Dicenator

The only issue you will have with slot machines on Carnival is setting up your account with your room card key. You should do this the first time you put money into a machine. Any employee or any previous passenger can help you do this. You can do this right on the slot machine.

 

For most of the table games they will have classes right in the casino usually on the first day to show you how to play.

 

All of the games will have a $5 or $6 (blackjack and fun 21) minimum bet. I would play fun 21 rather than blackjack. Blackjack uses continuous shuffle machines whereas fun 21 is hand shuffled.

 

The lowest house advantage games you can play are blackjack using basic strategy (find on internet) which will be around .6% and craps with a passline with odds being under 1%.

 

I would suggest that you make an attempt to play every game, maybe you'll get lucky.

 

Dicenator

NORWEGIAN GETAWAY - NOV 2014 - TRIP REPORT

 

This ship is Norwegian's newest and is a sister ship to the Breakaway which we have sailed on twice. Decor and layout were identical to the Breakaway. We were given this cruise for free from the casino dept. for Norwegian. The free room was an interior which we upgraded for a fee to an ocean view. With the port fees and taxes it ended up costing us $300 each for the 7 day cruise.

 

The ports we visited were St. Martin, St. Thomas and Nassau. The only thing we did different was in St. Martin we went to the beach right there in Philipsburg. The water was very warm and you could just walk right in. For a total of $20 we got beach loungers, umbrella and 5 drinks. The day we were there was a national holiday so all the stores were closed so it was just a beach day for us.

 

In Nassau we went to the Atlantis casino. I didn't play any craps because the tables are 14 feet long and very bouncy. Eva had no luck at Ultimate Texas Hold em or blackjack. The table limits are very high and I'm hoping that when the new Baha Mar casino opens in a few months that the competition will bring the limits down.

 

Now for the casino. First, Eva had no luck for the whole week at any game she tried. I got her to come to the craps table with me a few times but I think she only had 4 hands with the dice the whole week.

 

The Getaway had 2 craps tables the same as the Breakaway both with a very colorful micro fiber layout. Since this ship was only in service for 6 months I was expecting the same lousy playing conditions as my first cruise on the Breakaway. One of the tables had a $10 minimum and there was almost no play at this table the whole week. I rate this table as almost unplayable due to the excessive bounciness. The second table had a $5 minimum and you could see that this table was used a lot. There were the micro fiber dots looking like dandruff flakes all over the landing zones. This table was very bouncy and erratic but was just barely playable.

 

The problem that I encountered was the number of gung ho craps players on this ship. The same faces were there all week long and all the time. Whenever I got to the casino whether it was after dinner or an at sea day in the afternoon there were always players at the table and always at SR1 which is my preferred shooting position. So most of the time I had to cool my heels and wait and wait until the table population would thin out and then I could get in a few hands before more players would show up. For the whole week, 7 days, all I managed to get in was 20 hands. I was very disappointed with this but since I wasn't expecting the playing conditions to be good, I was OK with it.

 

Here are my throwing results: Please note that every hand is Underhand from SR1.

 

11/8

 

8 throws

6, 5, 8, 8,12, 5, 5, 7 out

 

6 throws 1 point

5, 5 pt,11, 2, 8h, 7 out

 

12 throws 3 points

6, 4h, 4, 5, 6 pt, 5, 5 pt, 6, 6 pt, 5, 9, 7 out

 

11/9

 

8 throws

2, 5, 9, 10, 11, 10, 9, 7 out

 

14 throws 2 points

8, 8 pt, 12, 9,6, 4h, 6h, 9 pt, 7, 7, 7, 8, 9, 7 out

 

13 throws 1 point

9, 9 pt, 4, 9, 10h, 9, 6, 9, 11, 6, 8, 2, 7 out

 

5 throws 1 point

9, 9 pt, 8, 4h, 7 out

 

6 throws 2 points

10, 10 pt, 8, 8 pt, 5, 7 out

 

7 throws 1 point

9, 5, 9 pt, 6, 11, 9, 7 out

 

9 throws 1 point

2, 3, 7, 8, 6, 8 pt, 8, 6, 7 out

 

11/10

 

8 throws 1 point

11, 6, 6 pt, 3, 6, 11, 8, 7 out

 

11/11

 

14 throws 3 points

8, 8 pt, 9, 8, 9 pt, 11, 6, 4h, 6 pt, 3, 7, 7, 9, 7 out

 

10 throws 2 points

4h, 9, 6, 4 pt, 4, 6, 10h, 4 pt, 6, 7 out

 

7 throws 1 point

6, 8, 4h, 6 pt, 7, 6, 7 out

11/12 NO PLAY

 

11/13

 

12 throws 1 point

4, 5, 6, 3, 5, 11, 8h, 4 pt, 6, 10h, 5, 7 out

 

21 throws 3 points

7, 8, 9, 8 pt, 6h, 6 pt, 4, 9, 9, 8, 9, 12, 6, 11, 3, 4h pt, 10h, 5, 4, 8, 7 out

 

23 throws 2 points

8h, 4h, 2, 9, 5, 5, 4, 9, 5, 8 pt, 9, 6h, 5, 9 pt, 9, 6, 4, 6, 5, 5, 6h, 12, 7 out

 

11/14

 

6 throws

5, 9, 6, 6h, 9, 7 out

 

8 throws 2 points

6, 6 pt, 11, 6, 9, 6 pt, 10h, 7 out

 

 

For the week my throwing was OK considering the lack of playing time. My point production was very good. I made 27 points in 19 hands for a ratio of 1.42 points per hand. There was only 1 day where I played 7 hands which leaves 12 hands over the other 6 days.

 

One thing happened on the third day in the afternoon. There was one player at the table shooting from the end. I bought in during his throw so I didn't have a clue as to whether he was on his second throw or 20th throw so I didn't make any bet on him. When he sevened out I made a pass line bet for myself expecting to throw the dice. They gave the dice back to the guy at the end of the table. I said "don't I get the dice?"

The dealer said to me "you didn't bet on him so you don't get to throw." I said " there is no sign posted and this is my third day here and I haven't heard that yet." So when I finally get the dice after having to make a bet on this guy, I colored in after my hand ended.

 

I did send a email to the Director of casino operations at Norwegian complaining about this policy which is not executed on the other Norwegian ships that I've been on.

 

 

Dicenator

This isn't a trip report but rather a copy of the letter that I am sending to the Casino Dept. at Carnival Cruise Lines.

 

THE LETTER FOLLOWS:

 

I just returned from a cruise on the Carnival Breeze which departed on Nov. 16, 2014 and returned on Nov. 22, 2014.

 

This was my 33rd cruise overall and 15th cruise on Carnival. I'm going to get it out right now by saying this was the WORST cruise by far that I've ever been on. By day #2, I was wanting this cruise to end immediately. On the last day I was saying things like departing this **** instead of departing this SHIP.

 

Now I'll tell you why I feel this way. I have never sailed on a Disney ship nor will I ever sail on a Disney ship. The reason is that they don't have a Casino on Disney ships. Having a casino readily accessible to me on a ship with low $5 minimum bets accounts for 50% of the reason I go on cruises.

 

This cruise was the Ultimate Blackjack Tournament cruise and my wife had an entry which is the reason we were on this ship. Little did we know that their were 560 people with entries in the tournament. This cruise also had the Lady Antebellum concert which we were not aware of until we got on the ship and this cruise was also some kind of premier cruise.

 

Here is what I observed all week long in the casino. Remember that this ship had 560 hardcore gamblers playing in the casino along with their spouses and or partner. For talking sake lets say there were 1,000 rabid hardcore gamblers on this cruise. I'm estimating that there are approximately 240 slot machines and there were I think 18 table games with the vast majority being blackjack tables. So this makes the total available gambling spots 366 (slots plus tables seats). This works like crap with 1000 rabid gamblers. All week long you could hardly walk through the casino let alone find a seat even on a slot machine. On at sea days with the table games opening at 9 AM, all of the tables that were open were totally full of players by 9:05. People were standing behind the players waiting for an opportunity to play. I even saw $100 blackjack tables full of players in the evening. I've never seen this on any ship.

 

My game of choice is craps and craps was the only game with a $5 minimum. Why the $10 minimums on all the other table games, blackjack, let it ride and 3 card poker? Every other Carnival cruise that I've ever been on had the $5 or $6 minimums for blackjack and the other games.

 

Here is my experience with craps. In 6 full days on the ship I got to play ONE hand at the craps table. This happened on the second day, the Key West port. The ship left port at 4 PM and I was the first player at the craps table when they were first opening it. Before they finished opening the table there were 4 players to my right so I ended up being the fifth player to get the dice. When I finally got the dice in my hand an additional 5 players bought in during my hand. So by the time my hand ended there were 10 players at the table. I left planning to try again after dinner. I had the 6 PM seating for dinner and would go back to the casino at 7:30 to find the table full with 12 and in some cases 13 players and it would stay that way all evening long.

 

Thursday night was the concert night in Cozumel and the casino wasn't opening until midnight. Well a full table of craps players was there waiting for the table to open before midnight. Friday was the final at sea day with the craps table opening at 10:15 in the morning. By 10 AM there was a full table waiting to play.

Now my feeling is that Carnival cruise lines is very happy with the money they made in the casino on this cruise, but how many passengers did you upset and annoy with what was happening. I am not the only complaint I'm sure you are going to get over this issue. Everybody that I or my wife talked to all had the same complaints.

 

Needless to say I am very dismayed with what happened and the very positive opinion I had of Carnival Cruise lines has been severely diminished.

 

Sincerely yours,

 

Robert Miller (dicenator)

This trip started with a weekend stop in Phoenix to visit our son for the weekend starting on Friday 10/24. The weather was great, sunny with high temperatures in the upper 80's. Each day we spent an hour or so at the pool at the Hilton hotel where we stayed. We did go to the Talking Stick Casino in Scottsdale where there is no craps. There is no craps in any casino in Arizona.

 

On Monday, 10/27 we flew from Phoenix to Las Vegas arriving at 3 PM. At the last minute our son decided that he wanted to go to Vegas with us but the airfare had gone from the $80 that we paid a month ago to close to $300. So what we did was rent a car and he and his girlfriend drove from Phoenix to Vegas. They picked us up at the airport and we then went to Harrah's, on the strip, where we had comped rooms for the 4 nights we were there. For this whole trip my body stayed on east coast time and I was waking up at 2 or 3 in the morning Pacific time so when we got to Harrah's on Monday at 4 PM I was too tired to want to play anything. I did meet Nune (Fidel) and his brother Chico and we made plans to hook up at Ballys on Tuesday morning at 6 AM.

 

Ballys had 1 $5 table open at 6 AM when we got there and there were 6 players at the table including myself, Eva, Nune and Chico. I played from SR1 and Nune and Chico played from straight out on opposite ends of the table. None of us had any spectacular hands but I ended up $40 for the session. First hand was 7 throws with 1 come out win. Second hand was 12 throws 2 points made and 2 come out wins. Third hand was 8 throws, no points made but all box numbers. I had some difficulty with the frosted dice which I always find slippery in my grip. We then took a break for breakfast courtesy of Chico's comps. The craps tables at Ballys were 12 feet long with felt and had a absolutely fine bounce. After breakfast Eva and I left heading back to Harrah's and we made tentative plans to meet Fidel and Chico the next day.

 

When we left Bally's, right next door was the new (opened in April) Cromwell casino. We walked through it and found a few craps tables in the front near Las Vegas Boulevard. 1 table was open with a $5 minimum and no players so we bought in. First hand was 8 throws. Second hand was 17 throws with 3 points made and 3 come out wins. This table was 12 feet long with microfiber with a bounce which I rate as bouncy but playable. One thing to note about the Cromwell, they pump some kind of perfume smelling potion into the air handling system which can become annoying after a while. Our next stop was the Linq (formerly Quad) where the 1 open table was almost filled with players. When we got back to Harrah's there were 2 tables open at $10 minimums and they were both filled. That was it for craps for me on Tuesday during the daytime.

