1M Slot Tournament - Carnival Cruise Ship

Just got back from the 1M dollar slot tournament held on the Carnival Mardis Gras. I was pleasantly surprised on how well run the tournament was, cycling 1600-ish players through 20 machines with 3 minute sessions. Of course, it was held over multiple days.

My brother and I both played, he got out of the 1st round but his luck stopped in the second round. Unfortunately, I was ONE and DONE.







The Mardis Gras is one of the newest and largest in their fleet.





It may be a little hard to see, but there is a small roller coaster up on the top deck. A pleasant surprise was having a full size flat screen TV in a regular cabin:



Here is an example typical of my luck gambling in the casino:



Here is an example of someone else's luck, back to back RF's:



I was disappointed that the "Flag Ship" of the Carnival fleet repeated some of their shows on different nights, I have not seen that before on any cruise. However, unlike my last Carnival cruise where Boarding was a DISASTER, this time it was the exact opposite, very fast and efficient, so good job there.



A nice bonus was seeing a SPACEX launch from Kennedy Space Center a few hours after we debarked (?)
disembarked (?)
got off the ship:

Been on Mardi Gras twice. Absolutely love it.

More misc ramblings and pix:

Carnival is still struggling with their Sports Bar programming. On Day 1, we could watch unranked Arkansas vs Liberty or Navy vs Cincinatti, but NOT #1 Georgia vs #3 Tennessee. That's disappointing if you are a College Football fan.

Lots of CRICKET on the TV, though. Aaaarrrggghhh.



There was an Early Bird drawing in the Casino on Sea days, and for the first dwg or two of the morning the casino wasn't very crowded. I heard a couple of people hit the $ 1000 prize.



Old and New:



There are Donkeys roaming around Grand Turk, apparently descendants of the ones that worked the Salt Industry once upon a time:



A couple of more Show Pix:





I didn't get around to using this, haha:



And its just not a Carnival Cruise without the daily Towel Animal:

I won a free Carnival cruise from my local casino. I will try to book it on Mardi Gras or their other new ship.

I found my experience on Carnival Horizon a couple years ago exceeded my low expectations for Carnival as a line.

Princess, on the other hand, has gone downhill. It tended to attract an older crowd who prefer traditional cruising experience with high standard of quality. The buffet used to be the best - especially the gourmet desserts. But on my last Princess cruise, the food was terrible - worse than Carnival. Downgrading food quality seems to be a deliberate strategy to force people who want a good meal to pay for a premium restaurant.

I also have a free cruise coming from MGM on Royal Caribbean. I've always wanted to experience an Oasis class ship.

Quote: JohnnyQ

More misc ramblings and pix:

Carnival is still struggling with their Sports Bar programming. On Day 1, we could watch unranked Arkansas vs Liberty or Navy vs Cincinatti, but NOT #1 Georgia vs #3 Tennessee. That's disappointing if you are a College Football fan.

The Liberty Arkansas game was much better than the Georgia Tennessee game. Arkansas down 21-0 comes back to lose 21-19.

JohnnyQ, did you ride the roller coaster?

I thought about it but they had one you could sit in as a demo and it wasn't comfortable to me. Maybe next time.

Quote: JohnnyQ

I thought about it but they had one you could sit in as a demo and it wasn't comfortable to me. Maybe next time.
link to original post

It was a one-and-done for me. Fun to experience the first time and say I’ve done it, but very short and not really worth the $15.

My first cruise was in 1975 on the Statendam. The passenger limit was around 800 and we sailed with 667 guests. A few years later, I cruised on the Rotterdam, which held over 1,000 guests. I thought the extra people ruined the trip.
The Rotterdam I sailed on is now scrapped and the new Rotterdam has over 1,000 cabins and can hold almost 5,000 people.
I have zero interest in a cruise with that many people on board. The Statendam didn't have any gambling on it, and the Rotterdam had the tiniest casino, two tables, and a dozen or so slot machines.

For a ship this size, I think they handled the # of passengers very well. I would not hesitate to take this ship again.

- The boarding process was super fast.

- The process to leave was also fast, especially if you are willing to carry off your own luggage.

- - We did.

- The casino did get crowded in the evening.....

- - BUT I think the slot tournament brought in a lot more players than usual.

- - The casino was pretty much empty early in the morning around 7 am.

- - On ALL the various cruise ships I have been on, they could all use another bank of VP machines.

- - The 6/5 BJ tables sometimes fill up, but I think a spot at the 3/2 $ 25 table was always available.

- There was a line to get into the main dining hall, but that dissipated every day in about 5 minutes.

- Our food service was excellent.

- - One night we had to "dine and dash" to get to the slot tournament.....

- - so we just mentioned that to the waiters.....

- - and we had our appetizers, main course, and dessert served and eaten in 1/2 an hour.



source: https://carnival-news.com/ship/carnival-mardis-gras/

I like sitting out on deck, but the modern ships all have private balconies instead.

Balconies are very popular. It is easy to identify an old ship because it may only have 2 floors of balconies.

I think getting a prime spot by the pool may be hard, but I saw lots and lots of open deck chairs on the Mardi Gras.

