Calnev1

That Fun21 table is most definitely the shoe with that large discard tray! I love BJ but hate the machines, so this is definitely good news! Thanks!!

Cruise line gift cards come and go on AARP. Usually they are only gone for only a short while. Odds are the Princess cards will be back. Impossible to say whether that is a matter of days or weeks.

Been on several Carnival ships since the restart, and I noticed that none of them had the large electronic poker tables anymore. Then I was on the Panaroma a few weeks ago, and the Panorama had a poker table. The table was located in the Hero's bar, though, not in the casino. Any other Carnival ships still have the poker tables?

Bump2. Fyi, should be easy to grab a pic when the tables are closed! 🙂 I will be on the Glory TA next spring after her European dry dock, and expect whatever they did in the Pride casino they could repeat with the Glory.

Yes, you are right, I have bought wine on many occasions with the Albertsons GCs. Just had a brain fart!

Key word: "acted." 🙂

At AARP I not only save a lot of money on cruise gift cards (Carnival, Princess, and Holland America), but also on grocery gift cards at dozens of different grocery chains. AARP sells their grocery gift cards at 8% off. At our local Abertson's, that means 8% off of everything except alcohol, tobacco, and other GCs. And over the course of the year that is a ton of savings for us.

Just to clarify, do you (or anyone) have actual experience using a Princess gift card (denominated in US dollars) to purchase OBC (denominated in Australian dollars)? Either in advance of the cruise or once aboard the cruise? I am suspicious about whether Princess will accept these gift cards for OBC denominated in Australian dollars.

Portuguese Red Blends are some of the best value wines on the planet. We can often get these wines for five or six bucks in our local grocery store.

Bump. Enjoying the great blog!

Golden Knights on to the Finals 6-0 !!! Woo Hoo!!

Thanks! Screen name is a combo of California and Nevada, since we spend a lot of time in both places.

Can you post a picture of the Fun21 Blackjack table? Would like to know if its dealt from a machine or a shoe. Thanks!

I agree 100% that on any given cruise the points assigned to a table game player are not reflective as a gauge of what the player won or lost on that cruise. The points likely reflect, though, the dollar amount the casino believes the player has wagered that cruise, and thus on average what the player would have lost that cruise given the house edge at that table game. The concept of "average" here disguises the huge variance that can occur in player winnings/losings from cruise to cruise. The casino could estimate what a player wins or loses from the buy-ins and color-ups at the beginning and end of each table session, but for various reasons this too is not necessarily an accurate gauge of wins/losses.

Thanks for the info. Unfortunately, that is way more points than I generate on a daily basis. Will still probably ask on my next cruise.

No, really??

Dang. They should also give you special breakfasts, lunches, and snacks for that amount of play! Lol.

No, the fun 21 machines on the Panorama were in constant use regardless of whether there was only one player or multiple players (up to the table max of seven). Well, at least until that one fun 21 machine broke. And It took a bit of effort to set up the shoe when they took the broken machine out, because they had to disengage the machine from the table and then change the discard tray (which is screwed into the table). Fyi, the machine only needs a small discard tray because the cards are reinserted into the machine after each hand, while the shoe needs a large tray because there are multiple decks of discards between each dealer reshuffle.

Do you mind sharing how many casino points you earned on your first leg and how many days that leg was? It would help give me an idea about how many points-per-sailing-day earned you the comped dinner. Thanks

Thanks for the input about the Spirit.

Just got off the Panorama yesterday (Saturday). Up until Thursday of our seven day cruise both fun 21 tables were being dealt from a machine. I think it was called a "shufflestar" (not sure about that), but it definitely looked different than the other blackjack machines in use. One of these fun 21 machines would occasionally slow down and pause its card delivery before resuming the deal. Then on Thursday morning the other fun 21 machine stopped taking cards at the input point. Several staff folks came over to mess with the machine, opening it up, probing, and even blowing on it. They couldn't get it restarted. I said "bring us back the shoe!" And they did! Well, only for the day. By Thursday night, they had that dang machine back on the table. I stopped playing fun21 at that point. So anyways, they do have a machine that they think will work for the 48 card deck used in fun 21.

Allstate might be about to price themselves out of the Carnival GC market. Its not just that Allstate is competing against AARP for the sale of discounted GCs. They are also competing against Raise.com (which offers an 8% discount ecard that has certain advantages such as the ability to specify exact GC dollar amount you need) and even grocery store sales like the Kroger 4x fuel point sales. There are other threads on this board where folks talk about why they use raise.com and grocery store sales to buy their Carnival cards.

I have a paid AARP membership. The limit for me is five Princess GCs per month. I guess I don't actually know whether the limit for a free AARP Rewards account would be different. I doubt that it would be.

Partially correct. 1. Carnival GCs require a paid AARP membership. Princess and Holland America gift cards do not. Strange to me, since these three cruise lines are all under the same Carnival Corp umbrella. 2. There is a limit on Carnival GC purchases at AARP. But its very loose: no more than 25 GCs per month. 3. The limit on Princess GCs at AARP is no more than five per month. Of course, you can double all these limits by opening a separate AARP Rewards account in your spouse's name.