Going on a cruise...

[Supwithbates]

Royal Caribbean's Sovereign of the Seas. Supposedly it offers poker tables including Texas Hold'em, anyone have any experience/know what limits it offers? Also, is the rake going to be much worse than in a typical casino?

[chev9]

I was on Royal Caribbean two summers ago, don't remember which ship but it was Boston to Bermuda. The poker was awful. First night, I sit to play and the very first hand I get a big hand, try to raise and the dealer tells me that the only person that can raise is the Big Blind when it gets to them. What?!?!? He says, yeah this is Texas Holdem. Oh thanks, can I talk to the floor person? Floor person comes over and confims the story. A couple of people are rolling their eyes, and at least half the table really believe this is the way it's played.

Also, the rake was $5 per hand, table was 5-10 limit (only one table on this boat). If everyone folded to the BB, the rake was still $5, so you would lose $3 in that situation if you won that hand. Fortunately, since nobody could raise, everyone saw every flop anyway and this wasn't an issue.

The next night, they were playing real Holdem rules and raising was allowed, but the rake still sucked and the crazy rule of $5 every hand without limit on pot size still stood.

Anyway, in spite of all of this, the games were unbelievably bad and my wife and I almost paid for all onboard expenses in two nights of playing on that cruise.

[dcasper70]

My experience on RC

[UbinTook]

We traveled the Caribean on the Navigator of the Seas which had two "pokertek" tables. They ran 4/8 holdem at 10 per hand.and 3/6 occasionaly spread at 8 a hand.
Have fun : /

A Blackjack paid 6 for 5, craps had 1x odds (except for the last night where the went wild and offered 4x).

There is more than enough to do, you wont miss the casino.

[Supwithbates]

cliffnotes trip report:

It only had 2/5 NLHE, which I was not at all rolled for
players were probably about what you'd expect for a 25NL table on stars, pretty fishy and easy money. It was pretty much the same players that were in it at all times, and none of them were anything special. If you're rolled for it you could make off with a few buyins if you wanted to grind, but I really don't think I'd want to spend an entire cruise this way anyways. Probably just a night or two if I had the roll.

I told the casino floor manager as I walked out that he could have made serious monies from me and my friends had there been a .5/1 or even a 1/2 table (and pointed to one of 3 empty 3card caribbean stud poker tables, who the crap plays that), and he basically blew me off and laughed at me. Meh.

[holein_1]

For what it's worth...

I just got back from a cruise on the Century, with Celebrity Cruise Lines. They had 1 poker table, 1/2 NL, $200 max buy in. They rake was terrible, $15 max. They did not start the table til 10pm and usually shut down the casino around 3 am. Good thing was that most people were drunk and there was some good action.

Some of the guys were talking about the RC cruises only having limit, and 1 table as well.