now, loyalty members have another reason to experience all Royal Caribbean Group has to offer, with a product to meet them for each of life’s moments," the cruise line explains.
"As the first major cruise company to offer loyalty status matching across its core brands, the Royal Caribbean Group Loyalty Status Match program allows members of Royal Caribbean’s Crown & Anchor Society, Celebrity Cruises’ Captain’s Club, and Silversea’s Venetian Society to enjoy reciprocal tier status no matter which brand they sail with,"
It's important to remember that each cruise line has its own system and benefits. Diamond on Royal Caribbean, for example, status matches to Elite on Celebrity, but the Diamond and Elite perks are different. Passengers get the benefits associated with the level they match with on the line they are sailing.
In addition, each cruise line has a separate system for accruing points. Passengers earn points on Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, and Silversea based on the nights sailed with those cruise lines. The status match does not affect this.
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