Craps Royal Caribbean Craps Tables

Getting ready to take a Royal Caribbean cruise and was wondering if anyone had opinions on if the tables are bouncy or not.
I'm new here and tried the search feature but didn't see anything.

 

I host two to three Craps Cruises a year with my partners at URComped on Royal. Our 11th one is coming up St Patrick's Day, so I'm very familiar with their tables, minimums, and rules.

The tables have a slight bounce to them but they're very playable once you grasp the dynamics of how high to toss the dice, where to land them, etc. I generally use a low toss, about 25 - 30 degrees, and land the dice four to six inches out. Be sure to stay out of the hook with the dice if you're tossing from stick left or right. The microfiber is pretty grabby and if the dice don't land perfectly square with the deck they can end up in the "mixing bowl" and that can spell trouble.

The tables are 12' measured inside the bowl. About 13.5 outside the rails. There are no Bonus Bets - it's just straight craps. Table max is $500. Minimum is usually $10. At $10 it's a single odds game. If I'm playing at that level, when I'm the shooter I place the point in addition to the Pass Line and Odds. At the $25 bet level the casino will let you take 2X odds, as I recall. At $100 you can take 3-4-5X odds. You'll need to verify this with a dealer or the TGS as that info is not displayed on the tables.

Back about ten years ago Royal got tagged over in the Mediterranean by a group of dice sliders out of Cypress who bounced from ship to ship, taking several back to back cruises. They posed as high rollers making $1000 minimum bets and got the table limits raised. Then through distraction and dice sliding on tables where the crew had not been trained properly on game protection, they clipped Royal for over $300K (one dealer told me it was over a half million). Eventually, Royal figured out what had happened, banned these guys from the cruise line and filed charges against them, but they were never prosecuted because the crime happened in International waters and the European courts felt they had no jurisdiction. As a result, Royal is extremely sensitive about the dice not hitting the back wall. EVERY time even one die comes up short of the back wall, and I mean even an eighth of an inch short, it's a No Roll. This slows the game down a lot, and many players complain about it. Those who complain are idiots. If the dice come up short and a Seven rolls it's still a No Roll. Since the Seven rolls more often than any other number, this rule saves players money in the long run. Keep that in mind when your point is 10 and you short roll a Hard Ten and they No.Roll you. