Casino Chip of the Day

Quote: PokerGrinder

I am doing a loop of Ohio, couple Penn and WV casinos and Indiana. Also the last Illinois and Missouri chips that I don't have then headed down to Biloxi to grind the poker games there before collecting a bunch of chips in Mississippi and Louisiana and one in Arkansas and heading home. Basically the plan is to collect a huge amount of chips, take advantage of a bunch of freeplay and play poker most nights.

Good Luck PG! I am looking forward to the trip report! You are an early candidate for the 2016 "Iron Butt" award. Hehe... How many miles will you cover on this trip?

Quote: Ayecarumba

Good Luck PG! I am looking forward to the trip report! You are an early candidate for the 2016 "Iron Butt" award. Hehe... How many miles will you cover on this trip?

Haha Iron Butt award, I would display it proudly! I would ballpark it at about 4500 miles for the trip. I am hoping to add 59 new chips over the next few weeks. Since November 2014 I have added roughly 126 chips to my collection give or take a few. Hopefully the gambling G-ds are good to me for the next two weeks (and after lol).

leaving in 20 hours and I am still doing itinerary. Either we have become expert travelers where I don't worry about such a thing anymore or I am just lazy.

So far I have my first day planned.

Stopping at Luckys Card Room in Tampa, then to Hard Rock Tampa, then off to Showcase of Citrus for a monster truckish ride and orange picking. I am skipping the St Petersburg casino/card room because I already have a chip from there and it would add over an hour.

Sunday we will be in Magic Kingdom all day so no chips from there.

Monday we are going to an airboat ride in the Everglades. On the way there I am going to stop at Gator Games in Fort Meyers. I am not sure if they are still open. I can't find a website and chip guide has a ? as to close date. It is not far from the highway so I will roll the dice unless someone on here knows better. After there I am going to swing by the Naples track and get a chip there.

From there we will do the airboat ride. There is a casino in Immokolee sp?, but it would add 90 minutes to the trip and I don't think we would make our airboat appointment. If we leave orlando at 6 instead of 7 then I will get there as well.

After the airboat we are heading to Miami. There are about 12 chip opportunities in that area so I am having trouble making a game plan. We don't really have any plans in Miami other than visiting South Beach and possibly a ride down to Key Largo. I may have to just wait to see how much time we have.

Have a great trip GWAE! Looking forward to seeing pictures (hopefully) of the monster truck orange pickers and gators.

Quote: Ayecarumba

Have a great trip GWAE! Looking forward to seeing pictures (hopefully) of the monster truck orange pickers and gators.

Yes agreed have a great time GWAE and let me know about Gator games I have been 50/50 on that one being open for a year.

We will have a new chip of the day in the next couple of days if I get my butt in gear when I get home today.

Finally another chip collecting trip for me. Last one was June last year from Baltimore>Pittsburgh>Buffalo.

At about 60 chips toward filling up my 4th 99 chip frame.

Heading to AZ for the first time ever in less than 2 weeks. My current itinerary.. any missed casinos, or ones I'm visiting without chips, please help! Already found out the brand new Phoenix casino in Glendale is slots only. Not even poker apparently, so scratched that. Also reading that Hon-Dah, which was posted in this thread, stopped tables completely so I scratched that (unless I'm wrong).

FRI
in 1015am PHX

Casino Arizona
WILDHORSEPASS HOTEL & CASINO
Harrah's Phoenix Ak-Chin
(1h 1min driving 3 casinos)

Comped at Harrahs for the night. No dice is sad, hopefully have UTH at low limits or a nice VP bar to watch sports. I'll be packing a flask since drinks aren't comped LOL.

SAT
Harrah's Phoenix Ak-Chin
Fort McDowell Casino
Bucky's Casino
Cliff Castle Casino Hotel
Twin Arrows Navajo Casino Resort
(4h 37min driving 4 casino)

Twin Arrows should be a contribution to this thread since I guess it's relatively new and sounds nice. Staying the night there.

SUN
Twin Arrows Navajo Casino Resort
Mazatzal Hotel & Casino
Apache Gold Casino Resort (games open 3pm)
Desert Diamond Casino Sahuarita (if they have their own chips, will need to go to DD Tucson)
Casino Del Sol
((Desert Diamond Casino Tucson))
Airport Hotel
(6h 23min driving 4 or 5 casinos)

MON
out early from Tuscon airport

Ayecarumba you had mentioned that my list of all casinos/card rooms with chips available for collecting would be useful to other collectors so I posted it in a new thread. https://wizardofvegas.com/forum/questions-and-answers/all-other/24940-complete-chip-list/#post511555

Quote: PokerGrinder

We will have a new chip of the day in the next couple of days if I get my butt in gear when I get home today.

Well, I'm finally back home from my (miserable) trip and ready to update the index for this thread if someone will get around to posting new chips!
;-)

I picked up a few chips, but I haven't even started to dig the camera out for photos. Got home with a cold and plenty of crises to deal with first. Also need to do a little catching up on my WoV reading!

State: Mississippi
City: D'lberville
Casino: Scarlet Pearl

I fell a little bit behind on posting this, I have no good excuses just got lazy.

Today's chip of the day is from the Scarlet Pearl Casino in D'lberville, MS. Scarlet Pearl has 1350 slots and 45 tables and 10 poker games. The casino opened just over a month before I visited, it opened on December 9 of last year. Overall I loved my experience at Scarlet Pearl, they did a great job with it. To me it was like a cross between Wynn and Cosmo in Las Vegas. Really nice set up with the tables right down the middle of the casino. I didn't look too much into the variety or table limits as I played 6 deck and single deck BJ netting a $30 profit after being stuck quite a bit. The pit boss comped me a buffet for dinner for my play and was extremely friendly, as well I enjoyed all three of the dealers that I played with. Surprising how good the new staff is.

Now a few downsides. First the parking is a disaster, they haven't built their parking garage yet so they have a few lots across the street but they are packed and aren't big enough. Not that big a deal. I can't say for the other food options but the buffet was pretty below average. For the price that I paid (free) it was worth it but I seriously debate whether I would pay $10 to eat there and everyone else was paying $20. The food was barely warm in the middle of dinner hour and the selection was quite small. I found enough to make a meal out of but I wouldn't return on my own dollar.

The chip is a white RHC Paulson. The chip has two brown edge inserts. The centre inlay is redish white. The casino logo is at the top with the name and location in red. The denomination is in black.

Is it pronounced Die-Burr-vill, or Dibb-Er-vill, or something else?

Quote: Ayecarumba

Is it pronounced Die-Burr-vill, or Dibb-Er-vill, or something else?

I have never actually heard the word spoken but I have been saying as it looks D-Lib-urrville.

Wiki has a phonetic spelling something like Di-aibervill.
Pretty sure that requires a bayou accent..

It seems like ages since I have edited the index to this thread!

OK, so I have added Scarlet Pearl to the index, which proves that editing still works. I noticed that Post #1 now has a footnote saying, "Last edited by: Doc on Jan 31, 2016", which I suppose deals with some of the concerns that the owners/admins had about people editing posts later. This is the first time I have seen that kind of notation.


Edit 6/22/16: I now have my own Scarlet Pearl chip, just like the one PokerGrinder posted on the previous page. What I can contribute here/now is an image of the chip under UV light. A duplicate logo, duplicate denomination mark, and pseudo-duplicate (two line) casino name fluoresce on top of those that appear under visible light.

Quote: Doc

It seems like ages since I have edited the index to this thread!

OK, so I have added Scarlet Pearl to the index, which proves that editing still works. I noticed that Post #1 now has a footnote saying, "Last edited by: Doc on Jan 31, 2016", which I suppose deals with some of the concerns that the owners/admins had about people editing posts later. This is the first time I have seen that kind of notation.

That was a recommendation that I made that made a bunch of people upset. :-)

It's fine with me to have it noted that I have edited an old post. I just don't like being unable to correct errors that I find later or unable to update the CCotD index and things like that.

By the way, somewhere way back in PokerGrinder's trip report thread, I offered him a gift chip conditional upon us both attending some WoV event, such as a 2016 Spring Fling, perhaps in April. A couple of folks expressed some mild interest, but while I was out of town there doesn't seem to have been any further discussion of a group gathering. Who's up for organizing things for this year?

I would be very interested in a spring fling in Vegas. Maybe start a new thread for it?

The locals seem to pronounce it DEE-bair-vill, last I heard it. Kinda Cajun.

Quote: beachbumbabs

The locals seem to pronounce it DEE-bair-vill, last I heard it. Kinda Cajun.

Speaking of Cajun speaking, funny anecdote, when I was in Mississippi the locals kept on telling me that I sounded funny when I spoke. I was told this where ever I went. Just made me laugh as I was trying my darndest just to understand what the locals were saying. Very thick accents in that part of the country.

Somehow I had in mind that PokerGrinder's Grand Tour for the month of January was going to lead to more new chips being posted in this thread. I've been waiting to see the rest and add them to the index, but as I scan the images that he included in his trip report, I can't pick out any more that haven't already been covered in the thread.

Did I overlook one/some that you will be posting PokerGrinder? I have a few to post from my recent trip (though I haven't photographed them yet), but I don't want to break up your presentation.

No you didn't miss any, I only had the one new one for the thread. You are free to post any time.

I am currently debating what my next collecting trip will be, either Oklahoma, or finishing Louisiana with a few others mixed in or Washington state. The last one would add a bunch to this thread but I am much more likely to do the Oklahoma trip first because of how many there are and the fact that I can get free hotels near by.

I am also most likely going to take a trip to Hong Kong/Macau next fall/winter which would include a day or two collecting there. I couldn't believe how many different casinos there are over there, I thought that it was under 20 but it is almost double that.

Oklahoma OR Louisiana? Once you've put in the time to drive down from Canada, might as well do both:-)

Quote: rdw4potus

Oklahoma OR Louisiana? Once you've put in the time to drive down from Canada, might as well do both:-)

Haha well Rdw the Oklahoma trip is the 38 casinos I don't have from that state and the last two from Kansas (Boot Hill and Kansas Star), adding Louisiana would add quite a few days to the trek. Turns it into an extremely long time on the road.

I just finalized my 2 day excursion before spring fling to finish out my collection of Nevada chips, although it is tough to maintain with the names changing so often. As far as new chips to the thread I will be getting chips from Hard Rock Lake Tahoe and Max Casino Carson City. Also Hyatt Regency in Incline Village has changed their name to the Grand Lodge Casino so my plan is to stop by and check if the chips are new on my way back to Vegas. I also will be making a trip out to Laughlin to get the new Tropicana chip which I think Doc plans to do as well.

