When it came to tables, they had Blackjack starting at $6 minimum. If you accumulated 5,000 points you could also choose to redeem that for $100 towards your bill it used to be a lower requirement but the casino host on board told me that had changed as part of the return to sailing. Like before, $5 of coin-in on slots was worth a point, and every 250 points was worth $5 in free play. One of the machines had an auto-hold, and at least one of the machines had a $400 cash cap, hilarious given the potential $25 hands some could play. Video Poker was tough like other ships 6/5 on quarters for Jacks or Better, moving to 7/5 at $1 and 8/5 at the $5 denomination. And many penny machines would go up to dimes. I found games like Blazing 7s that had quarters to $2 denomination, for instance. There were only a few machines, recent vintage Wheel of Fortune machines, that were locked in at the $1 denomination. There were a lot of older machines overall, but there were specifically banks of some popular games like Mighty Cash, Dancing Drums/Double Blessings, Heidi’s Bier Haus, River Dragons, Lock it Link (Piggy Bankin’ and Hold On to Your Hat) and Golden Egypt.Ī good chunk of machines on the ship were multi-denomination, an easy way to sidestep the need for high limit specific machines. The casino felt like a Royal Caribbean casino. With this setup, all the machines were on, no plexiglass was to be found, and tables were available at full capacity (we had 7 chairs at the Blackjack table my group favored throughout the cruise). It also made the space a masks optional area. Royal Caribbean has designated the casino a vaccinated-only space, meaning only vaccinated individuals were allowed into the casino to gamble. Despite the extra room left for things like social distancing, it was not difficult to get into various venues for shows or activities, to take advantage of things like the water slides on the boat, and of course play in the casino.

Our ship was under 50 percent capacity, and given that it was such a different experience.

This was a remarkably different cruise than anything I’ve taken in the past, which makes sense given the current CDC recommendations for ships. My recent visit to Miami was due to a cruise I took earlier this month on Freedom of the Seas.

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