 

That evening we went to Fremont street and saw a few shows on the overhead video screen which is supposedly the largest in the world. Of course all the usual freaks were out in full force including one fat woman in her fifties posing with only a pair of shorts on and a few strips of duct tape over her top area. I wanted to offer her money to put her clothes on but I didn't want to get that close to her. We then went into the Golden Nugget where there were no players at any of the 3 open tables all with a $5 minimum.

 

I played at one table but didn't have my notepad with me so I'm going from memory. I played 5 hands in total and my hand lengths ranged from 8 throws to a high of 16 throws. I walked away after the 5 hands because the 2 stickmen who were at the table while I was throwing both had their hands sticking out about 5 inches in front of them for every single throw. This was blocking my view of my landing target and it was also affecting my throwing. I was disgusted and walked away with my $30 profit with no tip for the crew.

 

It's now Wednesday morning and we started out at the Linq at 7 AM and their 1 table had too many players. We left and walked to Paris. Eva found a good Pai Gow Poker table and played for hours. At Paris 1 craps table was open with a $10 minimum with maybe 4 players. I wasn't interested in playing at this point. About 2 hours later there was one player at SL1 so I bought in with the intent of throwing maybe 2 hands. The player at SL1 was throwing and 7ed out after about 10 throws. I'm expecting the dice to come to me but a new player buys in to my right before the dice are brought to me. Before his hand ended 4 other players came to the table. So my plans to throw a few hands went down the tubes so I left and never played.

 

We headed back toward Harrah's and we ran across Fidel and Chico. The 3 of us then went looking for a place to play and wandered through the Linq, Margaretaville and ended up at Flamingo. The 3 of us bought in at an empty table but before I got my hands on the dice for my first hand the table had 7 players. By the time I got the dice for my second hand there were 12 players at the table. My first hand was 6 throws followed by a 23 throw hand. I colored in after that. I went too early. Nune followed me and had a super hand of somewhere around 30 to 35 throws. That was it for craps for me on Wednesday.

 

Our last day was Thursday 10/30. At 7:30 AM Eva and I stopped at the Linq which was right next door to Harrah's. Their 1 open table had 1 player at the left side hook and 1 old timer standing at SR1 with no chips and no money in his hand. I walked up to him and asked him if he minded my getting in his position since he wasn't playing. He said "I'm watching and learning" and wouldn't let me take the position. He then said something about paying rent for 30 years which made no sense to me. Not one member of the crew said a word to him and I had no intention of getting in an argument with this jerk over a craps game. We then went back to Flamingo. Eva had a good 20 throw hand and I had a 11 throw hand with 2 points followed by a 7 throw hand with 1 point. A bunch of new players came in then and we left. The crew at Flamingo was very friendy and the table bounce was absolutely normal.

 

We then met my cousin who lives in Vegas and we went to Caesars for lunch at Carmines. After lunch we all played crazy 4 poker in the pit where the craps table are located. I was the lucky one and got four of a kind on my 3rd hand and won somewhere around $450 to $500. A little while later I was tempted and went to one of their $10 minimum craps tables. I only bought in with $60 because my experience last year at Caesars was pretty bad with their bouncy tables. Well my first hand was 8 throws followed by a 32 throw hand with 3 points made. Yes the table is still bouncy but my throwing has gotten a lot better on bouncy tables in this last year.

 

One final casino to talk about. On Wednesday night after dinner, Eva and I went to Wynn which is only past the Venetian. What an opulent place. Eva played Ultimate Texas hold em and I watched for quite a while. Wynn had either 9 or 10 craps tables all with a $10 minimum. I had heard that the tables were bouncy and from watching they seemed pretty bouncy to me. About 5 or 6 tables were open with very few players at them. After an hour I went to one of the open tables with no players and bought in with $40 so I could report on what I found. By the way the chip rail height is very high at least 2 inches higher than an average craps table. It's now my first hand and after 7 straight throws with both dice hitting the wall and bouncing off nicely, I then make my 8th throw. Both dice landed in exactly the same spot the other 7 throws had landed in and one die bounced directly into the wall but the left die hit the table and stopped dead. The boxman immediately started in with the usual crap, to which I responded that the throw was identical to the previous 7 throws and that it is out of my control if something like that happens. He then responded by saying "if you are going to take the time to set the dice then you can take the time to make sure they both hit the wall.' I 7ed out maybe 6 throws later and left never to play there again.

 

This is the second year in a row where I find the craps playing conditions to be pretty lousy. In 3 full days I think I got to play a total of 15 hands with none of them where I could really get acclimated to the tables and warmed up. All of the casinos were extremely crowded for weekdays even in the mornings, much more so than Atlantic City. I was up no more than $200 at craps with this little bit of playing I was able to get in. With the win at Crazy 4 poker I had a winning trip but it was not fun. We didn't like Harrah's hotel. Our room had a view of a rooftop filled with AC units and for the first 2 nights we had a screaming baby in the room next to us. The Rio we stayed at last year was like a palace compared to Harrah's. Will there be a trip to Vegas next year? Right now it is doubtful.

 

Dicenator

After leaving the Carnival Dream cruise ship at 9 AM on Sunday 8/24 we took a cab to the airport and rented a car for 2 days. We left the car rental agency (Budget) at 10:30 AM and arrived at the Golden Nugget at noon. We had 2 nights comped at the Nugget.

 

Our first impression of the Golden Nugget was positive. It is decorated exactly like the Golden Nugget in Atlantic City so we felt at home. The rooms were identical also. Since it was noon we had lunch at Bubba Gumps. This was our first time there and the food was very good. They had 1 craps table open with a $10 minimum but the table was almost totally filled the whole day so I never got to play craps. Around 8 PM they opened a second table which was crapless craps and that table was also filled with players. Eva played some Pai Gow Poker at a $10 table which is very good. In AC we only see $15, $20 or $25 minimums.

 

Around 7 PM we drove over to Harrah's which used to be called the "Grand". It seemed a little bit drab and dreary there but the table limits were only $5. There were 2 craps tables open, a regular table and a crapless table. Both were filled with players the whole time we were there. So day #1 Sunday I never got to throw the dice.

 

Monday morning around 8 AM we drove over to the IP since I had read that the craps table here had a good bounce. IP seemed to be a lot nicer than Harrah's the night before. They had 1 table open with a $5 minimum and about 5 players at the table. I was able to buy in at SR1. I played 2 hands with 17 throws on the first one followed by a 5 throw hand. I made 3 points in the first hand and 2 come out winning 7's in the second hand. I have to agree the table bounce was fine. We left after this because more players came to the table. We then went back to the Golden Nugget and spent a few hours at the pool until around 1 PM when a shower came in.

 

Our next stop was the Beau Rivage. This casino was very impressive and in many ways it reminded me of the Bellagio in Las Vegas. The table minimums here were $10 for the most part. When we got there only 1 craps table was open and it was filled with 8 or 10 players. At 2 PM they opened a second craps table but I wasn't there quick enough and had to take SL1. The reports that I read said that the craps tables here were on the bouncy side. I have to agree with that but I rate the table as bouncy but playable. I only played 2 hands using an Underhand throw with my left hand and had a 12 throw hand followed by a 15 throw hand. I made 3 points with 1 come out win. I certainly would have preferred using my right hand at this table to get a better opinion.

 

We then went next door to the Hard Rock casino. This was also nice but not as elegant as the Beau Rivage. Most of their games were $5 minimums. I tried a few hands of craps at the second open table where I was by myself. I shot one Underhand and one Parr hand. I did fine with 11 throws and then another 11 throw hand. It was then back to the Nugget.

 

After dinner around 7 PM I was finally able to get on one of their craps tables at SL1 where I tried Underhand with my left hand. I had a 14 throw hand with 2 points made followed by a 5 throw hand with 1 point made. I stopped at this point because I really wanted to throw with my right hand and couldn't get that position. The tables at the Nugget I rate as bouncy but playable.

 

In the one and a half days I got to throw the dice at 4 casinos only a couple of hands at each one. In order I would rate the tables as follows:

 

IP - very good with a normal bounce.

Hard Rock - good with a normal bounce.

Beau Rivage - bouncy but playable.

Golden Nugget - bouncy but playable.

 

We saw Boomtown and the smoke free Palace casinos but didn't have the time to check them out.

 

One additional note is that at all the casinos if you have a hard way bet it is automatically working on the come out unless you tell them you want it off.

 

My summary is that I was disappointed in the craps play in Biloxi. For example the Golden Nugget at 8 AM on a Monday morning had $10 limits at all their table games despite there being very few players there. I was not really able to play with a small table population of players so that I could really asses the craps tables. My foot and leg were still bothersome. With what I know now I am in no rush to go back to Biloxi anytime soon. If I ever cruise out of New Orleans again I would probably do this trip again but add on another day.

 

 

Dicenator

This trip was totally distorted for me personally when I had an accident at home on Wed. 8/13. I took a misstep on the stairs and totally bruised my heel bone, stretched my Achilles tendon and tore a muscle in my lower leg. I could walk very slowly with extreme difficulty and pain with every step. Fortunately, my condition improved slightly every day. We departed Philadelphia Saturday morning going to New Orleans via Charlotte. My wife took care of me incredibly well. She arraigned a wheel chair for me in both airports and also on the cruise ship right from the terminal to our stateroom.

 

We stayed the night in New Orleans on Saturday and the cruise was leaving on Sunday at 4 PM. Our friends from Canada, Mike and Sandi and their two daughters, Carlee and Cassie were cruising with us for the third year in a row. Saturday night while I stayed in bed in our room they all visited the French quarter and the River walk and Harrah's casino. My wife was impressed with the size of this casino and she and Mike told me about the very narrow craps tables there. They said that they were no more than 24 inches wide.

 

This cruise had 3 stops; the first was Montego Bay, Jamaica, followed by Grand Cayman and lastly Cozumel. Our stateroom was #8403 and it was a balcony located on the starboard aft side of the ship. This really minimized the distance I had to walk during the daytime. The buffet was directly on the back of the ship and the pool I went to was also back there. In the evening for dinner I had to walk to the front of the ship and the casino was also located just slightly back from the front on deck 5. When the ship departed New Orleans on Sunday 8/17 it then spent 2 at sea days going to Montego Bay.

 

At Montego Bay we went to a resort called Sunset beach where there was a good long beach, 3 swimming pools, water slides, a lazy river, buffet lunch and free drinks. I think the cost was $60 per person for the day and this included transportation from the cruise dock and the return. It did cloud up around 2 in the afternoon but we didn't get rained on. I found it very difficult to walk into the ocean and get out with my leg. The softness of the sand made my foot move in ways that were very painful and walking in some areas where the sand was firm also caused me pain in the heel. Well at least everyone else had a good time.

 

The following day was Grand Cayman and I needed a day off my leg so I stayed on the ship and spent time in the hot tub and the pool. All the others had a great beach day at a place called Sea Grape beach on 7 mile beach.

 

Next day was Cozumel where we all went to Passion Island. This was a 40 minute ride on a powered catamaran from the port. This place has a great beach, super clean and clear water, activities and games all day long, buffet lunch with free drinks. The only negative was the time allotted for this excursion. The ship docked at 10 AM and was departing at 5 PM. We only had 3 hours 15 minutes on the island along with the 40 minute each way catamaran trip. After leaving Cozumel the next day was an at sea day followed by our return to New Orleans at 6 AM Sunday morning 8/24.

 

For dinner every night we ate at the Crimson restaurant which was the anytime dining venue. We all got there every night at 6 PM and we had the same table #225 with the same wait staff. There were 3 members on the team and the service was absolutely great the whole week. Our meals were served promptly and there were no instances with it taking over and hour and a half to complete out dinner.

 

Our cabin steward was a woman named Soldana from Serbia and she was absolutely excellent. We saw her every day and would talk to her and she had our room made up every day by 11 AM. We tipped her $40 on the last night. She is probably the best cabin steward we've ever had.