Also Doc I know you have a token from Longhorn Casino, not sure if I mentioned it but they have new chips in and they are not tokens. I plan on going to get one, I assume after reading this you will do the same. Overall I plan on adding between 20-23 new chips as long as everything goes as plan.

Hey Doc where are the new chip of the days that you promised us :)

On another note I finally reached someone at Grand Lodge Casino (24 hr tables and slots but nobody answers phones any time of the day lol) and they do indeed have new chips for the name change. I will definitely be stopping there in April.

As for my new chips, I still don't have the photos. Maybe this afternoon.

I really need to think once again about getting up to Lake Tahoe. The plan for last year's spring fling was to drive there from Las Vegas, stopping at several casinos along the way to collect new souvenirs, but the weather turned bad up at the lake, and we cancelled those plans. (Did I just post that comment a couple of days ago in this thread? If so, I'm blaming the repetition on senility.)

Edit: BTW nice find about the Grand Lodge -- the MoGH catalog doesn't show those chips yet!

You might also check into the former Gold Strike in Jean, NV to see whether the conversion to Terrible's Road House has yet resulted in new chips. MoGH only shows the new players' card.

Quote: Doc

As for my new chips, I still don't have the photos. Maybe this afternoon.

I really need to think once again about getting up to Lake Tahoe. The plan for last year's spring fling was to drive there from Las Vegas, stopping at several casinos along the way to collect new souvenirs, but the weather turned bad up at the lake, and we cancelled those plans. (Did I just post that comment a couple of days ago in this thread? If so, I'm blaming the repetition on senility.)

Edit: BTW nice find about the Grand Lodge -- the MoGH catalog doesn't show those chips yet!

You might also check into the former Gold Strike in Jean, NV to see whether the conversion to Terrible's Road House has yet resulted in new chips. MoGH only shows the new players' card.

I did actually call Gold Strike the other day and they are still going by the same name so they haven't received new chips yet. I will call again closer to spring fling and check again. Either way after spring fling barring any problems on my pre spring fling road trip I will have officially completed Nevada (for now, until everything changes again!).

It will be nice after spring fling I will have 3 new chip of the days and you will have Tropicana to post. Might be the most consecutive chip of the days we get for a while :)

Are you missing any chips other than Grand Lodge, Max and Hard Rock? Have you done the trip from Reno to Wendover cause they're are a bunch of little joints on that drive.

Quote: PokerGrinder

Have you done the trip from Reno to Wendover cause they're are a bunch of little joints on that drive.

YES!! Someone else to help wear doc down on this one... :-)

Quote: rdw4potus

YES!! Someone else to help wear doc down on this one... :-)

I just burst out laughing when I read this. It's not that bad of a drive, this will be my second time doing parts of it. I went Jackpot to Reno last time. This time Reno to Wendover.

Quote: PokerGrinder

I just burst out laughing when I read this. It's not that bad of a drive, this will be my second time doing parts of it. I went Jackpot to Reno last time. This time Reno to Wendover.

I started in Reno & went out to Wendover on 80 and back on 50. Was a fun and pretty loop. Thought "hey, Mrs doc would like this!" Mr doc feels differently and likes being married.

Quote: rdw4potus

I started in Reno & went out to Wendover on 80 and back on 50. Was a fun and pretty loop. Thought "hey, Mrs doc would like this!" Mr doc feels differently and likes being married.

Lol Doc is smart enough to know his wife's limits.

Did you fly into Reno or something? I was coming from Winnipeg which is why I missed Wendover last time. Stopped in Jackpot then drove to Vegas missing a bunch of casinos that I didn't know existed. This time I am doing Vegas to Reno, then Reno to Wendover and finally the last day will be Wendover to the casino in Ely and on to Vegas again.

Quote: PokerGrinder

Lol Doc is smart enough to know his wife's limits.

Did you fly into Reno or something? I was coming from Winnipeg which is why I missed Wendover last time. Stopped in Jackpot then drove to Vegas missing a bunch of casinos that I didn't know existed. This time I am doing Vegas to Reno, then Reno to Wendover and finally the last day will be Wendover to the casino in Ely and on to Vegas again.

Yes, I flew into Reno. Drove to Wendover, spent the night, then drove back to Reno through Ely. US 50 is incredibly beautiful. But, it's not straight. And there aren't a lot of options for gas in the middle of Nevada.

Quote: rdw4potus

Yes, I flew into Reno. Drove to Wendover, spent the night, then drove back to Reno through Ely. US 50 is incredibly beautiful. But, it's not straight. And there aren't a lot of options for gas in the middle of Nevada.

Oh ok, well I will be taking a mixture of roads from Vegas to Reno, Hwy 80 from Reno to Wendover and then the next day Wendover to Hotel Nevada Ely to Vegas.

Category: Cruise Ships
Cruise Line: Carnival
Ship: Victory

The Carnival Victory (or perhaps Carnival Victory, if you want to be formal and include “Carnival” as part of the official name of each of their ships), was constructed for this line by Fincantieri at their shipyard in Italy. It was launched in 2000 as one of the largest cruise ships at that time and was supposedly retrofitted in various minor ways in 2007 and early 2015, according to one source, and/or in 2010 according to another. It seems you just can’t really rely on the information available on the World Wide Web these days.

More of such interesting-but-questionable data provided from one of the sources: The ship is rated at 101,509 gross tons, is 893 feet long, and has 13 decks and a capacity for 2,758 passengers with a crew of 1,100.

