Regal princess - march 2018 - trip report

This was a seven day cruisedeparting on 3/4/18 and returning on 3/11/18, Sunday to Sunday sailing out of Fort Lauderdale. The cost wasamazingly low, $299 each for a balcony stateroom. We just happened to be on the Princesswebsite about two months ago and we saw this cruise listed at $299 for abalcony. We thought it was a mistake so we called to verify and the price wascorrect. It was a special block of rooms that was sponsored by the casino dept.We booked it immediately as soon as we found that the price was correct. Due to things like this and the occasionalfree cruises we’ve received from Carnival and Norwegian, it accounts for thenumber of cruises we’ve been on for the last 5 years.

The itinerary was justaverage; Princess Cay (private island in Bahamas), St. Thomas and St. Martin. There were three atsea days on this cruise. I’ve reportedon these islands in many of my previous trip reports so I won’t go into detail.The one thing that I will note is the hurricane damage that was stillvisible. In St. Thomas we mostly noticed some missing roofs, usually thesheet metal roofs, in a few areas. There were really not that many and St. Thomas seems to have fully recovered and all the shoppingand attractions were open. St. Martin has the world famousOrient Beachwhere we’ve gone to every time we’ve been in St. Martin. Not this trip though. Orient Beachtook a direct hit from the hurricane and every low lying structure near thebeach is no more and one resort (the naked resort at the end of the beach) wastotally destroyed. I think the name of this resort is Club Orient. In Philipsburg on the Dutch side of theisland there were a number of smaller hotels where the roofs were gone andwindows blown out but they are being rebuilt. The majority of the shopping and restaurants were open for business. Wewere there on a Thursday and there were a total of three ships in port thatday.

My wife loves this ship andshe says that the food is the best she’s ever had on any ship we’ve beenon. This was her third time on the RegalPrincess and my second time. The extracruise was a spring break cruise 2 years ago with her teacher friends. I refer to this as a cougar cruise. Since I’mnot a foodie, I consider every meal I’ve ever had on any ship to be good toexcellent. My biggest problem at dinneris the length of time it takes. We wereat the dining room, Allegro, every night at 5:45. We neverfinished dinner until 7:30so this was 1 hour and 45 minutes. Entirely too long for the portions of foodyou were being served. Our dining tablewas for 8 and we had delightful dinner companions. There was a retired snow bird couple from Cape Cod and another couple from the UK and the last couple was from Indiana. Lots oflaughs and good conversations during dinner.

Our balcony cabin, M 607,was on the Marina deck right below the Horizon buffet and the pool wason the same deck as the buffet but farther forward. Our location was midway between the aft andthe midship elevators. The passengercapacity of this ship is close to 3800 and the ship never felt crowded. The farthest we had to go was to the casinoand that was an easy trip. Mid-shipelevator to the piazza deck 6 then walk halfway around the piazza and you werethere.

Now on to the Casino: When I was first on this ship two years ago,I rated the craps table as unplayable due to the excessive bouncecharacteristic. I now find it to be playable but just barely. One thing new onthe table is the all-tall all-small bet. On the first night I found the dice tobe worn beyond what I would consider normal. I spoke to the Casino Manager,Jack, about this and he gave me a song and dance answer about their keepingtrack of the amount of play and that they never exceed 3 days of play on theship with a set of dice. After the first night the dice were fine for the restof the cruise so my talking to him about it may have lit a spark along withmentioning that I had discussed this issue with his boss at Princess’sheadquarters a few months ago.

Here are the throwingresults:

DAY #1 3/4 SUNDAY DICE SERIAL # 999

BOB 22 THROWS 2POINTS 1 CO WIN

BOB 4 THROWS

DAY #2 3/5 MONDAY

NO PLAY – CRAPS LESSON AT 8 PM FOLLOWED BY FULL TABLE

DAY #3 3/6 TUESDAY DICE SERIAL # 699

BOB 4 THROWS

BOB 5 THROWS 1 COWIN

BOB 16 THROWS 3POINTS

DAY #4 3/7 WEDNESDAY DICE SERIAL # 644

EVA 20 THROWS 3POINTS 1 CO WIN

BOB 6 THROWS

EVA 21 THROWS 1POINT 2 CO WINS

BOB 5 THROWS

DAY #5 3/8 THURSDAY DICE SERIAL # 655

EVA 8 THROWS 1POINT

BOB 11 THROWS

BOB 18 THROWS 1POINT

BOB 19 THROWS 4POINTS

BOB 5 THROWS 2 COWINS

BOB 9 THROWS 1 POINT

BOB 9 THROWS 2POINTS

DAY #6 3/9 FRIDAY DICE SERIAL # ???

EVA 15 THROWS 2POINTS 1 CO WIN

BOB 10 THROWS 1POINT 2 CO WIN

DAY #7 3/10 SATURDAY DICE SERIAL # ???

EVA 9 THROWS

BOB 9 THROWS 2 COWIN

EVA 16 THROWS 3POINTS

I only played 15 hands forthe whole week. Eva played 6 hands forthe week but she didn’t start playing until day #4.

Why so few hands? Almostevery night the table would fill with players within 15 minutes of opening. Iwas always the first one there but the table typically would open at 8:30. Thursday was the only good night where the hordedidn’t show up immediately upon opening and I was able to get in 6 hands. Thiswas also my best performing night where I made 8 points.

I made 14 points in the 15hands with 8 come out wins. Eva made 10 points in her 6 hands with 4 come outwinds. Eva was the star at craps with anaverage roll length of 14.83 throws per hand. I only wish that she had beenplaying from night number 1. Betweenboth of us we were up around $190 at craps for the cruise.

The cruise was great. We hada relaxing time and the weather was decent. We will be going on this ship again on November 1st when itsails out of NY and repositions to Fort Lauderdale. Hopefully there won’t be as many craps players onthat cruise.

Dicenator

Nice work dicenator! I've been working on dice control. My daughter actually did her science fair project about the subject. I am not sure I have the dexterity or impulse control to become world class unfortunately.