 

On to the casino action. My friend Mike had absolutely no luck all week in anything he tried. I made him a hundred or more a few times with some good hands. He had a few good hands during the week but without enough consistency to help. Eva's throwing was only fair with a long hand of 20 throws. The highlight at craps for her was one session where she was up $200 based on my hitting some 2's and 12's for her and this one other player hitting 5 2's and 12's during his hand. Every other session she lost money. However she more than made up for it with a straight flush and a few 3 of a kinds at 3 card poker and a 4 of a kind at Caribbean stud poker. Her net for the week was up $800.

 

The craps table was 12 feet long with a red micro fiber layout. The dice were blue. The bounce characteristic was normal in all ways. All of the usual Carnival limits applied, $5 min. with 2X odds and no proposition bets. My bad leg prevented me from standing at the craps table for more than 10 minutes at a time so my playing time was really restricted. There were a lot of craps players on the ship and 2 of them pissed me off that I wouldn't play when they were on the table and one stickman also pissed me off when he read a note in my notepad on the chip rail where I wrote "keep the throws low". He was laughing about my note. I would be lucky to get in 2 hands before the table pretty much filled up. The last night of the cruise after shooting extremely well in the afternoon, the craps table never opened until 9:20 and was immediately filled with 10 drunk young guys. One funny incident happened unfortunately it happened during one of my better hands. These 2 women rookies playing for the first time and drunk came to the table. Eva was constantly yelling at them "hands up" because their hands were out over the table. They bought in during one of my hands and to make matters worse they were charging their room cards. This delayed my throw by 5 minutes. Well after sevening out the first one of these newbies gets the dice. What does she do but stroke her hand up and down like she was performing a sex act and then drops the dice down on the table directly in front of her. Everyone cracked up. I couldn't stand it any longer and had to leave. Here are my throwing results which I'm going to do differently. I'll list every throw since I only had 20 hands for the whole week.

 

Day #1

 

HAND #1 - 5 10 8 4 2 5P 9 9P 10 4 6 7out

HAND #2 - 4H 11 9 8 6 3 8 7out

 

 

 

Day #2

 

HAND #3 - 9 5 3 6 6 11 7 out

HAND #4 - 9 5 12 3 8 8 4 4 2 9P 5 5P 3 8 3 12 10 7out

HAND #5 - 9 3 3 12 8 11 6 8 4H 3 7out

HAND #6 - 7 7 12 4 6 11 8 8 8 6H 5 4P 10 8H 7out

HAND #7 - 12 5 2 5P 4 10 7out

HAND #8 - 7 9 9P 11 5 8 4 6 5P 9 5 10H 9P 11 6 7out

 

Day #3

 

HAND #9 - 8 8P 6 4 2 5 2 8 7out

HAND #10 - 8 6 9 8P 7 6 6HP 10 3 8 5 4 8 6 3 5 8 9 10P 3 9 8 4 4 7out

 

Day #4

 

HAND #11 - 7 5 8H 9 4H 8 8 12 9 10H 10H 5P 5 7out

HAND #12 - 7 6 8H 5 4 9 4H 6P 8 9 10 2 9 10 9 8P 7 2 11 5 2 10H 4 9 9 3 3 9 9 10 7out

HAND #13 - 7 2 7 5 4H 8 5P 8 7out

 

Day #5

 

HAND #14 - 6H 9 6P 12 8 6 7out

 

Day #6

 

HAND #15 - 9 10H 10 9P 8H 8P 7 5 2 9 8 11 2 8 4H 6 11 12 7out

HAND #16 - 8 5 8P 7 11 10H 3 7out

HAND #17 - 9 9P 8 5 5 3 7out

HAND #18 - 5 8H 3 9 12 5P 8 11 6 5 5 6 7out

 

Day #7

 

HAND #19 - 11 8 5 6H 10H 11 5 8HP 5 5P 9 5 6 5 11 11 9P 8 8P 11 8 9 5 6 7out

HAND #20 - 9 6H 3 2 9P 9 5 11 8 12 8 4H 8 10 12 10 5 9P 5 11 4H 6 7out

 

In 20 hands I made 29 points for an average of 1.45 points per hand. In addition I had 20 come out wins for a ratio of 1.1 per hand. My average roll length with my Underhand throw was 14.2 throws per hand. I used a Parr throw for one hand during the week and one hand was Underhand with my left hand.

 

With the very limited playing that I had mostly due to pain in my foot and leg when standing at the craps table I felt that I never really got warmed up or in the zone so I'm pretty happy with my results. My win for the week was pretty minimal being $260 but considering that particularly for the first 3 or 4 days my pain was my primary focus and it prevented me from really even thinking about betting properly. Using hindsight I should have had my wife handle the betting and just concentrate on my throwing.

 

After leaving the ship we rented a car and spent 2 days in Biloxi. Biloxi is about a 1 hour 45 minute trip from the New Orleans airport. That trip report is coming.

 

Dicenator

My wife wants to get away for a few weeks in February since she can no longer stand the cold winters in New Jersey. We've been researching condo rentals in various Caribbean Islands. Wherever we end up staying there has to be casinos nearby. At first we were focused in on either Condado or Isle Verde in Puerto Rico. Tonight we started looking at Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic since we've never been there. They have some very good prices for really nice places in Punta Cana.

 

So I started doing some research on the casino scene. The biggest and apparently best casino is the Hard Rock. The second largest seems to be the Tower Princess. Most of the rest of them seem to be really small with like 35 slot machines and 6 or 7 table games and are located within the larger resort complexes.

 

So now my concern is the craps playing conditions. I've had some bad experiences in Puerto Rico and Atlantis in Nassau is almost unplayable.

 

If anyone can fill in the blanks I would really appreciate it. Some of my concerns are as follows:

 

1- Do they allow dice setting?

2- What is the minimum bet?

3- Are the tables 12 feet long or longer?

4- Is the bounce normal or excessive?

5- Are the tables filled with players all the time?

6- Do they start in with the heat if you are throwing well?

 

Thank you,

 

Dicenator

NIAGARA FALLS – JULY 2014 – TRIP REPORT

 

We’ve visited Niagara Falls the past 2 years at Thanksgiving time. This year we decided to see what it is like in the summer. Additionally we wanted to go to Seneca Allegheny casino in Salamanca, NY which is on the route we take to go to Niagara. Seneca Allegheny is where my wife won the $2000 in a drawing last November which put this casino near the top of her favorite casinos list.

 

We started our drive last Wed. 7/9/14 at 7:00 in the morning and arrived at Seneca Allegheny around 1:30 PM. We had a room booked here for Wed. and Thurs. nights. When we arrived we were able to check in and we got to the casino to play around 2 in the afternoon. My wife, Eva, will play all the games as long as they use cards. During the 6 days for this trip she played blackjack, 3 card poker, 4 card poker, Crazy 4 poker, Caribbean Stud, Mississippi Stud, Texas Hole em, Ultimate Texas Hold em and Pai Gow poker. She also played some craps.

 

I of course went to the craps table. They have 2 tables but during the week only 1 table is open. The craps table was totally filled with 11 or 12 players who I describe as “crusty old timers”. I watched for a while and observed that some of them were setting the dice and then making a totally uncontrolled random throw. All of the players were just making random throws and I didn’t see anyone get on a good long roll. I would come back and check on what was going on about every hour and the status never changed. Some of the old crustys would be gone but they were replaced by new old crustys. Finally at 8 PM I gave up and went to my room. So, first day no play at all.

 

The following day we both went to the craps table around 6:45 in the morning and found ½ table open with no players there so we bought in and started playing. Eva threw the dice pretty well and had the following hands: 15 throws with 1 point made, 13 throws with 1 point made, 18 throws with 2 points made and her last hand was 6 throws with 1 point made. I started off slowly with a 7 throw hand with 1 come out win. My next hand was a monster lasting 53 throws with 7 points made and 5 come out wins. When I got to 50 throws I started thinking that my personal best of 54 throws was going to be beaten. Nope, I guess that I shouldn’t have been thinking about it and just keep on throwing the dice. When this hand ended some more players had come to the table and bought in so we colored in and went to have some breakfast. I went back to the table about 5 hours later and the magic was gone. I threw 2 hands of 8 throws followed by 9 throws with only 1 point made in the 2 hands. That was it for the day.

 

Next day, Friday, we again went to the casino around 7 AM and neither one of us could get it going like the day before. Each of us threw 3 hands with all the results being between 7 and 10 throws with 6 points made. It was just good enough to break even but the day before we were up $400. If I remember correctly Eva was down $400 at this point from her card games so we were at a breakeven for the trip.

 

We got packed and left for Niagara Falls around 11 AM and arrived at the Hilton (across the street from Fallsview casino) at 1 PM. We were able to check into our 2 bedroom falls view suite immediately. Our friends from St. Thomas Ontario were due to arrive at 3 PM. After checking in we went over to the casino. Eva wanted to play Pai Gow poker but the table min. was $25 and she didn’t want to play at that level. $15 is OK for her so she went and played some other game which I don’t know which one it was. On Friday afternoon the craps table wasn’t quite filled but the shooting positions that I wanted to throw from were occupied so I never got to play here on Friday. After dinner the 4 of us took a cab over to Casino Niagara. This is a sister property to Fallsview and the same chips and players card are good in either casino. I couldn’t play craps here because the 8 foot long tub table is GONE. I wandered around just killing some time on the slots. I think that Eva ended up down another $400 but Mike won somewhere around $250.

 

The next morning, Saturday, me Eva and Mike went to the craps table at Fallsview around 6:30 in the morning. Mike got there a little later. Eva started out with an 8 throw hand. I was up next and threw another monster hand of 36 throws with 5 points made and 3 come out wins. Out of 27 point cycle throws during this hand I made 8 hard ways. Unfortunately for Mike he didn’t get there until my hand was halfway over so he didn’t make nearly as much as Eva and I made. I think between the 2 of us we were up close to $400 on this hand. Eva then had a 10 throw hand followed by my 11 throw hand with 2 points made. I made 3 hard ways in 8 point cycle throws in this hand. Mike then had a 23 throw hand. After this they brought in new dice and I saw 3 very short hands in a row so we colored in and went to have some breakfast.

 

Around lunchtime we went for a walk down alongside the falls and then wandered up to the strip area. This area is filled with wax museums, haunted houses, shops and food joints. I guess this time of year is their main tourist season because the streets were filled with people speaking languages from all around the world. After wandering the strip for a while we ended up back in Casino Niagara. I don’t remember what Eva played but she was either break even or down slightly. Mike was the star this afternoon and ended up winning $500 at blackjack. He was still playing and winning so Eva and I took a cab back to Fallsview and I went to our room but she went to the casino. A couple of hours later she showed up at our room with and ear to ear grin on her face. She was playing Ultimate Texas hold em and got 4 of a kind early in her playing and it just kept up being positive the whole time she was there. In about 2 hours of play she was up $1100 so this wiped out her losses and put her up for the trip.

 

That evening we had dinner at the Sandstone Grill (steak house) with a couple we knew but had never met in person from Australia. This couple was the parents of our daughter’s maid of honor. My wife had spoken to them a few times on the phone over the last 15 years. Their daughter met our daughter when she was an exchange student here in the states. After we dropped them off at their hotel around 10:30 PM we went back to Fallsview and Eva won another $100 at Ultimate Texas hold em.

 

The next morning, Sunday, we went back to the craps table around 7 AM. I couldn’t get my shooting position but Eva was OK since she throws from straight out. She threw 1 hand of 13 throws with no points or come out wins. After craps she went to Pai Gow poker which was now at a $15 minimum. She played for about 2 hours during which time she had 10 full houses and ended up winning another $200 or $300. We then went back to the hotel for breakfast. We had vouchers from the hotel which covered all 4 of us for both days for free. After breakfast we packed and then checked out of the hotel around noon time.

 

We then decided as soon as we were on our way home to stop back at Seneca Allegheny and spend another night. The casino hotel had no rooms available so we ended up staying at the Holiday Inn which is right down the road from the casino.

 

After we checked into the hotel over to the casino we went. I couldn’t get on the craps table immediately but sometime around 5 PM I was able to buy in by myself at the table. It’s now been close to 1 ½ full days since I last touched the dice so I wasn’t expecting anything too great. Well my first hand was 24 throws with 3 points made and 1 come out win. My next hand was only 8 throws but all box numbers. Some other players were now showing up so I left and went and had some dinner. That was it for Sunday but I was looking forward to Monday morning.