The Victory was the third ship launched in what was at least initially called the Destiny-class of ships, named for the first ship in the group. Later, the Destiny herself was substantially re-worked and renamed the Sunshine. Thus, the class became known as the Triumph-class, named for the second ship in the group. Perhaps just to confuse things further, these subsequent ships had a number of differences from the original design of the Destiny.

From first-hand examination, I can state that the on-board casino is currently known as the South China Sea Club and may have been always. It offers: 1 craps table ($5 minimum), 2 double-zero roulette tables ($5), 1 ten-player electronic poker table that I never witnessed in action but understand was set up for Texas hold ‘em, and 13 card tables. These included a mix of: Blackjack with Lucky Ladies ($10 and 3-2 BJ payout), Blackjack ($6 with 6-5 BJ payout), Fun 21 ($6), 3-card Poker ($5 with 1-3-6-30-40 and 1-4-5 payout tables), Ultimate Texas Hold’em ($5), and Let-it-Ride ($5).

During the cruise, I never played any of those games except craps. The craps crew seemed pleasant and capable, but there were plenty of players at the table who were either quite drunk or natural buttholes, I wasn’t sure which. And the crew apparently has to put up with such on a regular basis, because Hey! This is Carnival, the Fun Ships!

The very first cruise ship chip that I posted in this thread was from the Carnival Fantasy. I noted in that post that the chip was not specific to the Fantasy and just said “The Fun Ships”. I said I had seen the exact same chip design in play on the Carnival Ecstasy. Similarly, on my recent cruise on the Victory, the $1 chips did not specify the ship identity, though I do not remember them clearly enough to state whether they were identical to the one I posted from the Fantasy.

Instead, this cruise I kept a $5 chip as a souvenir, along with a few other chips I got in play and will try to post in the coming days. The chip is a red RHC Paulson with eight edge inserts, four each in yellow and dark blue. I am not certain just how deep the inserts run, because they are partially/extensively covered by the oversized center inlay. The inlay has the full name of the ship and the denomination, both in a gradation of white to blue, as well as an image of a Carnival ship which could be the Victory or most any other one of recent vintage.

The reverse side of the chip has the name of the casino and the image of a dragon. There were several other similar chip designs in play with different images related to Chinese culture.

UV light does not reveal anything that is not visible otherwise, however the yellow edge inserts seem to fluoresce a bit, and I’m not completely sure about the upper region of the denomination marks. Those seem to shine excessively, but that may just be reflection of the visible (violet) illumination from my UV lamp. Take your own best guess.

As with all of my chip posts, click on any of the images below to see it in a larger size.




Now for the rant….

When I posted that chip from the Fantasy almost three years ago, I made and explained a couple of seemingly-conflicting comments about the cruise line:

Quote: Doc

In spite of our having been on their ships for six cruises, Carnival is our least favorite line.

How can that be? If we dislike it so much, why do we keep getting on their ships? For the same reasons that so many other people do. They have a lot of ships; they sail to most any place you might want to cruise, and their prices are dirt cheap compared to most of the other lines. Unfortunately, low fares have resulted in declining quality of the cruising experience on their ships. It's the old story of you get what you pay for, if you are very lucky.

That wasn’t an opinion that just popped into my head that day. I had expressed it about a year earlier in this thread as part of explaining an upcoming suspension of posting chips:

Quote: Doc

My wife and I are headed to Cocoa Beach, FL for three nights followed by five nights on a cruise ship out of Port Canaveral. We will be on the Ecstasy from our least-favorite cruise line (Carnival), but at least it's fairly cheap and convenient for us.

I even repeated that bias against the cruise line last September, right after I booked the latest cruise:

Quote: Doc

The cruise is on Carnival, our least-favorite cruise line, but it is going to ports we have never visited.

I followed those September comments with a rant about some outrageous terms I had found in the cruise contract.

All of this rant-introduction is to explain that well in advance I knew the limitations and shortcomings – as well as the benefits – offered by Carnival Cruise Lines.

Even with this advance understanding, I have to say this: This cruise was by far the worst cruise experience we have ever had. This was our 17th cruise overall and our 7th on Carnival. It was a nightmare. My wife and I have decreed that we will never again sail on a Carnival ship. Next cruise will almost certainly be on Celebrity or Holland America, both of which have pleased us multiple times.

The cruise industry has plenty of horror stories to tell, from that captain a few years ago who ran his ship onto the rocks in an attempt to give someone a better nighttime view, to that captain just this past week who steered his ship right into a hurricane, ignoring the forecasts for its rapid size explosion. The bad press we see most often seems to be about ships with wide-spread outbreaks of illness, perhaps related to sanitation problems, and Carnival has had at least their share of such incidents.

Those outbreaks are often attributed to the Norovirus, and my wife and I have seen the extensive measures that other cruise lines have taken to prevent such things. Everywhere you go on board, you see crewmembers cleaning and sanitizing everything. There are stations all over the ship dispensing hand sanitizer lotions. As passengers enter the dining rooms, a member or two of the dining room staff is there to greet them with bottles of sanitizer to squirt in each guest’s hands. Anyone who isn’t sanitizing frequently during the day looks out of place. That is, on other cruise lines.

On the Victory, there were a few such stations around ship, including one near the entrance to the dining room, but I rarely saw them used and never saw a crew member suggesting hand sanitation before the meal. Just a very different attitude from what we have seen on other cruise lines, and this leads me to believe the prevailing sentiments from the company can contribute to the problems we have seen reported by the press.