Quote: JohnnyQ

Balconies are very popular. It is easy to identify an old ship because it may only have 2 floors of balconies.

I think getting a prime spot by the pool may be hard, but I saw lots and lots of open deck chairs on the Mardi Gras.
link to original post

Holland American used to give ridiculous discounts for third and fourth people in rooms. It was actually cheaper for four people to book a suite than to book two cabins. When I booked a suite on the Rotterdam, they upgraded us to a suite with a balcony, one of only a dozen or so balconies on the ship.

My kids got to go on their first cruise with a 3rd/4th Sail Free promotion !

Is there any multi game cabinets, bar tops? any blackjack machines?

Quote: rainman

Is there any multi game cabinets, bar tops? any blackjack machines?

Yes, No, and Yes.

There were about 7 VP machines with 7/5 Jacks or Better that had Spin Poker, Ult X, Super Times Pay, Blackjack, and Keno. I usually played the 6/5 Bonus Poker.

And there were about 7 machines that offered standard VP the with 6/5 JoB paytable, and some of these ( maybe all ) did not have the Royal Flush Bonus unless 10 coins were played.

Most machines had 10 cent, quarter, and dollar denoms. They all had the usual offerings, JoB, Bonus Poker, Deuces Wild, etc.

And of course there were many, many Slot Machines in the Casino.

ooops, dupe post.

Thanks for the report, JQ! We must have passed each other somewhere in the Atlantic. We just got back yesterday from a short cruise (made shorter by Nicole!) on the Carnival Elation. We were supposed to board on Thursday, but the port was closed. We ended up setting sail about 7 PM on Friday. Always hate missing cruising time, but it was pretty cool sailing out of the port at night.

Wondering if we will clear the Dames Point Bridge...



I assume you were far enough south that the hurricane didn't disrupt your voyage?

Glad to hear that the service was good. I had read reviews that service was an issue (long lines everywhere onboard) on some of the earlier sailings, but I guess they got that worked out.

Did you try any of the dining options outside of the Main Dining Room? I see that there are many both free and pay restaurants on the Mardi Gras.

VP question: Do all the single-line games require 10 coins to get the 800-for-1 royal payout? This was the case on the Elation as far as I could tell, but not on the Miracle earlier this year. (FYI, the Elation had 12 single-line games and only 2 All-Star games. Glad to see the Mardi Gras has a better ratio!)

UX was very kind to me this trip:

Quote: JohnnyQ

And its just not a Carnival Cruise without the daily Towel Animal:

Is it me, or does he look pi$$ed?!

I only ate dinner once in the Main Dining Room on Mardi Gras (formal night for the lobster), they have so many good free options.

Guys BBQ or Chibang were my usual go-tos for dinner. Absolutely delicious.

The pulled pork and brisket, so good:

Quote: Joeman

VP question: Do all the single-line games require 10 coins to get the 800-for-1 royal payout? This was the case on the Elation as far as I could tell, but not on the Miracle earlier this year. (FYI, the Elation had 12 single-line games and only 2 All-Star games. Glad to see the Mardi Gras has a better ratio!)

Yes, I think the "single-line" games all required 10 coins for the 800-1 and were 6/5 JoB instead of 7-5, so a double whammy.

- On All-Star Spin Poker, you can play only 1 line if you want and that has the standard 5 coin RF bonus.

The ELATION is a much smaller ship than the Mardis Gras, but it sounds like it has about the same # of VP machines. I was able to play plenty of the better not as bad VP paytable on the cruise, but there were times ( especially in the evening ) when all the decent machines were in use. So I would just come back later.

I hope I continue to get good cruise offers in the future.

The last cruise I took was a reward from my boss/partner. We were renovating a club, and he bought me, the clubs' manager, three employees, and their spouses along. Two of the women were recent immigrants from Peru and didn't seem to grasp the whole cruising as a vacation concept. Two days in, they discovered the all-day sandwich shop that put about a pound of meat on each sandwich.
I came to find out they bought a cooler in one of the ports, stockpiled meat the rest of the journey, and took about thirty pounds of it home with them.

Quote: Joeman

We just got back yesterday from a short cruise (made shorter by Nicole!) on the Carnival Elation. We were supposed to board on Thursday, but the port was closed. We ended up setting sail about 7 PM on Friday. Always hate missing cruising time, but it was pretty cool sailing out of the port at night.

I assume you were far enough south that the hurricane didn't disrupt your voyage?

Carnival did a pretty decent job keeping us informed about Tropical Storm / Hurricane Nicole. They showed the expected storm track on one of the TV channels, and I think we were always 1 or 2 days behind it on our way back to Port Canaveral. We arrived in Port on Saturday, a day after your cruise started.

I was supposed to leave NY on a Saturday afternoon on a 7-day cruise. Hurricane Floyd hit, and we were delayed about 12 hours. Calls in Boston and St John were canceled, and half the passengers disembarked in Hamilton and took planes home. The return trip was spectacular as the seas the day after a storm are special. I believe they gave us all a $50 onboard credit and a 25% off a future cruise.
I thought they should have done more for us. Most of the shows were canceled, and we missed two ports of call. I wrote them and got a form letter back. It soured me on Carnival but if the right criuse/price combo comes up, I'd consider it.