Very disappointing casino experience on Navigator (attention video poker players!!)

[ajtaylor29]

So, first of all - i'm pretty loyal to Royal! And still am after last weeks cruise. But this was one of the worst casino at sea experiences i've had so i'm sharing with others for information purposes. It won't prevent me from sailing with RC again (already have 3 more booked) but I will definitely hesitate to sail on Navigator again.

My hubby and I sail several times a year, we're big video poker players, and spend a lot of our free time in the casino. We always research each ship before sailing and when we watched youtube videos of the Navigator we saw a whole wall of VP machines (supposedly taken less than a year ago) so we felt good knowing we'd have plenty of machines to play!

Once on board, however - we discovered they had rearranged the machines, and now all (8) VP machines were crammed in a corner, back to back, very close together. If you were against the wall, and needed to get "out", at least 2 people had to stand up and move so you could squeeze by. It was pretty uncomfortable for sure.

So, the casino solved the problem in this way: starting day 2, 1 of the machines messed up so they shut it down. Next day, another one. Next day, another one. By day 4 we only have 5 (of the 8 machines) working. Less crowded.....but of course, lots of frustrated players who can't get a machine. I saw no attempts by them to fix any of these machines.

Day 6, another machine messes up, but they reboot it and it appears to be fine so they leave it online. Then, on day 7 i'm playing on this messed up/not messed up machine, when i see 4 Aces deal across the screen. That's $1600 and a handpay! But i don't even have time to nudge my hubby and tell him before the screen goes black and "call attendant" pops up.

Long story short - the machine lost all data regarding this handpay. They spent time looking in the logs and found zero data, no record of it, no error messages or anything that would give them any hard proof that it happened. Therefore, they would not pay me the $1600. (Only later did i wonder - why didn't they look at the cameras?? there was one right over the machine. Maybe they don't work either....??)

The staff was very "nice" to me in dealing with this, and apologetic that they could simply not pay without any proof of it to go by. . I actually understand why their policy mandates this (in theory, i guess we could all scream for payments of non-existent hands, if we're cheats....which i definitely am not and they knew that but still....). They did come back and give me $200 free play

My biggest complaint was that the machine had messed up the day before, almost exactly what happened to me. The difference there was, when they rebooted the machine the "lost" handpay popped up, so they paid it. And, kept the machine in play. My argument was that it was their fault for having a machine on the floor that they KNEW was having issues, yet they let us continue to play it. (i asked them to shut it off after my fiasco so it wouldn't happen to anyone else, which they did). I also told the Casino manager that i felt bad for those VP players boarding the next day, because they would have only 4 VP machines working?!

So, for those boarding Navigator any time soon, just beware of the video poker situation.

I will also mention that last year, we sailed on Explorer and had the exact same "machines crammed in a corner" scenario. However, that sailing was in Europe, with family, so i spent a lot less time in there. And, there weren't 4 broken machines....it was crowded but at least we could play!!

[Ashland]

Navigator is one of our favorite ships but we certainly don't base it or any other RCI ship on the casino. Sorry the casinos aren't living up to your expectations.

Better luck next time.

[Sunshine3601]

Sorry that happened to you.

These machines must have software issues across the board.  Probably rather outdated.

Seems like I see them having issues on a regular basis on other ships.  We avoid them nowadays.

[not-enough-cruising]

TLDR

[djvcr]

Not the answer you want but this is partly why all the machines have verbiage like "malfunctions voids all plays and pays". unless it is recorded in the hard log of the machine, the outcome never actually happened. If it were a slot machine, theoretically it could appear as if the reels stop on a 777 or some other jackpot but the RNGs and logs that were recorded indicated it should have displayed a different result. 

 

Unfortunately the VP machines in the casinos on Royal Caribbean including the Oasis class (can't speak for wonder, icon or utopia) are the very old IGT game king cabinets running very old software with very old hardware. I am surprised they have lasted even as long as they have. I haven't seen an updated cabinet yet on a ship.

 

It was pretty generous to even give you $200. At the end of the day they would have to account for the missing $1600 in hand pay if it doesn't line up with the central reporting and audting that Miami will eventually get around to reviewing. If this happened in a land casino they would have done the same thing even if they could pull up video and see what was on the screen, unfortunately what is on the screen is not what casinos go by for payouts, its what's inside in the log.

 

One last comment about video poker, with all of the casino updates and advertising of new slots across the oasis class ships, they actually took out at least 1/2 of the video poker machines. Video Poker doesn't make casinos money or not nearly as much as slot machines do even with the horrible pay tables you typically see on ships. They want to maximize profits and don't really want VP players sitting in casino all week.

 

Again, not trying to rub it in or defend Roya, I truly am empathetic. 

 

 

[RFerrington]

I’ve noticed that they seem to be removing VP machines and not replacing them.  They’re becoming extinct

[ajtaylor29]

5 hours ago, not-enough-cruising said:

TLDR

I hear ya. The only people who will bother to read it are vp players and that's who I posted it for.

For everybody else....a boring post with tmi. 🤣

[Tin can]

7 hours ago, djvcr said:

Not the answer you want but this is partly why all the machines have verbiage like "malfunctions voids all plays and pays"

 

 

 

Even playing online you are signing up to this very loose t & c. The house will nearly always win.....

[Harrisonkid]

Just got back from an cruise on Adventure. Without going into great length I too had a poor experience in the casino. I understand profits but I also understand Customer Service . So, I'm sure my casino time will be very limited in the future as well as keeping my cash in my pocket ..