This cruise on the Victory was scheduled for five nights, leaving from Miami with stops at Ocho Rios, Jamaica and Grand Cayman before returning to Miami. Late the second night out, my wife became quite ill – vomiting and diarrhea – even though we had both been quite healthy when boarding in Miami. She was far too sick to leave the cabin the next day to go ashore in Jamaica. I cancelled our shore excursion, went ashore just to the end of the pier to pick up a couple of local souvenirs, and returned to the ship.

The third night, I became ill with the same symptoms. Please don’t try to convince me that this had nothing to do with sanitation conditions aboard the ship. The following morning, we made our way down to the infirmary. They decided we must have the flu; never mind that we had both had flu shots, had not been around anyone with the flu, and only developed symptoms after being about the ship for a couple of days. We were both placed in quarantine and could not go ashore in Grand Cayman. As if we felt at all capable of going to visit something ashore. So much for our plans to visit two islands in the Caribbean that we had never seen before.

That afternoon, as we were beginning to recover, we wanted some ice for beverages. On other cruise lines, we are accustomed to the cabin steward automatically filling the ice bucket (stainless steel, insulated, perhaps with a disposable plastic liner) twice a day, when cleaning the stateroom in the morning and when turning down the bed in the evening. No such service on the Victory, not even an ice bucket in the stateroom. My wife, who by then was more fully recovered than I was, called and asked for some ice. The steward brought it shortly – in a non-insulated, unlined, white, plastic tub that could well have been used as a scrub bucket (or many other things) earlier in the day. Not something to leave a favorable impression, particularly with passengers who were already concerned about sanitation issues.

There is also a matter of the level of personal services provided to the passengers. There is a Guest Services desk on Deck 3 in the main lobby of the ship. There is also a speed dial button for them on the phone in each stateroom. Unfortunately, pushing that button does not allow you to speak with someone in that department. It only connects you to recorded messages and a touch-tone menu to guide you to answers to FAQs.

If you go down to the Guest Services desk in person, you get to stand in a long line waiting for someone to answer your question and perhaps provide a service. I frequently saw twenty or more people waiting in that line, as I did several times myself, and I rather suspect the average wait was a half hour or more, just to get a question answered. Maybe answered.

While waiting in that line one time, I noticed other people who appeared to be cutting in at the front of the line. I went to check and found that they actually had a priority line for Diamond and Platinum guests; i.e., those who had cruised on Carnival a lot more than the seven cruises that qualified me for the Gold tier. I do indeed understand the practice of giving preferential treatment for the very best customers. When I got to the front of the line, I asked about that Diamond/Platinum priority line, and I specifically asked why I had seen so many people with Red and Blue cards (the lowest two tiers) being served there.

The representative said that for $50 any guest could purchase a sticker for the back of their I.D. card, entitling them to priority service. Incredible! After paying your fare for the cruise, you have to pay extra if you want the staff to provide services to the guests! I expressed my concern over that practice, and the representative behind the desk said it was the only way they had to give people the service they wanted and needed. I pointed out an alternative – the company could just staff the Guest Services department adequately to provide services to all 2,700 of the Guests who had purchased passage. The representative said that yes, the company could do that, and I understood that inadequate staffing of her department was something she was dissatisfied with, too.

Anyway, this is an example of how Carnival is able to offer low fares – they just cut corners everywhere and fail to extend to their guests the basic services that are included for everyone on other cruise lines.

Another thing we encountered that rather stuck in my craw was adherence – or lack thereof – to proclaimed dress codes. Carnival, like a number of lines, has greatly cut back on the degree of formality. While most other cruise lines still have one or two formal nights per week, Carnival has eliminated any specified “formal” night. Most evenings they refer to the dress code as “Cruise Casual” with just some simple restrictions like no swimwear in the dining room, no cut-off jeans, no ball caps, etc. Other evenings, including just one on our cruise (second night, before we got sick), are designated “Cruise Elegant”. Gentlemen are to wear sport coats and ties, with the option of upping to suits or tuxedos if they prefer, with the ladies dressing comparably.

For our Cruise Elegant night, I wore my tux with a white dinner jacket (yes, it was January, but this is in the tropics) and my wife had a nice black and white outfit. I had bought her a rose corsage to wear that evening and had on a rose boutonniere myself. Carnival may not designate it as a “formal” evening any more, but we enjoy dressing up sometimes for what we consider a special occasion.

So we arrived at the dining room to find the guy in front of us wearing shorts (never permitted for dinner in the dining room), flip-flops (also prohibited), and his shirttail hanging out. Maybe that is his idea of “Elegant”. Turns out, I saw several passengers in the dining room that night dressed about that way. On any other cruise line, a passenger who arrived at the dining room in that attire would be told he was not dressed appropriately for that facility and would be directed to one of the buffet lines or the deli or such up on deck 9. On Carnival, no one on the staff seemed to pay any attention at all. Just as no staff member noticed all of the baseball caps being worn throughout dinner all of the other evenings, roughly half of them on backwards, of course. They have rules, but no one seems to enforce them or care whether they are followed at all. Disgusting behavior by both those few passengers and the cruise line.

End of rant.