 

On Monday morning we got up around 6:30 and were at the casino at 7 AM. We walk in and once we got within view of the craps table, I said “what the F____”. There was no crew at the table and it was closed. We were told that it was opening at 10 AM. This was not what I was expecting since the table had been open early in the morning the previous week on Thursday and Friday. Eva played some blackjack and 3 card poker for an hour and then we left. Had breakfast at the hotel and then hit the road at 9 AM to finish the drive home. We stopped for a few hours at Mt. Airy casino in Pennsylvania where there was one craps table open and it was totally filled with 11 or 12 players for the whole 2 hours we were there. I couldn’t even get close enough to assess the table bounce characteristic.

 

It was an enjoyable trip, we were winners and the weather was fine. Here are my craps results in my usual format.

 

METHOD # THROWS # POINTS # CO WINS

 

7/10 SENECA ALLEGHENY

UH – RIGHT 7 1

UH – RIGHT 53 7 5

 

5 HOUR BREAK

 

UH – RIGHT 8

UH – RIGHT 9 1 1

 

7/11 SENECA ALLEGHENY

 

UH – RIGHT 8 1

PARR – LEFT 10 2

 

7/12 FALLSVIEW

 

UH – RIGHT 36 5 3

UH – RIGHT 11 2

 

 

7/13 SENECA ALLEGHENY

 

UH – RIGHT 24 3 1

UH – RIGHT 8

 

 

In 6 days all I managed to play was 10 hands at craps. I made the most of it by making 18 points for a 1.8 pt/hand ratio. I also had 11 total come out wins for a 1.1/hand ratio. It also looks like my average roll length was 17.4 throws per hand. I was a net winner at craps being up around $450 for the trip. I’m not 100% sure about Eva’s win. She had 2 ATM machine visits on this trip but she won quite a bit more than her withdrawals so I’m just guessing that her win was somewhere around $500.

 

This is 3 times each that I’ve been to Seneca Allegheny and Fallsview casinos and my dice throwing has been great on every single one of these trips and I’ve won money. The only real negative that I have is the driving time to get there. I’ll have to think about looking into flights.

 

Dicenator

Grandpaul,

 

In December this year a new mega complex rivaling Atlantis will open. It is called Baha Mar and is located at Cable Beach. Included will be a casino which I think will be 100,000 square feet.

 

So Atlantis will finally have some competition. I'm hoping it will bring their lofty table game limits down to a more reasonable level. I'm assuming that they will have a craps table and I'm hoping that the characteristics of the table are closer to what I consider a normal bounce.

 

Sometime early next year, probable Feb. or March, I should be getting back there and my first priority is to check it out. They have a website if you want to find out some information about the whole project.

 

Dicenator

GRANDEUR OF THE SEAS – JUNE 2014 – TRIP REPORT

 

This cruise departed from Baltimore on Friday, 6/13. It was a 7 night cruise visiting Port Canaveral, Nassau and Coco Cay, the cruise lines private island in the Bahamas. We only decided to book this cruise about 2 to 3 weeks ago when my wife got an email from Royal Caribbean offering her a casino rate for this cruise and it was also her birthday during this week. The rate was $425 each for an ocean view stateroom. A week before the cruise we got updated to a balcony stateroom for free. Grandeur of the Seas is the smallest ship we’ve ever been on with a displacement of only 72,000 tons and is a sister ship to the Enchantment of the Seas which we were on twice last year. However the Enchantment was stretched a few years ago and is now at 82,000 tons.

 

Our first stop was Port Canaveral which we’ve been to many times and there are no shore excursions that I’m interested in. Since it was father’s day, my son who lives near Fort Lauderdale in Florida drove up and met us for dinner. That was great since it’s been about 6 months since I last saw him in person.

 

The next day was Nassau but we weren’t arriving there until 2 pm and as soon as we docked it started raining. For the first 5 days of this cruise it was mostly overcast with some rain each day. Quite of few of the boat and beach related shore excursions were cancelled, but we got a cab and went over to Atlantis for the afternoon. There were 2 craps tables open but both of them were packed with 10 to 12 players the whole time we were there so I never got to play. Because of the rain the casino was packed with people all over playing every table game and slot machine. My wife played Ultimate Texas Hold em and lost around $200. The last time we were here she won $700 at this game.

 

Our last stop was the private island, Coco Cay and you have to be tendered in to the island. We were on the second tender going over and got there by 9 am. The clouds were coming in and at 10 pm they were overhead and it started raining so back to the ship we went. The rest of the day we spent in the Solarium on the ship which is an adult’s only pool area with a covered dome. The casino was open while we were there from 8:30 in the morning.

 

Now for some unusual tidbits that happened for the first time in 31 cruises:

 

1 – While docked in the inlet at Port Canaveral there were 3 dolphins, 2 adults and 1baby cruising up and down the inlet near our ship for a good 30 minutes.

 

2 – Some small kid dropped a turd in the main pool one day and they closed the pool, drained it completely and disinfected the pool. Talk about visions of Bill Murray and Caddy shack.

 

3 – Some nut job streaked the upper deck on the 4th day of the cruise. What the ships captain did was confine him to his room under guard 24 hours a day for the remainder of the cruise. His cabin was only 4 cabins down the hallway from ours.

 

4 – On Thursday on the return as we were off the coast of Virginia, a Navy Arleigh Burke destroyer passed in front of us by maybe half a mile heading west as we were sailing north. This is the first navy ship that we’ve ever seen on all the cruises we’ve been on.

 

Now that the preliminaries are over I can get onto the casino. Now obviously the casino was small. There were only 11 table games total, 1 craps, 1 poker, 2 roulette, 1 Ultimate Texas hold em, 1 three card poker, 1 Caribbean stud and 4 blackjack. The table limits for the most part were $5 although there was one $10 blackjack, one $3 blackjack and Ultimate Texas hold em was only $3. Eva only played around 8 hands at the craps table all week but her throwing was decent with a high hand length of 25 throws. Most of her time was spent at the Ultimate Texas hold em table where she was down I’m guessing about $400 for the week.

 

The craps table was 12 feet long with a green layout which did not appear to be felt or micro fiber. To me it looked like shiny denim. There was something soft beneath the layout which made it bouncy and there were some players who had a hard time keeping the dice on the table. I saw many instances of both dice flying off the table. I found the bounce not to be any problem for my throwing but there was something else with this layout that affected every single player. If the edge of a die hit the table first even at a slight angle it stopped the die dead in its tracks usually resulting in a 7 out. My normal 5” high throw landing 27” from the wall was greatly affected. About 1 out of 3 throws would have one die stop dead where it landed. What I finally had to do was target my throws 6” closer to the wall and throw harder to overcome this crap. It wasn’t until the last 2 days that I finally started getting some lengthy hands with both Parr and Underhand. Here are the throwing resuls:

 

METHOD # THROWS # POINTS #CO WINS

 

DAY 1

 

UH-RIGHT 5

UH-RIGHT 6 1

UH-RIGHT 12 1 3

UH-RIGHT 9

UH-RIGHT 12 2

UH-RIGHT 6 1

UH-RIGHT 18 1 1

UH-RIGHT PSO

UH-RIGHT 6 1

UH-RIGHT 9 1

UH-RIGHT 11 1 1

PARR-LEFT 11 1

UH-LEFT 9 1 1

 

DAY 2

 

UH-RIGHT 10 3 1

UH-RIGHT 6 3

UH-RIGHT 17 2

UH-RIGHT 17 2

UH-RIGHT 16 3 1

UH-RIGHT 8 1

 

DAY 3 -NO PLAY – SHIP LEFT PORT AT 10:30 PM – CASINO OPENED AT 11 PM

 

DAY 4

 

UH-RIGHT 19 2 1

UH-RIGHT 4

UH-RIGHT 10 2

PARR-LEFT 16 2 1

UH-RIGHT 4 1

UH-LEFT 7 1

UH-LEFT 13 1

UH-LEFT 6 3

 

DAY 5

 

UH-RIGHT 6 1

UH-RIGHT 21 3 7

UH-RIGHT 9 1

 

DAY 6

 

UH-RIGHT 15 2 1

UH-RIGHT 13 1 1

UH-RIGHT 8 1 1

UH-RIGHT 6

UH-RIGHT 41 2 3

UH-RIGHT 11 1

UH-RIGHT 6 1

UH-RIGHT 4

PARR-LEFT 27 3 5

PARR-LEFT 23 1 2

UH-RIGHT 11 4

UH-RIGHT 17 1 1

UH-RIGHT 10 1 3

 

DAY 7

 

UH-RIGHT 14 1 7

UH-RIGHT 12 2

UH-RIGHT 34 2 1

UH-RIGHT 10 2

UH-RIGHT 6 1 1

UH-RIGHT 6

UH-RIGHT 20 2 2

UH-RIGHT 9 2

PARR-LEFT 23 4 5

 

I made 63 points in 52 hands for a ratio of 1.21 points per hand. Along with this was 63 come out wins for the same 1.21 ratio of come out wins per hand. Considering how really screwed up the table was I was satisfied with my performance. My betting was somewhat inhibited because the table didn’t lend itself to any consistency in my mind. I usually wasn’t even making any place bets until maybe the 4th throw. My net for the week was somewhere around $475 so it was a win.

 

There weren’t too many craps players for a change and about ½ my hands I was at the table by myself. By the last 3 days there were the usual groupies who would flock to the table when they saw me there. A lot of newbies were also trying craps for the first time and I found this to be annoying and I would usually leave the table. For example this one young guy buys in for $30 on the last night when I had some really good hands and he was betting only the pass line and $5 field bets. While I and Kurt, a player who knew how to bet, were making a good sum he lost all his buy in when he could have been up substantially.

 

The dealers were all very nice and friendly and there were maybe 5 of them that we knew from previous cruises. The casino host “Foxy Roxy” took a liking to my wife and she ended up being the only player on the ship getting free drinks.

 

When we docked yesterday, 6/20, we had an adventure and stopped at Delaware Park casino in Delaware. It’s only a few miles off of RT. 95 and we were driving right by there on our way home. Eva played Spanish 21, Pai Gow Poker, Ultimate Texas hold em, 4 card poker and 3 card poker. She ended up even for the 4 hours we were there.

 

I played 4 hands at craps. The table bounce seemed normal but I wasn’t adjusting too quickly after the 7 days of the table on the ship. My hands were 20, 10, 9 and 6 with 4 points made. We plan on stopping here to play whenever we are returning from a cruise out of Baltimore.

 

 

Dicenator

My next cruise it this coming Friday, 6/13 for 7 nights on Royal Caribbean Grandeur of the Seas departing from Baltimore.

 

Has anyone played craps on this ship and do you have any intel on what the table bounce was like and or anything else pertaining to craps play.

 

I'm not anticipating any problems since the 2 other RC ships I've been on have had very good craps tables.

 

Thanks,

 

Dicenator

One Pai Gow Poker table on the ship with a $25 minimum bet. There was very little play for the whole week and most of the time there was no dealer.

 

There are no bonus bets for this game which really detracts from wanting to play it. My wife plays a lot of Pai Gow and says that most of the time when she wins it is due to the bonus bet.

 

Dicenator

NORWEGIAN BREAKAWAY - TRIP REPORT - MAY 2014

 

We departed from Manhattan on 5/4 for a 7 day cruise to Bermuda. My brother and sister in law went with us and this was our first cruise together. They had a Haven suite with a whirlpool tub right in the room and we had a mini suite. The mini suite was great being 202 square feet with a 35 square foot balcony. One thing I should note is the shower in the bathroom was huge. Double glass doors and about 6 ft. long.

 

One thing that we did differently on this cruise is we purchased the dining package. This cost $119 per person and covered dinners every night in any one of the extra cost restaurants. We ate in Cagneys steakhouse twice, La Cuchina (Italian) twice, Brazilian steakhouse, Japanese Tappanyaki, and Le Bistro (French). Priced individually the cost would have been around $175.

