Pickleball on Emerald Princess

[rideev]

On the Emerald for a couple weeks.  Here are my thoughts on pickleball on here.  The court looks great, but that's where it ends.  There is not even onion room to do a legal serve as you can't get behind the baseline.  To let the return bounce, of it is a deep return, good luck.  The ball sometimes bounces, and sometimes it just does where it hits.  When I brought out a good X-40, it worked a little better.  They have paddles and balls, so if your coming, I would leave mine at home and use theirs.  You will see why as you continue to read.  All in all, it was fun the first day as we only had 4 show up and they were all pickleball players.  The next few days, more and more showed up.  But with only one court and doing a lot of teaching during the games, you had to sit out quite a bit.

[Robbie555]

Did you play in its tournaments and win an award such as the elusive Princess medal - similar to the other sports tournaments such as table-tennis, basketball, golf, and cornhole?

[voljeep]

Now the addictive sport is coming to the high seas. Holland America Line has just been christened the Official Cruise Line of the Professional Pickleball Association (PPA).

[rideev]

5 hours ago, Robbie555 said:

Did you play in its tournaments and win an award such as the elusive Princess medal - similar to the other sports tournaments such as table-tennis, basketball, golf, and cornhole?

They haven't had pickleball as a competition yet.  I think that would be too difficult to pull off with one court.  Also, the court is terrible to play on.

[Robbie555]

On 12/27/2022 at 4:07 PM, rideev said:

They haven't had pickleball as a competition yet.  I think that would be too difficult to pull off with one court.  Also, the court is terrible to play on.

Since there's not too many players, then having a pickeball tournament on one court is feasible - just like how there was only one ping pong table with at least 15 players, but yet Shell managed to properly organize the tournament.

[FurnitureMike]

Does anyone have an update to Pickleball aboard the Emerald Princess? We are going next March 2024 and would really like to play! 

[rideev]

I don't have an update... But based on the area that they have, I don't see any way to fix the problem on length.  They could take up the flooring and play on the steel deck, but I doubt they do it.  We played quite a bit on the ship, but it was less than desirable on that ship.  Just got off the Regal and it has two decent courts.

[Zubsin]

How do they manage the court? Are there sign ups or just put your paddles on the "screen"?

[rideev]

No, people just showed up and lined up.  It just wasn't very good on that ship.  Have been on a few others and no one really ruins things.  Kind of like showing up at a public court on land.

 

This last week on am RCL ship, they played games to 9, then 4 off 4 on.  There were 3 courts and the waiting wasn't too bad.  But the courts were too short.  But it was something to do.

[janchor]

We were just on the Emerald in December. The court is extremely small. You have to step into the court to serve. Only a few people playing so not an issue getting to play. The biggest problem was the extreme wind we had every day. Playing was a challenge!

[rideev]

22 hours ago, janchor said:

We were just on the Emerald in December. The court is extremely small. You have to step into the court to serve. Only a few people playing so not an issue getting to play. The biggest problem was the extreme wind we had every day. Playing was a challenge!

Did they have that hexagonal mat still?  The one that you didn't know if the ball was going to bounce or not?  LOL

[deja moo]

As of a month ago they had the hexagonal mats. We did not play pickle ball but shot some baskets. What I did like was having the ping pong inside in half the conference room forward deck seven.

[janchor]

Yes! They are a bit strange!

[Zubsin]

Thanks for the comments.  We will at least attempt to play....it's something to do on the 3 days at sea.