To top it off, on the last full day at sea, I misplaced my mobile phone, and it never showed up again, even though I stood in line and reported it to Guest Services. My own negligence caused that problem, but I have a bitter taste from the agony I went through to get that phone’s service cancelled, to get a new phone and get it loaded up fully, and to attempt to lock the lost phone remotely. Locking or erasing the out-of-possession phone requires that it be turned on and connected to the internet, and I have no confirmation that has happened yet.

C’est la vie à bord du Carnival.

Thanks Doc for the pictures, and very informative post. I am saddened to hear that you had such a memorable experience... in a bad way. In solidarity with you and Mrs. Doc, I will also boycott Carnival. Well, technically, I have never been on one of their cruises, so call me a potential customer lost.

The times they are a changing. There was a time when men wore hats, ties and jackets as standard attire, and the majority of people actually behaved in ways that would be called "civil". It is sad to see the decline.

Sorry to hear your very poor experience with Carnival. I cruised with them before as well and understand you fully. I did a short cruise with Princess last year and it was a huge difference. It's like playing craps at Joker's Wild vs Rampart ($5 weekday, 10x odds). It was fun to check out Joker that one time, and once was enough. I like cheap craps but not that cheap...

Doc,

Never. Carnival. Can't believe you went 7 times. Might as well be cattle, as everything's designed for bulk handling, like a stockyard. Went once, swore never to use them again, got on reluctantly with a large trivia group a second time, had not overestimated their service or food. lol... They make their money from people who have never been on any other line, so have no basis for comparison.

I have been on Holland America 3 times, Norwegian Cruise Line 3 times, really enjoyed both lines, all cruises. Have not done RCI or Celebrity (have heard great things about Celebrity, though). All 5 of those are in the same affordable range. (BTW, HA is owned by Carnival, as is Costa, Princess, and 3 other lines. However, Carnival and Costa are their bottom-rung lines.)

You would have loved Premier Cruise Lines. They were delightful, the Disney "Big Red Boat" before Disney built their own (and put them out of business). I may yet go Oceania or Crystal (higher-end). But I'm not so posh as they are for the most part.

Anyway, REALLY sorry to hear you and Mrs. Doc had such an awful time. Not much worse than nausea at sea; once it starts, it takes forever to get past it.

Dear Doc, damn you got sick, the dinner protocol was not enforced, other items were mentioned. I am sorry you didn't have a better time on your latest cruise. I have had most all of those same experiences too, mixed between several different cruise lines. I am not happy with any of them, but I may be least unhappy with Carnival. I don't know, I've only been on 3 different lines in the last 2 years, something like 6 or 7 sailings. But all that is a great discussion, but does it belong in the 'chip of the day' thread? Maybe yes. For future guests to find it, I've had a hard time myself in the placing, where should it be? I've got a 'free cruise' coming this year from CET TR, but I'm kind of cruised out at the moment. Let's take this conversation to another thread shall we? 2F

Quote: TwoFeathersATL

Dear Doc, damn you got sick, the dinner protocol was not enforced, other items were mentioned. I am sorry you didn't have a better time on your latest cruise. I have had most all of those same experiences too, mixed between several different cruise lines. I am not happy with any of them, but I may be least unhappy with Carnival. I don't know, I've only been on 3 different lines in the last 2 years, something like 6 or 7 sailings. But all that is a great discussion, but does it belong in the 'chip of the day' thread? Maybe yes. For future guests to find it, I've had a hard time myself in the placing, where should it be? I've got a 'free cruise' coming this year from CET TR, but I'm kind of cruised out at the moment. Let's take this conversation to another thread shall we? 2F

Yeah, I looked at splitting this yesterday, but there's no way to do it in a coherent manner because of the chronological ordering.

Quote: Doc

Category: Cruise Ships
Cruise Line: Carnival
Ship: Victory
...The chip is a red RHC Paulson with eight edge inserts, four each in yellow and dark blue. I am not certain just how deep the inserts run, because they are partially/extensively covered by the oversized center inlay. The inlay has the full name of the ship and the denomination, both in a gradation of white to blue, as well as an image of a Carnival ship which could be the Victory or most any other one of recent vintage.

The reverse side of the chip has the name of the casino and the image of a dragon. There were several other similar chip designs in play with different images related to Chinese culture.

UV light does not reveal anything that is not visible otherwise, however the yellow edge inserts seem to fluoresce a bit, and I’m not completely sure about the upper region of the denomination marks. Those seem to shine excessively, but that may just be reflection of the visible (violet) illumination from my UV lamp. Take your own best guess.

As with all of my chip posts, click on any of the images below to see it in a larger size.




...

Back to chips... Is it just my monitor, or do others see these chips as closer to orange in color than red? I still see strong reds in the ad's on the sidebar, so I know my monitor can display this color.

I'd like to hear more about the action at the craps table. Do they rate play? Are drinks comped for players? Is it non-smoking?

Is the casino closed in every port? Are dealers only assigned to this task, or do they also have other jobs on the ship? I recall from somewhere else that on some cruise line, crew members perform in the stage shows, and do other, "regular" jobs too.

Thanks Doc!

Quote: Ayecarumba

Back to chips... Is it just my monitor, or do others see these chips as closer to orange in color than red? I still see strong reds in the ad's on the sidebar, so I know my monitor can display this color.

I'd like to hear more about the action at the craps table. Do they rate play? Are drinks comped for players? Is it non-smoking?