 

The first day we went to Hamilton on the Ferry and shopped and had lunch at Flanigan's Irish Pub. In total we spent 5 hours here. The next day we took the #7 bus and spent the day at Elbow beach. It cost us I think $50 for the loungers and umbrella but this was at a resort beach. It was almost deserted and the day was beautiful, sunny with a temperature of 75 degrees.

 

We saw the same shows that we saw in November last year although they were all changed somewhat. These shows were Cirque Jungle fantasy, Burn the Floor and Rock of Ages. Very few of the performers were the same as we saw in November.

 

In Bermuda the cruise ships can now open their casinos from 9 PM until 5 AM.

 

It's now Casino Time. They still have 2 craps tables. Last year both tables had $10 minimums all the time, you had to bet on the player before you or they would pass you by with the dice. Both tables were extremely bouncy and I had my first loss at craps on a ship. This year the table bounce is toned down to where I rate it as bouncy but playable. Table #1 on the far end was $10 all week and table #2 was $5 for the whole week. For the whole week the $10 table only had players playing for no more than 3 hours and the most were 4 players. 90% of the time they only had a stick person and 1 dealer standing around doing nothing. The $5 table was typically only open in the evening some nights at 6 pm but most nights around 9 pm. This table was filled with players all week long.

 

Based on my experience last year I wasn't expecting to play too much craps so I only had $800 with me to gamble with so I shied away from the $10 table. Some nights I was at the $5 table when it opened and was able to get in maybe 3 hands before the table got filled. I might have to wait an hour before I could go back and play with a low table population which didn't last too long. Eva played no more than 3 hands for the whole week so I' not going to give any of her results.

 

METHOD HAND THROWS #POINTS #COWINS BOX NUMBERS

 

DAY #1

U HAND RIGHT 10 1 1 6/7

U HAND RIGHT 14 2 3 6/8

 

DAY #2

U HAND RIGHT 10 1 5/8

U HAND RIGHT 11 5 4/5

PARR LEFT 15 4 2 7/9

U HAND RIGHT 11 1 7 1/2

U HAND LEFT 14 2 9/12

PARR RIGHT 6 5/6

DICE MAGRIGHT 7 1 3/5

U HAND LEFT 12 2 6/9

U HAND RIGHT 14 1 10/12

U HAND RIGHT 20 2 4 12/13

U HAND RIGHT 11 1 7/9

U HAND RIGHT 9 1 2/4

 

DAY #3

U HAND RIGHT 5 2/4

U HAND RIGHT 5 1 1 1/2

U HAND RIGHT 12 2 5 2/3

U HAND RIGHT 6 3/5

U HAND RIGHT 11 1 6/9

U HAND RIGHT 7 2/6

U HAND RIGHT 8 1 4/6

U HAND RIGHT 16 1 1 10/13

U HAND RIGHT 5 1 2/3

U HAND RIGHT 8 6/7

U HAND RIGHT 6 1 1/4

 

DAY #4

U HAND RIGHT 14 1 3 8/9

U HAND RIGHT 4 2/3

PARR LEFT 6 3/5

U HAND RIGHT 16 2 4 7/8

U HAND RIGHT 21 1 16/19

U HAND RIGHT 9 1 3 1/4

 

DAY #5

U HAND RIGHT 6 3/5

U HAND RIGHT 7 3 0/2

U HAND RIGHT 15 3 2 8/9

U HAND RIGHT 11 1 2 5/7

 

DAY #6

U HAND LEFT 11 1 2 6/7

U HAND LEFT 7 1 1 2/4

U HAND RIGHT 21 2 3 9/15

U HAND RIGHT 8 6/8

 

DAY #7

U HAND LEFT 21 2 4 8/13

DICE MAGRIGHT 9 1 5/7

U HAND LEFT 8 1 4/6

U HAND RIGHT 23 4 14/17

U HAND RIGHT 9 1 6/7

U HAND RIGHT 25 3 16/20

U HAND RIGHT 14 2 5 4/6

 

 

For the 7 days I only played 46 hands but made 52 points for a ratio of 1.13 points per hand which is a significant improvement over the .70 ratio from the last time on this ship.

I had 63 come out wins for a ratio of 1.37 which was a significant improvement also. My longest hand was only 25 throws but considering that I never played more than 3 hands consecutively, I'm satisfied. In my mind my throwing was very consistent despite the limited play and never being able to get really warmed up on either of the tables. 15 out of my 46 hands were 14 throws or longer. I added in a column to see what my box number efficiency was. I threw 255 box numbers out of 352 point cycle throws. This is 72.44% compared to the statistical norm of 66.67%.

 

Money wise I was up this time and the amount was $635 which almost doubled my original gambling stake for this cruise.

 

This ship is beautiful and despite there being 4,000+ passengers it never seemed to be crowded. Since the craps tables are now playable I would go on this ship again sometime in the future.

 

Dicenator

My wife has a black card (Chairman level) from the Golden Nugget casino in Atlantic City. She got a new card about 6 months ago and with it came a pamphlet spelling out the advantages of the Black card.

 

One of the listed advantages was a 15% discount on Carnival and Princess cruises.

 

Nobody at the Golden Nugget has been able to shed any light on this, such as how do you go about booking a cruise with the discount. Within the past week she has called carnival and had at least 3 conversations with different casino representatives and was able to get no information from Carnival. The last communication she got from Carnival was an email telling her that she had to get the information from the marketing dept. at the Golden Nugget casino.

 

Has anyone on this board even had a situation like this and if so how did you resolve it?

 

Thanks,

 

Dicenator

I just got off the Crown Princess a week ago and most of the blackjack tables had a $5 minimum. One table was at $10 minimum. They all have the continuous shuffle machines which neither my wife nor myself will play at. The one hand shuffled game was fun 21 which is the same as Spanish 21 only the queens are removed from the deck instead of the 10's.

 

Good luck,

 

Dicenator

skeeter195,

 

The world's record for number of throws in one hand is 154 by Patricia De Mauro made about 3 years ago at the Borgata Casino in Atlantic City. I think you made a mistake when you listed a total of 287 throws made in 57 minutes. This equated to 5 throws per minute or one every 12 seconds.

 

Congratulations on your money win. Where there other players at the table reaping some benefits from your throwing. I've been on the Gem twice and found the table to be excellent. My personal record of 54 throws in one hand was made on the Gem a few years ago. My second trip was last March and I had 6 hands of 30 or more throws but the table was too crowded most of the time and I didn't get to play nearly as much as I wanted to.

 

Dicenator

After the Carnival Freedom cruise last week we disembarked around 10:30 AM and had to take a taxi to the Crown Princess. The cruise port in Fort Lauderdale was huge and the two ships were in entirely different areas. This port is also known as Port Everglades. We were a little early and had to wait to embark on the new ship.

Our first impression of the Crown Princess was that it had a touch of elegance compared to the Carnival ships. There was a lot of wood panels very nicely done all over the ship. We were in stateroom L102 which was on the Lido deck, deck 15, all the way in the front of the ship directly over the bridge. It was a partially obstructed ocean view cabin. In front of us was a huge observation deck which nobody else on the ship knew about. If they had had lounge chairs out there it would have been almost like a private balcony for us. When we boarded the ship our stateroom was ready and we went there to drop off our carry-on bag and to check out the room itself. The stateroom was not as big as the one on the Carnival ship, 179 square feet versus 220 but it was more than adequate with a lot of storage space.

Unfortunately for me, on the last night on the Carnival cruise I came down with a wicked cold which started off with a sore throat which was very painful with every swallow I made. So after checking our stateroom we went to the buffet for lunch and then to the casino so I could check out the craps table. The craps table was 12 feet long with green textured micro fiber similar to the Norwegian Gem ship. The chip rail was lower than the one on the Carnival ship so it was easier for me to get into a good shooting position. The radius of curvature on the corners was very large resulting in a straight wall section of only about 2 feet wide. If you threw down the pass line you would hit the curvature so I ended up having to throw at a small angle targeting the don't pass line so that I would hit the straight section of the wall. The table bounce seemed to be perfectly normal in every way. The table minimum was $5 with 2X odds. After this it was back to the stateroom to lay down and try to conserve some energy so I would be able to make it to the craps table that evening.

My prediction made before the cruise about the playing time on Princess ships was fulfilled perfectly. The craps table was never opened in the afternoon on the at-sea days. In the evening it never opened until 9 PM although 1 evening it did open at 8 PM and when it did open they were fully manned with 3 dealers. There was a Carnival (parent company for Princess) casino executive on the ship when we boarded and we talked to him for awhile. The bottom line is that despite the casinos on Carnival and Princess being the same size, on the Princess ships they have 10 fewer dealers for the casino. My opinion is that the attitude towards the casinos on the 2 cruise lines is different. On Carnival it seems that they look at the casino as a profit center whereas on Princess their attitude is more that it is a customer service that they provide. The casino on the Carnival ship was definitely busier than on Princess.

There was a noticeable difference in the passengers on the two ships. On Carnival on formal dinner nights there are very few men dressed in tuxedos. On Princess it was significantly more with most of the other men dressed in dark suits. Many fewer people were drinking on the Princess ship compared to Carnival. The bar in the casino on the Princess ship was nearly empty all the time whereas on Carnival it was filled.

For the whole week we never went to the main dining room because of my cold. We ate in the buffet every night and the food was excellent and varied. On the at sea days I spent almost the whole day just laying down in my stateroom. The stops on this cruise were Princess Cays (private island in the Bahamas), Curacao and lastly Aruba. I never got off the ship for Princess Cays but I did lay out in the sun at the pool on the ship. The only thing I wanted to do was have enough energy to walk around Curacao and Aruba and be able to play for a few hours at the craps table at night.

We got to Curacao at 1 PM and were departing at 10 PM. Where the ship docks is right near the new Renaissance center in Willemstad. We wandered all around town for most of the day including a ferry ride to cross the inlet and on the return we walked across the famous pontoon bridge. Before we crossed the bridge to go back to the ship we relaxed at an outside restaurant right alongside the inlet and had a few beers. My wife commented that the town was very European which I agree with. During our travels through Willemstad which is the capital we found 4 casinos. We didn't play but we did walk into each one to check them out and found that none of them had a craps table. I was only surprised at the Renaissance casino not having one since it is the newest casino on the island and is one of the biggest.

The next morning we docked in Aruba at 8 AM. We were there all day but again because of my cold and not wanting to get too much sun we didn't do anything beach related. The ocean water temperature here was 80 degrees so you could swim easily if you wanted to. So what we did was wander around town visiting shops and eventually we ended up at the Crystal Casino which is right on the main drag in the center of Oranjestad. Eva played blackjack here at a $15 table for a few hours and ended up winning around $150. This casino was filled with Asian crew members from out ship, all betting big at blackjack and roulette. When we were here a year and a half ago this casino had a craps table which is now gone. I talked to one of the pit bosses and he told me that there are only 3 or 4 casinos in Aruba now with craps tables. I am hesitant to believe this but I had no way of verifying what he said. The ship departed Aruba at 5 PM and then it was 2 days at sea going back to Fort Lauderdale.

Now for some casino talk. This casino had around 18 table games but on 3 of the tables the layout was blank. I asked about this and they told me that they were able to put any layout down that they wanted to if there was a demand. All of the table games had $5 minimums except for 1 blackjack table with a $10 minimum. This ship had the electronic Poker Pro game but other than a few Poker tournaments there was no poker action for the whole cruise which was disappointing to my wife. She played everything from Fun 21 to Caribbean Stud to craps to Roulette. She had a few highlights with a straight flush at 3 card poker and a 10 chip win on 17 at Roulette. The casino manager, Phil, was very nice and we both had some nice conversations with him during the whole week. He was especially interested in how good my craps play was and was very encouraging. By the way there was absolutely no heat for anyone at the craps table for the whole week. The craps dealers tended to be the same for the whole week, William from Scotland, Nina from Poland and Angela from the Philippines are the standouts. One thing that they do that is annoying is the person at the stick is constantly running their mouth non-stop with the usual craps lingo.

