Enchantment of the seas -august 2013

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TRIP REPORT

ENCHANTMENT OF THE SEAS - AUGUST 2013

This cruise was a 4 nighter departing from Port Canaveral, Florida, on Monday August 19th. It was a prelude to our 7 night cruise on the Carnival Dream with our friends from Canada. The destinations were not that exciting being only Nassau and the cruise lines private island called Coco Cay.

In Nassau we did something different. We went to the Sheraton hotel at Cable beach and spent $25 each for a day pass. This gave us access to their pools and beach and changing facilities for the day. To get there we took the public bus system instead of a cab. The cost was $1.25 each instead of the $5 each for a taxi. For anyone who is interested it is the #10 bus which you pick up right behind the straw market. The Sheraton is located right next to the Wyndham which has the Crystal casino. We planned to stop there for a little while until we found out that the table games are only open on holiday weekends. For future reference a huge condo complex is being built right before you get to the Sheraton and it will have a casino. The projected completion date is late 2014.

The next day after Nassau was the private island which is essentially a beach day. My wife had hurt her left leg the week before our trip and the walk from the tender dock to the beach was over rough terrain and was too far for her so we stayed on the ship and enjoyed the pool.

At dinner we were seated at a 10 person table and shared it with a family from Belgium. They were John and Ingrid and their 2 teenage sons, Lars and Nick. They all spoke English fairly well and we enjoyed sharing dinner with them. The service was good and quick and the food is always extremely good on Royal Caribbean ships.

The casino was the same as I reported on back in January of this year when we were on this ship. Other than craps I played some Ultimate Texas hold em and won $120 one afternoon. I also played a little while each day at the slots with no success. My wife Eva played everything as usual with no success and lost probably around $400 to $500. Fortunately, the craps table was as good as it was back in January and we managed a win of $534 in the 4 days so everything balanced out.

There were quite a few craps players on this cruise with all of them being shake and bake throwers and I don't recall any of them getting on a good roll of 20 or more throws. With the number of players I found that I left the table quite often due to the number of players exceeding 6 at the table. The other thing that this affected was my ability to shoot from stick left. This was where I had such good success in January. For the 4 days I only played 5 hands from SL. The craps table was 12 feet long with a green textured micro fiber surface and the bounce was normal in every way. Royal Caribbean only allows 1X odds but they do have all of the prop bets. None of the dealers in the whole casino were the same as the ones in January. However they were all good and friendly and there was no heat at the craps table for anyone.

Here are the throwing results for me and Eva:

PLAYER POSITION #THROWS POINTS CO WINS

DAY #1

EVA END 9 2

BOB SR 9

EVA END 6

BOB SR 13 1

EVA END 5 1

BOB SR 31 7 3

BOB SR 6

BOB SR 11 1

BOB SR 22 4 1

DAY #2

BOB SR 6

EVA END 9 1 1

BOB SR 18 3 2

EVA END 5 2

BOB SR 11 1

BOB SR 9

BOB SR 9 1 1

BOB SR 12 1 2

BOB SR 9 1 3

DAY #3

EVA END 11 1 1

EVA END 25 2 3

BOB SR 7

BOB SR 6

BOB SR 6 1

BOB SL 8 1 1

BOB SL PARR 9 4

BOB SR 6

BOB SR 9 1

BOB SR 6

DAY #4

BOB SR 6

BOB SR 3

BOB SR 13 1

EVA END 6 1 1

BOB SL 8

BOB SL 8

BOB SL PARR 10 1

BOB SR 28 3 3

EVA END 7

BOB SR 16 2 3

Eva made 7 points in 9 hands with 9 come out winners. I made 29 points in 29 hands with 24 come out winners. Despite there being many hands in the single digits which I consider to be mediocre, the vast majority of them had at least 2 paying hits which generates a small profit. In fact out of the 38 hands total we only had losses on 3 of them.

I was disappointed in my throwing. Sure I had some really good hands with 31 throws and 28 throws and an 18 and a 22, but it should have been more than that. I didn't practice very much before this cruise due to home projects again and I didn't do any practicing on the ship. I guess that I was over confident due to my previous experience on this ship. The only other factor that I think affected my results is that I never really got to stay at the table for too long before having to leave due to too many players. The longest stretch of play I had before leaving was 4 hands. So it was difficult to get in and stay in a groove.

I would sail on this ship again if the opportunity presents itself.

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