Is the casino closed in every port? Are dealers only assigned to this task, or do they also have other jobs on the ship? I recall from somewhere else that on some cruise line, crew members perform in the stage shows, and do other, "regular" jobs too.

As for the colors, you are correct: the images look quite orange. Part of that can be attributed to my lazy photography; there have been quite a few chips for which I have had to note that the real color is a bit different from what shows up in the image. In this case, the chip may be just a bit more orange than most "red" chips. I don't collect the $5 chips usually, so I don't have many around for comparison. This is definitely lighter and more orange than the Margaritaville (Atlantic City), Casino Mont-Tremblant, Crystal (Aruba), and Coliseum (Bolivia) chips that I have on my desktop, but some of those photos look a bit orange also due to my photography shortcomings.

As for my rant yesterday about Carnival Cruise Lines, yeah, I probably overdid it for that post. I included it as part of a description of the operation of the facility in which the subject casino is located, but maybe I got carried away.

Here's some good news along that line -- I got a phone call this morning that they located my lost cell phone and will be shipping it to me! Now I have to figure out the best way to make use of it, since I have already converted completely to my new phone. The old one is a Motorola Droid Turbo (new in November 2014) and I replaced it two weeks ago with a Motorola Droid Turbo 2. I offered the Turbo to my son, whose phone is running on wobbly legs, but he is a devoted iPhone user and doesn't want to go back to Android. I need to check into whether Verizon will offer me any good/decent deal for converting a 15-month old Droid Turbo into a new iPhone 6s.

The cruise was miserable, but at least I will recover all of the sensitive info stored on that phone.

And back to the casino on the Carnival Victory: it is definitely NOT a non-smoking environment -- terrible atmosphere. As for rating craps play, I don't really know; they have a players club, but I never signed up. Even for folks not signed up with the club, they do monitor your action to some degree; with every buy-in, they have you show your ship I.D. card and enter it into their system the way most casinos do for a player's card. One evening, a plate of chocolates arrived at our stateroom, compliments of the casino staff. I don't really know the rules on comped beverages -- I never consumed anything at the table that I hadn't brought there with me.

Yes, the casino is closed in port. I think the dealers may have some additional duties, such as assisting in lifeboat drills, but I don't think they have any kind of steady work other than in the casino. There is another active thread here right now in which someone asked about working in a ship's casino and got some feedback that might interest you.

Thanks Doc! I, for one, enjoyed reading your whole post. You should not apologize for the content of your posts... this is your thread after all. Don't change a thing.

I am glad to hear you will get your phone back. I see ads for companies, including Amazon, that will buy your old phone. I don't know what they will offer, but I suspect it will be not a whole lot compared to new. There are also charities you could donate it to. A battered women's shelter in my area takes the donated phones and gives them to their clients to use as a lifeline. I am sure there is something similar in your area.

Sorry to hear that your vacation was so miserable. Glad you at least got your phone back. I can't say that I have ever been on a Carnival cruise ship, I have only used Celebrity before but I will definitely avoid Carnival like the plague on your recommendation. My parents went on a cruise with Norwegian which you know from when I posted the casino chip that they brought me. They have told me to avoid that cruise line as well, said they would never go on Norwegian again unless they had to for business again.

As per your chip post, I love that chip! More the side without the boat but the whole chip is beautiful! The colours of the chip/inserts and the inlay on both sides work so well together. I also really like the dragon, I really like the way he was created.

P.S. I just noticed today when I went to my thread subscriptions to get to this thread that your thread is not far from 1,000,000 views. Pretty cool!

I've got a single chip "guest post" I collected last weekend to contribute to this thread when Doc is done.

I'm sorry, I never meant to imply that Doc shouldn't post whatever he wants, wherever he wants, particularly in the Chip of the day thread. My thought was that it would be nice if everyone, Doc included, had a place to post stuff specifically about cruise lines. Especially those with casinos on board (Bye, Bye Disney). It is hard to search the Forums for casino reviews, impressions, casino specifics on board, etc for cruise lines, at least that has been my impression and experience.

If you look thru the topics available in the 'Forums' you can find Vegas, and over there, and over yonder, and outside the USA, and a lot of things but quite simply, there is not an optimal place to post about your experience on your cruise, to talk about the casino conditions on that cruise line, etc. What? The Wizard doesn't cruise? So it was just a small oversight at this point. Trying to make a place in the 'topics' might be more trouble than it's worth, I don't know, I don't know programming, I know nothing (Sgt Shultz). Most of the cruise ships have casinos, CET gives away free cruises on Norwegian, just call them and ask for one (trust me on this, you might be amazed) <edit inserted here> Don't call TR or CET, call Norwegian. Have your TR # in hand (wink, wink). <end edit> . I would love for there to be a place to accumulate all the info/feedback about the cruise lines. Actually, all we need to do is agree on where, and how, and then do it. If the admins of the Forums want to make it easier, that's even better.

Quote: wezvidz

I've got a single chip "guest post" I collected last weekend to contribute to this thread when Doc is done.

Excellent! It won't take but a few days for my well to run dry once again.

I thought I was going to be able to offer a little confusion based on similar casino names. This cruise ship was the Victory, and I had previously posted a chip from the Victory casino boat sailing out of Port Canaveral. On the drive back home from the cruise port in Miami two weeks ago, I had plans to pick up a chip from the Victory II casino boat now sailing out of Jacksonville.