Now for the results:

PLAYER METHOD #THROWS #POINTS CO WINS

2/8 DAY 1

BOB UH-RIGHT 11

EVA PARR 10 1 2

BOB UH-RIGHT 5 1 1

EVA PARR 9 2

BOB UH-RIGHT 18 2 1

EVA PARR 5

BOB UH-RIGHT 36 2

EVA PARR 5 1

BOB UH-RIGHT 5 1

2/9 DAY 2

EVA PARR 12 1 2

BOB UH-RIGHT 16 3 3

We only got to play one hand each because at 8:30 PM they had a craps lesson and after the lesson was over all the newbies stayed at the table playing. The table was almost completely filled for hours after this.

2/10 DAY 3

BOB UH-RIGHT 23 1

EVA PARR 5

BOB UH-RIGHT 8 2

EVA PARR 19 4 1

BOB UH-RIGHT 6

EVA PARR 6

BOB UH-RIGHT 8

BOB UH-RIGHT 7 1 2

BOB UH-RIRGT 10

BOB UH-RIGHT 4 1

BOB UH-RIGHT 21 4 1

BOB UH-RIGHT 13 1 1

BOB UH-RIGHT 7 1

2/11 DAY 4

BOB UH-RIGHT 20 4 3

EVA PARR 6

BOB UH-RIGHT 8 2

BOB UH-RIGHT 5

BOB PARR-LEFT 11

BOB UH-RIGHT 13 1 1

BOB UH-RIGHT 27 4 2

BOB UH-RIGHT 25 4 3

PLAYER METHOD THROWS #POINTS CO WINS

2/12 DAY 5

EVA PARR 20 5 1

BOB UH-RIGHT 17 1

EVA PARR 10 1 1

BOB UH-RIGHT 8 1

BOB UH-RIGHT 6

BOB UH-RIGHT 6 1

BOB UH-RIGHT 11 2 3

BOB UH-RIGHT 6

2/13 DAY 6

BOB UH-RIGHT 14 2

EVA PARR 6 2

BOB UH-RIGHT 12 3

BOB UH-RIGHT 5 1

BOB UH-RIGHT 9

BOB UH-RIGHT 16 1 2

BOB UH-RIGHT 44 5 2

After the 44 throw hand with a full table I got a tremendous round of applause but I colored in and left because it would have taken too long for the dice to get back to me. These players were then my groupies and flocked to the table the following night expecting the same. Unfortunately there were too many players the last night for me to get in the zone again.

2/14 DAY 7

BOB UH-RIGHT 11 1 2

EVA PARR 11 1 1

EVA PARR 8 1

BOB UH-RIGHT 20 1 5

EVA PARR 9

BOB UH-RIGHT 10 3 1

BOB UH-RIGHT 13 2 2

Eva's throwing was not quite as good as it was on the Carnival Freedom last week but she was still a winner. In 15 hands thrown she made 15 points for a ratio of 1.00 and she had 12 come out winners for a ratio of .80 Her good hands were 20 and 19 throws.

Bob threw 39 hands making 48 points for a ratio of 1.231. Along with this were 46 come out wins for a ratio of 1.179. The really good hands were 44, 36, 27, 25, 23, 21 and 20 throws.

Considering that I was sick all week and the table had far more players than I would like, my throwing was great in my opinion. Anytime I make more than 1 point and 1 come out win per hand on average I consider to be very good. Our win at craps for the 7 days was $885 most of which was won on the long hands. Of all the players at the craps table all week and there were a lot of them, there was only 1 guy named Jerry who was setting the dice and trying to throw consistently. I would usually make 2 place bets on him when he was throwing.

Because I expected the lack of playing time on this cruise I wasn't disappointed. The only surprise was the number of players for the whole week. The craps table on this ship I would rate in my 5 all time best for playability.

My wife really liked the service level on this ship and the food quality so it looks like Princess cruise line will be on our radar screens for a future cruise.

Dicenator

We flew into Fort Lauderdale on Saturday Feb. 1st, the day before the cruise departure and stayed at the Sheraton near the cruise pier. Our suite was on the eighth floor with a view of the harbor which had 6 cruise ships in port. Starting around 4:30 PM they started leaving port one right after the other and it was an unbelievable sight. The world's largest cruise ship, Royal Caribbean Oasis of the Seas was one of the ships. The Crown Princess was also there and that is the second ship we were sailing on for this trip.

The Carnival Freedom cruise was the free cruise that my wife got from the Golden Nugget Casino in Atlantic City and we upgraded from an interior to an Ocean view on the second deck. Since we have platinum status on Carnival the embarkation process took us probably no more than 10 minutes. This ship was the same size and layout as all the other Carnival ships we've been on. The tonnage was 110,000 tons with a 3000 plus passenger capacity. Needless to say I can find my way around these ships with my eyes closed. I never got to take any pictures because my wife had the camera in the safe and it was "out of sight, out of mind".

The itinerary was pretty good for a 6 night cruise being; Key West, Grand Cayman and Ocho Rios Jamaica. The only new port for me was Key West and I found it to be thoroughly delightful. We spent the whole morning walking all around Key West also known as the Conch Republic. One shop stands out in my mind and that was the Key Lime store. Every food you can think of they had with Key Limes in the recipe along with a lot of free samples.

On this cruise I didn't do anything beach related due to the water temperature being a little too cold and the fear of getting any sunburn. We did sunbathe at the pool on the ship almost every day. I never stayed in the sun more than 1.5 hours.

Dinner time for us was 6 PM, early seating in the main dining room, deck 3 on the back of the ship. We were seated at a table for 10 and everybody was friendly and easy to talk to. Our dinner companions were couples from Jacksonville, Florida, North Carolina, Minnesota and Ontario, Canada. The only issues for me is that a 10 person table is too big and it is hard to talk to the people across the table due to the noise level in the dining room. My second issue is the length of time that it takes to get dinner. An hour and a half and still no dessert menu is too long for me. It also took typically 30 minutes from the time you took your seat until you had your appetizer. The last 2 or 3 nights I skipped dessert so I could get to the craps table and get my shooting position before the crowd arrived there.

It's now casino time. First I'll start with my wife winning the Blackjack tournament on the last day of the cruise. She won $500, a trophy which the crew members call "a ship on a stick" and a tee shirt. This also makes her eligible for the $100,000 blackjack tournament which will be held on the Carnival Breeze on November 16th of this year. We just booked this cruise this morning.

My expectations for my craps play were minimal at best. From December 18th until February 2nd, a time period of about 45 days I only had 5 practice sessions at home during this whole time. Between a death in the family, the holidays, helping my daughter and son in law with projects at their house, I lost my desire to practice on a regular basis.

The craps table was 12 feet long with blue micro fiber and some soft cushioning below the layout which initially had me worried. Well when I made maybe 10 practice throws that first afternoon the bounce was perfectly normal so the cushioning wasn't affecting the dice throws. They also used red dice and not the green ones that I questioned on my cruise on the Carnival Splendor in December last year. On Thursday, 2/6, I had a 38 throw hand in the afternoon. When we came back to the table that evening after dinner I found out that they had changed the layout after I had left that afternoon. I found the bounce to be different, bouncier after that. The usual Carnival limits applied; $5 min., $500 max. and 2X odds with no prop bets other than hard way, horns etc. in the center of the table.

My wife Eva played quite a bit for her so I'm going to include her throwing results also.

PLAYER METHOD # THROWS # POINTS CO WINNERS

DAY 1 - 2/2

EVA PARR 26 2

BOB UH-RIGHT 28 4 1

BOB UH-RIGHT 5

BOB UH-LEFT 12 1

BOB PARR 6 1

BOB UH-LEFT 7 1

BOB UH-LEFT 6 1

DAY 2 - 2/3

EVA PARR 11 1

BOB UH-RIGHT 5 1

BOB UH-RIGHT 7 1 1

BOB UH-RIGHT 12 1 2

BOB UH-RIGHT 8 1

EVA PARR 33 3

BOB UH-RIGHT 8 1 1

BOB UH-RIGHT 14 2 1

EVA PARR 26 5 6

BOB UH-RIGHT 11 2

PLAYER METHOD # THROWS # POINTS CO WINNERS

DAY 3 - 2/4

BOB UH-RIGHT 27 3 4

BOB UH-RIGHT 11

EVA PARR 5

BOB UH-RIGHT 5 1

EVA PARR 5 1

BOB PARR 11 1 1

BOB UH-RIGHT 5 2

BOB UH-RIGHT 7

EVA PARR 4

BOB UH-RIGHT 10 2

EVA PARR 9 2 1

BOB UH-RIGHT 6 1 1

EVA PARR 8 2

BOB PARR 10

BOB PUSH 6 1 1

BOB UH-RIGHT 7 2

BOB UH-RIGHT 8

BOB UH-RIGHT 11 9 in a row

BOB UH-RIGHT 21 1

DAY 4 - 2/5

BOB UH-RIGHT 7 1

BOB UH-RIGHT 7 1 1

EVA PARR 5 1

BOB UH-RIGHT 9 1 1

BOB UH-RIGHT 15 1 2

BOB UH-RIGHT 6 1 2

EVA PARR 5 3

BOB UH-RIGHT 16 3 2

DAY 5 - 2/6

BOB UH-RIGHT 14 1 2

EVA PARR 9 1 3

BOB UH-RIGHT 38 4 1

after this hand we broke for dinner and they changed the layout

BOB UH-RIGHT 8 2

EVA PARR 7 1 1

BOB UH-RIGHT 5 1 1

BOB UH-RIGHT 8 1 1

BOB UH-RIGHT 11

PLAYER METHOD # THROWS # POINTS CO WINNERS

DAY 6 - 2/7

EVA PARR 7 1

BOB UH-RIGHT 14 3

EVA PARR 9 1

BOB UH-RIGHT 21 2 1

BOB PARR 8 2 1

BOB UH-RIGHT 10 2

BOB UH-RIGHT 7 1

BOB UH-RIGHT 15 1 1

BOB UH-RIGHT 9 1

BOB UH-RIGHT 10 4

BOB UH-RIGHT 8 2 1

EVA PARR 22 4 3

BOB UH-RIGHT 8 1

EVA PARR 9

BOB UH-RIGHT 6

BOB UH-RIGHT 14 2 2

BOB UH-RIGHT 14 3 3

BOB UH-RIGHT 13 1 2

In total Eva played 17 hands and had some great ones of 26, 33, 26 and 22 throws each. She made 21 points in those 17 hands for a ratio of 1.235 points per hand. In addition she made 21 come out wins for the same ratio.

Bob played 53 hand in total making 55 points for a ratio of 1.038. Along with the points I made 64 come out winners for a ratio of 1.208. My really great hands were 38, 28, 27, 21 and 21 throws.

The craps playing conditions were far from being good. There were a lot of craps players on the ship and most of the time the table was almost full. At no time was I at the table by myself where I could really get my throwing dialed in. The best conditions usually occurred when the table first opened at 1 PM on at sea days or in the evening around 7:30 or 8 PM. At these times there were no more than 3 players for a couple of hands and then the hordes would show up and I would leave. I averaged playing close to 9 hands per day but many of those days would cover 6 hours in the casino with a lot of leaving the table and coming back later when the losers left. This was very frustrating to me particularly considering my lack of practice leading up to this trip.

The bottom line was a win of approximately $750 with 90% of that accumulating during the long hands listed above for both of us.

Dicenator

I'll be on the Crown Princess from Feb. 8th through Feb. 15th. I'm looking for information concerning the craps game on the ship and what the table is like.

 

I'd like to know about the bounce characteristics of the table. The other thing that I'm concerned with is the amount of playing time available at the craps table on the ship. My past experience with the Emerald Princess in November 2009 was that the craps table was never opened in the afternoon on at-sea days and in the evening it never opened before 9 PM and then only half the table. All the other table games were open all day on at sea days and usually by 6 PM on days in port.

 

Thanks,

 

Dicenator

I was on the Breakaway on November 11th. Yes, they did have Texas Hold Em and there was hardly any action all week.

