Carnival pride trip report 9/30/12-10/7/12

[Dicenator]

CARNIVAL PRIDE TRIP REPORT 9/30/12-10/7/12

This cruise was a last minute decision made only 4 weeks ago. My wife decided that after a year of intense pressure planning our daughters wedding, which was on Sept. 22nd that she needed some major downtime. We wanted to keep the cost down so we chose the Carnival Pride which left from Baltimore. This was only a 3 hour drive from our home in New Jersey. The cruise port is right off of Rt. 95 South at the first exit after you go through the Fort McHenry tunnel. The itinerary wasn't that great being Port Canaveral, Nassau and Freeport. Freeport was the only new stop for us as we've been in Port Canaveral and Nassau on previous cruises.

The ship is a mid-size ship being only 88,000 tons with a passenger capacity of about 2200. It was a sister ship to the Carnival Legend that we were on in August of last year. The decorations on the ship were Renaissance themes with a lot of pictures and wall murals of naked cherubs and naked Renaissance women. The first 2 days were at sea days as we traveled to Port Canaveral. Unfortunately, both days were overcast and our plans to lay out at the Serenity pool and soak up some sun were shot. When we arrived at Port Canaveral on Wednesday morning we stayed on the ship. There is absolutely nothing near the cruise port terminal area and I've done the air boat adventure and the boat tour to see manatees on our previous stops there. The weather was nice and I did get the morning in by the pool.

On Thursday we docked in Nassau at 11 am. What we did here was go to the British Colonial Hilton on a day pass. This cost $50 each and got us access to their beach and pool for the whole day. This also included a $30 each voucher for lunch and a few drinks each. It was a very nice quiet place which was within walking distance of the cruise ship dock. This was the first time we've ever done any swimming in the Bahamas and the water temperature was 84 F. The ship left port at 7 PM on the way to Freeport on Grand Bahama Island which is only about 60 miles directly east from Fort Lauderdale. The cruise port in Freeport is in an industrial area with mostly cargo freighters docked there. Your first impression is not too positive if this is your first time here. We took a $5 taxi to the Lucuya Marketplace which was about a 20 minute drive from the port. Once you get outside the dock area the island is beautiful. The highways were all landscaped with manicured grass and it was a nice scenic drive. The Lucuya market was comprised of jewelry and clothes stores, a lot of restaurants and a large number of straw market open air shops. The vendors in the straw market shops were very aggressive which was a turn off for me. At 9:30 in the morning the Treasure Bay casino opened which was right across the street from the marketplace. It is the only casino on Grand Bahama Island. Only the slots were open and the table games weren't opening until 11 AM. Most of the table games were blackjack but what was interesting is that the dealer would have to stay on a soft 17. I haven't seen that in years. There were 2 craps tables both being 14 feet long with a felt layout. I have no idea about the bounce. The ship left Freeport at 1:30 PM on the way back to Baltimore. On the trip back the ship was cruising at 24 knots which is 27+ mph. So Saturday was the final sea day and again it was overcast and it actually rained for a short time in the morning. At least the weather was nice for the 3 days we were in the different ports.

There were very few kids of school age on this cruise but there were a tremendous number of Chinese passengers probably close to 25% of the total passengers. I like Asians but when they travel they are in groups and they would stop in the middle of a hallway to chat completely oblivious to the fact that they were blocking everybody else from getting by them.

Now for the craps part of this tale. The table was 12 feet long with a blue colored micro fiber. This micro fiber had a slight texture to it similar to that I experienced on the Norwegian Gem last November. The bounce was neutral + if you kept your throws low and soft which I was the only shooter on the ship who could manage this. The playing conditions for me were the worst I've ever run across anywhere on land or sea that I've ever played at.