We did, indeed, sail on the Victory II, but it turns out that even though the two casino boats have slightly different logos on the web site -- designating the "II" and the different home port -- they both are using exactly the same chips. That's right, the Victory II sailing out of Jacksonville has chips that say just Victory and even "Port Canaveral, FL". That evening's cruise was just another opportunity to lose money without adding to my collection.

I do have other new chips to offer to the thread if I can just get some posts composed, perhaps one a little later this evening.

Well, THANKS. I am doing a driving trip from my home in SE FL this summer up to Jax, across west then south back home that involved a Victory cruise out of Jax to collect that chip. I've already got the Port Canaveral chip so if it's the same, you just saved me 6 hours and potentially some seasickness! Great.

Maybe some day they will get Victory II chips, and we can both add them to our collections. I think I will just keep an eye out at the MoGH catalog to see whether new chip show up before I schedule another trip.

Category: Cruise Ships
Cruise Line: Carnival
Ship: Splendor

The Carnival Splendor was launched in 2008. It had been designed and ordered for Costa Cruises as a modified version of the Concordia-class ships. Do you remember BBB’s response to my recent rant, in which she pointed out that Costa Cruises and Carnival Cruise Lines are the bottom feeders of the lines owned by Carnival Corporation? O.K., she didn’t quite use those words; she called the two the “bottom-rung lines” of the corporation.

Anyway, while the ship was under construction by Fincantieri, the corporation decided to transfer it from Costa to Carnival, and it became the only ship in what that line refers to as the Splendor-class of ships. At launch, it was the largest of the Carnival ships. It is listed as 113,323 gross tons with a passenger capacity of 3,006 with a crew of 1,150.

Make a note of those personnel counts, which are from the Wikipedia web page for the ship. I say that, because on that same page there is a report of an engine room fire that happened on board the ship in 2010 – the ship was just two years old, and apparently a crankcase in the aft generator room split, causing the fire. The ship had to be towed back to San Diego from Mexican waters. I wonder if it was still under warranty. Anyway, the web page description of the fire notes that, “Nearly 4,500 passengers and crew members were on board at the time.” So how does that figure compare to their maximum capacity?

I have never sailed on the Splendor, and I can’t recall ever having seen it. I just received a chip that was in play aboard the Victory – the Carnival ship, not one of the casino boats out of Port Canaveral and Jacksonville. I think this was the only $1 chip I saw on board that ship that wasn’t a generic “The Fun Ships” chip.

The chip is a blue RHC Paulson design, with four narrow edge inserts, two each in yellow and purple. The oversized center inlay on the face side of the chip shows the ship’s name, the denomination, and an image of the ship. This time, the image clearly shows the name of the ship on its bow, so either it’s a photo of the real ship, or the graphic artists have had some fun.

The reverse side of the chip shows the name “The Royal Flush Casino”, which I assume is what they call the on-board casino. There is, naturally, also an image of a royal flush poker hand, this one in hearts.

Nothing on this chip fluoresces under UV light.



Since I have never been on the ship, I have no complaints at all about the quality of their service. I don't plan to check it out.

Quote: Doc

Category: Cruise Ships
Cruise Line: Carnival
Ship: Splendor

The Carnival Splendor was launched in 2008. It had been designed and ordered for Costa Cruises as a modified version of the Concordia-class ships. Do you remember BBB’s response to my recent rant, in which she pointed out that Costa Cruises and Carnival Cruise Lines are the bottom feeders of the lines owned by Carnival Corporation? O.K., she didn’t quite use those words; she called the two the “bottom-rung lines” of the corporation.

Anyway, while the ship was under construction by Fincantieri, the corporation decided to transfer it from Costa to Carnival, and it became the only ship in what that line refers to as the Splendor-class of ships. At launch, it was the largest of the Carnival ships. It is listed as 113,323 gross tons with a passenger capacity of 3,006 with a crew of 1,150.

Make a note of those personnel counts, which are from the Wikipedia web page for the ship. I say that, because on that same page there is a report of an engine room fire that happened on board the ship in 2010 – the ship was just two years old, and apparently a crankcase in the aft generator room split, causing the fire. The ship had to be towed back to San Diego from Mexican waters. I wonder if it was still under warranty. Anyway, the web page description of the fire notes that, “Nearly 4,500 passengers and crew members were on board at the time.” So how does that figure compare the their maximum capacity?

I have never sailed on the Splendor, and I can’t recall ever having seen it. I just received a chip that was in play aboard the Victory – the Carnival ship, not one of the casino boats out of Port Canaveral and Jacksonville. I think this was the only $1 chip I saw on board that ship that wasn’t a generic “The Fun Ships” chip.

The chip is a blue RHC Paulson design, with four narrow edge inserts, two each in yellow and purple. The oversized center inlay on the face side of the chip shows the ship’s name, the denomination, and an image of the ship. This time, the image clearly shows the name of the ship on its bow, so either it’s a photo of the real ship, or the graphic artists have had some fun.

The reverse side of the chip shows the name “The Royal Flush Casino”, which I assume is what they call the on-board casino. There is, naturally, also an image of a royal flush poker hand, this one in hearts.

Nothing on this chip fluoresces under UV light.



Since I have never been on the ship, I have no complaints at all about the quality of their service. I don't plan to check it out.

Whoa whoa WHOA! Did you change your rule on only collecting from casinos you played at personally?! Or do you count this one because it was in play at a casino where you were playing?

*Note: I don't actually care, but I do recall that being one of your self-imposed rules.