 

It looks like the problem was that it was $2/$5 with a 10% rake. My wife is a poker player and she never went near the table all week and some of the other players she talked to said it was too high.

 

The table limits were high for most of the games. If you look at the trip report that I put out on this cruise I list all the games and the table limits for each one.

 

Dicenator

orangeglitter,

 

From what I observed the whole casino allowed smoking anywhere. On Carnival there are no non-smoking nights in the casino such as there are on some other cruise lines. I used to be a smoker until 15 years ago and the smoke doesn't bother me unless someone is right next to me at a table and smoking.

 

Dicenator

This was a new ship for us and left from Manhattan on Wed. 12/11 and returned today 12/19. The itinerary was the same as many of our other cruises stopping at Port Canaveral, Nassau and Freeport, Bahamas. Why did we do it? Simple, the cost. The price for this 8 night cruise was only $269 each for an ocean view stateroom. We upgraded from deck 1 to deck 2 so it added an additional $30 each. You have to really plan your clothing for a cruise like this. What I mean is that for 2 days going down and 2 days returning it will be cold so you need long pants and a long sleeve shirt. For the 3 days in Florida and the Bahamas shorts and short sleeve shirts are needed.

The decorating scheme on this ship was PINK. Everywhere you looked there was pink. The main restaurants were called the Gold Pearl and the Black Pearl. We were in the Gold Pearl and the ceiling was covered with what looked to me to be sunny side up eggs covering 50% of the visible surface. It wasn't until the 2nd day that I realized that these were supposed to be gold pearls. I guess they should have been a little more realistic. We only ate here the first 2 nights because the service was so slow. An hour and a half and still no dessert menu was a bit too much.

Now for the first of my teasers, BATHROBES. Every cabin on the ship has 2 bathrobes which in my mind you wear in your cabin. On this ship we counted well over 100 passengers wearing the bathrobes everywhere on the ship particularly in the buffet dining room where a good percentage of them were barefoot. I have never seen this sort of behavior on any other ship that I've ever been on and have no explanation for this behavior. Whenever I saw one of these BR people all I could think of was some kind of pervert flasher. To me it doesn't seem too hard to throw some clothes on before leaving your stateroom. They weren't allowed in the main dining rooms or the casino but everyplace else seemed OK. Just thinking to myself that this might be just a New York I don't give a **** attitude thing.

In Nassau we went to the Atlantis casino for a few hours. One craps table was open and 2 players were at SR1 and SL1 for the whole time we were there. Why didn't I take SR2 or SL2? Simple, the tables here are 14 footers and are very bouncy. I don't have the means to practice with this length and bounciness, so I feel that I have almost no chance to win so why bother. My wife played Ultimate Texas Hold em and was up $300 so this was a successful stop.

We went to the Lucuya market and Treasure Island casino in Freeport. My wife treated herself to a new Rose Quartz ring paid for out of her Atlantis winnings. In the casino we both played blackjack where the rules are much better for the players than we see on the ships or in Atlantic City. In Freeport the dealers don't hit on a soft 17. Between the two of us we were up $150.

Now for the casino on the ship and then I'll tell you about my second teaser, BASTARDS. The casino was 100% identical to every other Carnival casino we've been in. None of the dealers were familiar to us from other Carnival cruises and none of them really standout in my mind mainly due to the rotation schedule they have with the dealers. Every single dealer rotated through the craps positions for the 8 days so it was a little hard to deal with repeaters. Plus there were so many craps players that it was hard for the dealers to get to know the players on a first name basis.

BASTARD #1 - The first night at the craps table this drunk guy comes to the table and is betting the don't pass. I forget if he was winning or losing for the few players before it was my turn with the dice. As soon as I got ready to make my second throw he starts yelling out as loud as he can "seven out". He continued doing this with every throw that I made getting louder with each passing throw. I've never encountered behavior like this at any casino I've ever played at. I ended up yelling at him to shut the F--- UP. My hand ended after maybe 8 or 9 throws and I left the table because the loudmouth drunk stayed there and continued playing. I was really having some dark thoughts about throwing him overboard. The next night this same drunk guy goes to the Poker Pro table and kisses this gigantic black guy on the cheek and says "I'm Greek, I like to kiss" and made some lewd remarks about one of the players girlfriends. The black guy stayed under control but convinced the drunk that he could break him in half with one hand. My wife got one of the casino managers to go confront this jerk and he wasn't seen in the casino for the rest of the cruise so he might have been banned.

BASTARD #2 - On Tuesday the first at sea day on the return trip the craps table was opening for business at 1 in the afternoon. The crew was ready to go with only the left side open due to there being only a stickman and one dealer. Bastard #2 was a big guy maybe 6"4" tall weighing maybe 230 lbs and he was standing at Stick left 1 with no chips on the rail and no money in his hand to buy any chips. My wife walks up to him and says excuse me can you move so I can play from this position. He gets all riled up and moves to stick left 2 and starts saying to her is this position OK and then wants her to step outside to discuss this issue. I jump in and say to him you aren't playing and have no right to stand at the table and keep a player from playing. He then goes to the hook and starts in with me saying to me "is this position OK with you". So I told him again if you aren't playing move away from the table so players with money or chips can get into position. So now he's giving me the stare down and wanting me to come outside with him. I'm not going to fight with an AH and I told him to just keep on walking and to stop acting like a bully. The stare down continued for about a minute and then he walked. For both of these bastards I don't know why the dealers and or pit bosses didn't get security involved immediately.

The craps table was 12 feet long with red micro fiber and a wide straight wall section at both ends. The radius of curvature was very tight and you could throw straight down 4" inside the pass line and still hit the straight section of the wall. The bounce was excellent with a good throw bouncing only a few inches from the wall. There were 2X odds, no hopping bets and a $5 min with a $300 max.

Ready for the third teaser -BAD DICE- This is the first Carnival ship that I recall the dice being green instead of the usual red color. Now I personally do not know what the difference is between green and red dice. Is there a difference in weight, density, hardness etc.? I don't have a clue but I am very observant. All 4 hands that I threw this first night ended in a 5-2 seven out. Every other player also had their hands end with a 5-2 seven out. So in total there were 16 hands in a row ending in a 5-2 seven out which really raised my apprehension. With Bastard #1's shenanigans I colored in and left the table and did not return that first day. The next day and the following days the dice seemed to be more normal in performance although nowhere near as consistent as the dice I brought with me from home. However on the last day the casino opened at 1 PM and I was the first player to get the dice. I was expecting new dice with the usual very sharp edges on the corner. Nope, the dice had dull rounded edges so my feeling was that they were using the same dice from the previous day. Worn dice in my opinion perform much worse than new dice. Two different pit bosses gave two different responses to my question concerning how frequently they change the dice. One said every day and the other said only when the old set is worn out with chips in the edges?

My wife played quite a bit more craps than usual because of how good the table was and her throwing was working very well. She also had a bunch of groupies from the poker table who she got into playing craps by the end of the cruise and they were all making the any craps high low bets on come out throws and all were playing hard way bets also. As you can imagine this slowed the play down quite a bit. Most of my playing was done with far more players at the table then I would usually tolerate, so it was quite hard to get in a groove and stay in it. On day 2 my betting was inhibited due to my experience the previous day with the dice that I considered to be questionable.

Here are our throwing results for the 8 days:

DAY 1 - 12/11/13

PLAYER METHOD/HAND # THROWS # POINTS # CO

BOB PARR/LEFT 9 1

BOB UH/LEFT 4

BOB UH/RIGHT 11 1

BOB UH/RIGHT 7 1 1

No more play due to questionable dice and Bastard #1.

DAY 2 - 12/12/13

PLAYER METHOD/HAND # THROWS # POINTS # CO

EVA PARR 36 4 2

BOB UH/RIGHT 6 1

EVA PARR 13 1

BOB SPIN/RIGHT 13

BOB UH/LEFT 29 2 4

BOB UH/LEFT 15 2 2

DAY 3 - 12/13/13

PLAYER METHOD/HAND # THROWS # POINTS # CO

AFTERNOON

EVA PARR 20 2 3

BOB UH/LEFT 7 1

EVA PARR 19

BOB UH/LEFT 9 2 2

BOB UH/LEFT 5 2

BOB UH/LEFT 6

BOB UH/LEFT 8

BOB UH/RIGHT 7 2

BOB UH/RIGHT 11 1 3

BOB UH/RIGHT 11 1 1

BOB UH/RIGHT 9

BOB UH/RIGHT 11

EVENING

BOB UH/RIGHT 8 1

EVA PARR 9 1 1

BOB UH/RIGHT 9 1

EVA PARR 4

BOB PARR/LEFT 17 4 4

DAY 4 - 12/14/13

PLAYER METHOD/HAND # THROWS # POINTS # CO

EVA PARR 7 1

EVA PARR 19 1 1

BOB UH/LEFT 8 1

BOB UH/RIGHT 18 3

BOB UH/RIGHT 11 2 2

BOB PARR/LEFT 8 1

BOB UH/RIGHT 8 1

BOB UH/RIGHT 7 1

BOB UH/RIGHT 14 1 3

DAY 5 - 12/15/13

PLAYER METHOD/HAND # THROWS # POINTS # CO

BOB PARR/RIGHT 13 2 1

BOB UH/RIGHT 35 6 1

EVA PARR 16 2 2

BOB UH/RIGHT 8

EVA PARR 29 1 4

BOB UH/RIGHT 20 2 2

DAY 6 - 12/16/13

PLAYER METHOD/HAND # THROWS # POINTS # CO

EVA PARR 10 2 1

BOB UH/RIGHT 13 1

EVA PARR 19 4 1

BOB UH/RIGHT 8 2

BOB UH/RIGHT 7 1

DAY 7 - 12/17/13

PLAYER METHOD/HAND # THROWS # POINTS # CO

AFTERNOON

EVA PARR 40 6 2

BOB UH/RIGHT 11 1 1

BOB UH/RIGHT 10

EVA PARR 12 1

EVA PARR 14 2 1

EVENING

EVA PARR 8 1

BOB UH/RIGHT 5

EVA PARR 11

BOB UH/RIGHT 8 1

BOB UH/RIGHT 7 1 1

BOB PARR/RIGHT 7

BOB PUSH/RIGHT 13 2 2

BOB SPIN/RIGHT 8 1

BOB UH/RIGHT 6 1

BOB UH/RIGHT 9 2 1

DAY 8 - 12/18/13

PLAYER METHOD/HAND # THROWS # POINTS # CO

BOB UH/RIGHT 8 1 1

BOB UH/RIGHT 22 3 6

BOB UH/RIGHT 26 1 2

BOB UH/RIGHT 10 1 1

Eva's throwing was extremely good for the whole week. In 17 hands she made 29 points for a ratio of 1.71 pts./hand. Along with this she made 18 come out winners for an average of 1.06 per hand. She had hand lengths of 36, 29 and 40 throws out of her 17 hands total. On her 40 throw hand I got her to throw from SL1 versus her usual hook or table end and it certainly worked very well for her. Will she shoot from this position in the future, I doubt it because she says it feels awkward to her. ??????? Bob had 49 total hands and made 50 points for a ratio of 1.02 pts./hand along with 52 come out wins for an average of 1.06 per hand. My really good hands were 29, 35 and 26 throws.

Although I was only suspicious of the dice on the first night they never for the whole week did what I was expecting them to do. I practiced with my red dice brought from home and the only 7 outs I would get in my practice throws early in the morning were throws where I had one die go very short and not even come close to the wall. For throws where I was hitting the wall with both dice I would average one 7 out for around every 20 throws. This was the busiest craps table I've seen on a cruise ship in years so most of the time it was taking way too long for me to get the dice back in my hands. Whenever both of us were at the craps table all the other players would come quickly. The majority of them were telling us that they liked the way we threw the dice and that they had confidence in us.

Our net win for the week was $1,115 of which the majority was made during Eva's and my monster hands. This craps table I would rate in the top 10 I've ever played on and my throwing performance should have been a lot better but there were too many negative issue which I've discussed which were negatively affecting my throwing.