First - On Sunday night when I first bought in it started before I even got my hands on the dice. As soon as I put my notepad and pen on the chip rail the box girl said I can't have them there. I said "are you kidding me, I just got off the Carnival Valor 3 weeks ago and they said nothing. I then said this was my 7th Carnival cruise with no problems on the earlier 6 of them. I then told her I wanted the Casino Manager. He came over and agreed with the box girl. I was really angry now and was saying OK if that's what you want I'll slow the game down because after every throw I'll reach down to grab my pad and pen pull them up to the chip rail record my throw and then return them to the drink rail and then I'll make my throw. The Casino Manager was saying something about it being a security concern. When I asked him to describe what kind of security concern he couldn't. My wife intervened and explained to him what I do and then it was OK. Well it wasn't OK with me because I was angry and having an adrenalin rush. I tried my first hand and during this hand a rookie Chinese player got to my right and was bumping my shoulder and then he wanted to make a bet on the 2 so what does he do but come to my left and squeeze between me and the stickman to place his bet right on the circled 2 in the field box. This hand ended on the 8th throw and I had enough sense to leave because of the adrenalin rush.

About 2 hours later my wife and I went back to the table. I was calm enough now I felt to throw the dice. I left my notebook in my pocket and mentally counted my throws. I just wanted to prove that I could still throw the dice after all the previous problems. My hand was 20 throws with 4 points made and 2 come out winners. I then colored in and that was it for the evening.

Second - The dealers at the craps table were the coldest least friendly I've ever had at a table I've been playing at. Now I don't mean tables where you are at new casino playing for the first time and they don't know you. This was a table that you were playing at for 7 straight days. They made it no fun to play there. These two factors created such a negative impression on me that I didn't want to play. It took me almost 3 days to overcome this feeling.

Third - For all the hours the craps table was open it was only fully manned with 3 people no more than 25% of the time. On a typical night the table would open at 8 PM with just the left side open. The 3rd dealer wouldn't show up until 9 or 9:30. Here is what would typically happen. The left side only would be open and would get filled with players. When they did finally open the right side, my SR1 position would be open but there were 5 or 6 players shooting from the left side which is too many for me due to the waiting time between hands. So I would sit and wait and watch for some of these players to lose their money and leave. By the time this happened there would invariably be some new players who would occupy the SR shooting positions.

Let me give an example: On Friday the ship left Freeport at 1:30 PM heading back to Baltimore. The whole casino opened at 2:00 PM, everything but the craps table. Craps opened at 8 PM and this time the right side was open so I bought in at SR1. There was one other player other than me and he got the dice first and had around a 10 throw hand and then the dice were mine. They were new dice and felt slippery and I never felt that I had a good grip. Despite this I had a 27 throw hand. Based on past experience I colored in and decided that the best thing to do would be to wait for the dice to get about an hours worth of playing time on them before I would go back. Between 8:30 and 10 PM there was practically no play at all on the dice. Around 10 PM the right side only was open so all the players who showed up were there. I waited until 11:30 and never got a chance to buy in at SR1 or SR2. So for the whole day I only managed to throw one hand.

For the whole week I only had 17 hands with my Underhand throw from SR1. A few times I tried throwing from SL1 and what I would do is start with a left handed underhand throw for one hand. The next hand I would use a Parr throw followed by a Push shot throw for a hand. This to me was only practicing so I bet very little while doing this. I'm not going to report my results but my average roll length was around 10 throws per hand and would have been much better if I concentrated on only one throwing method. Money wise I would say that this throwing from SL which covered 13 hands resulted in a profit of $100.

Here are my throwing results with my primary throw which is Underhand from SR1:

DAY 1

8 THROWS 1 POINT 1 COME OUT WIN

20 THROWS 4 POINTS 2 COME OUT WINS

DAY 2

21 THROWS 2 POINTS 3 COME OUT WINS

17 THROWS 1 POINT

DAY 3

8 THROWS

11 THROWS 1 POINT

20 THROWS 2 POINTS

DAY 4

8 THROWS 1 POINT

11 THROWS 1 POINT

8 THROWS 1 COME OUT WIN

10 THROWS 1 COME OUT WIN

20 THROWS 2 POINTS 1 COME OUT WIN

DAY 5

25 THROWS 3 POINTS 2 COME OUT WINS

8 THROWS 2 POINTS

16 THROWS 2 POINTS 2 COME OUT WINS

13 THROWS 1 POINT 1 COME OUT WIN

DAY 6

27 THROWS 2 POINTS

DAY 7

NO HANDS THROWN FOR THE WHOLE DAY

My Average Roll Length for the 17 hands was 14.765 throws per hand.

