Cruise Ship Poker?

[tennisjump]

Hello, going on a cruise to Alaska through Holland America, wondering if they normally have poker in casinos on cruise ships?

[Photoc]

Call the cruise line and see if they have a poker room. Lots of cruises lease out space to independant poker companies.

[woodsman1]

And I'm planning an Alaska trip next summer on Princess, so any information on Princess' Alaska ships (Coral, Island, Diamond, Sapphire) would be welcome as well.

[LasVegasMichael]

I cruised on Sapphire Princess to Mexico this past January, and they had one Hold'em table that went every day from about noon to about 1AM.

4/8LHE. No autoshufflers, and the dealers are the slowest I have ever seen (they are not poker dealers, but rotate with the pit crew).

BUT, the game was the easiest 4/8 I have EVER played. Ended winning over 1K from the week and only played a couple hours every day.

Call the Ocean Players Club to see which ships have hold'em tables. It was brand new to Sapphire. Only a few ships, at the time, had it.

Other problem, aside from dealing staff, was the waitlist. If you weren't down there when the table started, the list would take 2-3 hours to go through/get a seat.

Good luck!

[woodsman1]

Thanks Michael. We will probably be on the Island Princess, because its schedule works best for us.

We took the Grand Princess out of Galveston a couple of years ago and they had a decent low limit room set up in a corner of the casino with 4 tables. There was at least 1 or 2 2/4 games all afternoon and evening every day, with 3 or 4 games going sometimes in the evenings. Most of the players were beginners, and there was no real interest in any games higher than very casual 2/4 games, much like Flamingo.

The dealers were good, friendly, helpful, and sometimes even overly patient with a few slow drunk players who could barely find their chips.

The poker room became a focal point on that ship that week. The dealers said they had just started the poker program (Dec 2004) on that ship, and were also migrating to some of the larger Carnival ships (same company) to start poker programs on them.

It seems surprising that Vegas style poker would not be a required feature on all the big cruise ships by this point, because, from what I saw on the one ship, it was very much a hit, and it helped make that week a lot more fun for all of us who played.

[FeliciaLee]

http://www.oceanplayersclub.com/news/article.asp?nid=7

[Boolt]

The newest Royal Carribean (Freedom of the Seas) boat has a dedicated poker area. I'll be on there in September, looking forward to some easy games but I bet the rake is horrible.

Here is a pic I found on someone's gallery.

http://honeymoons.about.com/od/freedomof...-Casino-Pit.htm