My wife is going out on this ship again sometime mid-April of next year so I'm hoping for a duplicate performance from her.

Dicenator

As I had mentioned in my Niagara Falls trip report from a few days ago, my wife, Eva, won $2000 in some prize drawing Sunday afternoon at Seneca Allegheny casino. She had to be there in person within one week to claim her winnings. Yesterday, Wednesday 12/4, we made the drive back up there. This time we took a different route and cut 1 hour off the travel time. So instead of 7 hours we made it in 6 hours. Somehow we also had a fully comped room. After arriving around 1 pm she went to the promotions booth to claim her winnings. $2000 cash in her hand within 15 minutes, so we were both extremely happy. I wasn't feeling too well after having gotten up at 2:45 in the morning so I went to the room to take a nap. The rooms here are fantastic. Large, clean with very large showers with super hot water and a very comfortable bed. We had a view out of the front of the hotel so we saw mountains which were somewhat snow covered.

 

She came back to the room at 4:30 to get me so we could go to dinner. She had won another $200 with a 3 of a kind at 3 card poker. After dinner we went back to the casino where I went to the craps table. She went to play some more table games. The one open craps table had a $5 minimum and there were 3 other players there when I bought in. I got the dice within about 5 minutes and proceeded to throw underhand from SR1. One of the other players was at SL 1.5 and had his chips within 1 inch of where I wanted to land my throws. My hand was only 10 throws from start to finish. During these 10 throws I hit his chips twice and he never moved them. When I 7ed out I was concentrating so hard on avoiding his chips that I pulled the throw into the corner resulting in a 6-1 7 out.

 

The hand was good with 3 come out winners and 1 point made. The player at SL 1.5 was now throwing and he was yelling out crap with every throw. I couldn't stand it and colored in and left. I killed some time on slots and then found Eva. She had won another $400 with a straight flush at 4 card poker. She also won some money at blackjack. So, for the trip she was up the $2000 from the drawing and another $650 from her table play.

 

This morning we were up by 5:30 and went to the craps table at 7:00. There were only 2 players there but only half the table was open because they only had one dealer. The left side was open so if I wanted to throw I was going to have to throw from the end of the table. I tried one hand from this position with a 3 throw hand. There was a player named Tommy who was making a good Parr or GTC throw from SL1. So I was able to make a little money from his shooting. The player at SL2 left after losing his $50 buy in and I moved to SL2. When I got the dice back I used my Underhand throw with my left hand and had a really good one. This hand was 30 throws with 5 points made and 5 come out winners. After this it was time to check out and hit the road for our return home.

 

Here are the details of my 2 hands:

 

Wed. 12/4

 

3 7 CO 7 CO 7 CO 6 4 9 6 PT 4H 7 OUT

 

Thur. 12/5

 

8H 11 8 PT 8 4 11 8 PT 9 11 5 9 PT 7 CO 11 CO 8 6 3 5 11 8 PT 5 9 6H 5 PT 7 CO 11 CO 11 CO 9 5 6H 7 OUT

 

I contributed a little to the family winnings being up around $150. But as I said in my last report Eva's middle name is LUCKY.

 

She loves this casino first because of her winnings but she also likes the size, the décor, the rooms, the food, the friendliness of the staff and the low limits with most of the table games having a $5 or $10 minimum. So from having gone there for the first time last Monday we now like this place enough that we are willing to make the drive to get there at least 2 times if not more each year.

 

 

Dicenator

We left home on Monday Nov. 25th at 6 am and made the 7 hour drive to Seneca Allegheny casino resort in Salamanca, NY. Our plan was to spend Monday and Tuesday nights there and finish the drive to Niagara falls on Wednesday morning. However we changed our plans when we heard about a potential 18" snowstorm starting at 1 pm on Tuesday in the Salamanca region. We departed Seneca Allegheny around 8 am on Tuesday morning and then made the 2 hour drive to Niagara falls without any snow.

Our impression of Seneca Allegheny resort was very positive. First, it kind of appears out of nowhere right alongside the highway and is impressive in size due to there being nothing else in sight to compare it to. The casino itself is medium sized with all the table games grouped together kind of close to the entrance and off to the right side. I didn't count the table games but I'm guessing that there were maybe 25 to 30 in total with 2 craps tables. The decor in the casino was very nice, not too lavish but very nicely done with good lighting. One thing I noted this time was that not only here but also in Canada there are security guards at the entrances making sure no minors get into the casino. I don't see that in Atlantic City.

After checking in and taking our bags up to the room we went to the casino and both of us got player's cards. With the new cards we were each given $35 in slot credits. I used up $60 of these credits with no wins but at least there was no money out of my pocket. So now I went to the craps table to try to play. Only one of the two craps tables was open but they were both 12 feet long with a felt layout and a perfectly normal bounce. The chip rails seemed to be slightly higher maybe an inch compared to what I usually play on but that didn't cause me any issues at all. When I got there two players were at the table with one old timer being at stick right 1 which is my preferred shooting position and he had maybe $500 in chips in his rail so I knew he wouldn't be leaving anytime soon. I hesitated for maybe 15 minutes and then decided to buy in at stick left 1 and try Underhand with my left hand. My hand was only 7 throws long but it had one point made and two come out wins. An additional 2 or 3 players then bought in before I got the dice for a second hand so I colored in and left. I felt that probably after dinner I would be able to get on the table at stick right with a low player count.

My wife and I went to dinner around 5 pm and we ate at the Thunder Mountain buffet. The food here was excellent probably in the top two or three buffets I've eaten at anywhere. After dinner at 6 pm the craps table had only 2 players on it and I was able to buy in at stick right 1 and I played for maybe an hour doing fairly well with a long hand of 21 throws using parr with my left hand. This was it for me because I was really feeling tired after being up from 4 in the morning and a 7 hour drive. Plus a bunch of new players were showing up and buying in.

It was around this time that we made the decision to cancel our reservation for Tuesday night which was fine with me because I planned on going to the craps table no later than 6:30 in the morning on Tuesday and get in some playing before we hit the road for Canada.

On Tuesday morning both me and my wife got to the craps table around 6:30 and there were no other players in sight. My very first hand was great, 28 throws underhand with 4 points made and 2 come out wins. This was followed by 13 throw hand with 1 point and then a 10 throw hand with 1 point made. Eva was now getting antsy to start driving to Canada so we both colored in went to the cashier and then loaded the car and hit the road.

In the drive to Canada we passed through Buffalo and we saw a sign for Seneca Buffalo Creek casino off of one exit but we didn't stop due to the snow possibility. In Niagara falls we were staying at the Hilton which is across the street from the Fallsview casino and is connected to it with a covered walkway going above the street. This year we parked at the casino indoor parking lot which was free as long as you had 1 point on your players card. We arrived there by 11 in the morning and had to leave our bags with the bellman since our room wouldn't be ready until 3 pm. Our room was a 2 bedroom suite on the 35th floor with a view of the falls, both the American and the Horseshoe Falls. We had the 2 bedroom suite because our friends, Mike and Sandi, Canadians from Ontario were staying with us from Friday night through Sunday when we were all leaving.

Fallsview Casino is very impressive and large having over 3000 slot machines and I'm guessing over 100 table games. They are a little light in craps tables having only 2 on the main floor and one in the Salon Prive (high roller pit). On the weekdays in the morning the limit at craps was $5 but from Thanksgiving through Sunday it was $10 all the time and $15 in the evening. On Tuesday afternoon I tried some craps but the only position I could get was stick right 2 and I used a left handed Parr throw. I had hand lengths of 7 and then 12 throws with one point made. I left then because it didn't look like I would be getting a better shooting position anytime soon. The next morning I went to craps at 7 am and the playing conditions were significantly better, only a few players and I got stick right 1. My shooting was fairly good with hands of 11, 6, 12, 18 and 17 throws. I stopped for breakfast and when I went back there were too many players at the table. That afternoon we went to Casino Niagara where they have the 8 foot long tubby craps table which wasn't open. I just killed some time on slots while my wife played everything. The table limits at Casino Niagara are significantly lower than at Fallsview. Fallsview has a tremendous number of Asians who are bussed there from Toronto and they usually have large bankrolls which in my opinion is why the table limits are so high there. If they ever open a casino in Toronto, I think it will cause Fallsview to have some more reasonable limits.

The next day, Thanksgiving, I again went to the craps table at 7 am and was able to play from stick right 1 with maybe 5 players at the table. I only played a few hands with 13 throws and then 16 throws and then my wife came to the craps table and it was time for breakfast. After breakfast it was too full with players for me to buy in. That evening we had free tickets to a show "Christmas on Ice" at the Fallsview theater and the show was great.

On Friday we crossed back over the border and went to Seneca Niagara Casino. Last year I reported that the craps table here were extremely bouncy and they are still the same today. The only ones open were on the left side when coming in from the outside parking lot. They have two more tables on the main floor which were not open so I can't say anything about the bounce on these tables. I was not temped to play craps here so I did some slots and some 4 card poker with no luck.

Our friends got to the hotel around 3 pm and we went to Casino Niagara. Nobody had any luck at any of the games but Mike won $160 on a slot machine.

Saturday morning the craps table at Fallsview was packed. So late morning all 4 of us went back across the river to Seneca Niagara where again nobody had any luck. My wife played a lot of Pai Gow poker at Fallsview with no luck like she had last year. That evening we had dinner at a steak house chain called some name with a KEG in it. It might have been "The Keg". The food was good but it was on the pricey side.

Sunday morning Mike and I went to the craps table by 7 am and there were only a few other players. Mike got the dice first and had a 23 throw hand with 2 points made. I was next with a 11 throw hand with 2 points made. Mike then threw 11 times with no points. My next hand was 31 throws with 5 points made. Mike then had a 17 throw hand followed by my 8 throw hand and Eva's 11 throw hand with 2 points. That was it, we then had breakfast, packed our car and started the drive for home at 10 am.

We arrived home at 6 pm and 10 minutes later the phone rings and it is someone from Seneca Allegheny casino looking for Eva. What had happened is while she was playing blackjack on Monday she got a blackjack that was made with an ace and king of spades. This got her an entry into some blackjack prize drawing which was held today at 3 pm. She dropped her entry into this big drum which had thousands of other entries. Well Eva's name was the second one drawn out of the drum and she won $2,000. We have to go back there for her to collect it in person, so we are going on Wednesday this week and we have a comped room for the night. I've always said her middle name is "lucky".

Now for my usual craps summary:

SENECA ALLEGHENY

METHOD HAND # THROWS # POINTS # CO WINS

UH LEFT 7 1 2

UH RIGHT 6 1

PARR LEFT 21 1 1

UH RIGHT 11 3 2

UH RIGHT 10 1 1

UH RIGHT 28 4 2

UH RIGHT 13 1

UH RIGHT 10 1

FALLSVIEW

METHOD HAND # THROWS # POINTS # CO WINS

PARR LEFT 7

PARR LEFT 12 1 1

UH RIGHT 6 1

PARR LEFT 11 1 4

UH RIGHT 6

PARR LEFT 12 3

UH RIGHT 18 1 1

UH RIGHT 17 2 5

PARR LEFT 13 1

UH RIGHT 16 2 3

UH RIGHT 6 1 1

PARR LEFT 8

UH RIGHT 11 2 1

UH RIGHT 31 5 2

UH RIGHT 8 3

In 23 hands I made 31 points for a ratio of 1.35 points per hand. There were also 31 come out winners for the same 1.35 ratio of CO wins per hand. My money win for the 6 days was $480 which I'm satisfied with considering that for 2 days there was almost no playing at all. I think that there wasn't enough opportunity to play as much as I would have liked to. I'm trying to convince my wife that Thanksgiving week probably isn't the best time to be going to Fallsview. We can go anytime and our friends can come almost any weekend. She really liked Seneca Allegheny and might be willing to go there a few times a year for maybe 3 days at a time.

Dicenator

Vinegarjoe 10

 

I posted my trip reports on the two Norwegian Gem cruises here on this website in the casino section.

 

Dicenator