I made 25 points in 17 hands for an average of 1.47 points per hand.

My win for the week was $400 but I gave that back playing blackjack, poker and slots due to all the idle time that I had waiting for the proper opportunity to play craps.

What was interesting is that each day that I played I had a 20 throw hand.

Again I was the only DI but 2 random rollers had the longest hands of the week with both of them being around 35 throws. I got in on the tail end of both of these hands and made some money but neither one of them was able to repeat that performance.

I found the table to be very good for my Ultra slow and easy throw particularly over the last 2 days where I found that I was hitting my landing zone with better accuracy than earlier in the week. In the early part of the week I had a few hands where I threw the dice into the corner sort of like a pulled golf shot and a few where I made short throws resulting in 7 outs.

The cruise overall was very good and I liked the ship but since 50% of my enjoyment on the cruise comes from my craps play I would overall rate this ship as a never cruise on it again. My wife for the whole week only played no more than 5 hands at craps. Most of the time she was on the Poker Pro electronic Texas Hold em game. She came in 4th out of 10 places in the 2 tournaments (out of the money). During the week she got a straight flush at 3 card poker, hit her number (17) at roulette with a 8 chip bet on it and she also won $250 at blackjack one session. She was also up about $200 from her poker play for the week. Overall I was a breakeven and she was the winner.

Dicenator

[BeachyBrowns]

... My wife for the whole week only played no more than 5 hands at craps. Most of the time she was on the Poker Pro electronic Texas Hold em game. She came in 4th out of 10 places in the 2 tournaments (out of the money). ... She was also up about $200 from her poker play for the week. Overall I was a breakeven and she was the winner.

 

Dicenator

 

Can we get a poker report from your wife? :o

[sailor_jimc]

Hey dicenator-

 

Just trying to make sure I understand your reporting system, when you say you had 20 throws, 4 point 2 come out wins, am I correct in that it means you made 4 repeat throws of a point number and then 2 pass line wins which would be in addition to the 4 points?

 

Also, on your first day, you made the mistake of letting the dealers BS upset you - don't tap the dice, don't throw them that high, you can't stand on two feet and throw the dice... you can't look at me and then throw the dice... (ok I made up those last two comments)

I typically let them rant and throw the dice the way I want anyway. They say those things to do exactly what they did- make you mad and take you off your game.

[4hunters]

Thanks for the report, Dicenator. I really enjoyed reading the detailed craps report since that's my game as well.

[Dicenator]

sailor jimc,

 

My total throws for a hand start counting with the initial come out throw and end with the 7 out. The average craps player get right around 8 throws per hand versus my 14.76 throws per hand average.

 

Whatever point number I establish during a hand if I make it then I count that as 1 point made. A come out win is whenever I make a 7 or an 11 on the come out throw. I intentionally set the dice in the all 7 dice set for my come out throws. For my point cycle throws after I establish the point I use a hard way dice set.

 

The average craps player will make 1 point every 2 hands whereas I averaed 1.4+ points per hand.

 

 

Dicenator

[sailor_jimc]

Dicenator- Thanks.. that makes perfect sense to me now. I totally forgot about winning on a 7/11 as a possibility (duh...)

[barneco]

I was on the same itinerary on the Pride in May. This was a VIP gambling cruise, but my comments hold true as it was similar to my cruise on the Pride two years previously. Actually, it is the same on all of my Carnival cruises.

 

When I am on a cruise I play craps every evening (right after the early dinner seating). We usually get there by 7:30 PM and either the table is already open or is just opening. On the evening before a sea day, I always ask the pit boss what time the Craps table will open the next day. Most of the time they tell me 12:30 or 1:00 and many times they have asked what time would I like it to open. I generally play between $50 and $75 per "hand". On most of my cruises I cruise with my brother and we both play and see similar times.

 

I guess what I am saying is that by asking the pit boss, they seem to be willing to accommodate my play. Most of the early times there may only be one side open and some times there is just the stickman and the pit boss does the dealing until they can get some one else there. I have seen them close empty blackjack tables to bring a crew to the craps table.

 

One other thing, I found the casino staff to usually to be pretty good and very friendly. Biggest problem I had on my last cruise is that the bar staff seemed to want to ignore me :)

 

Barry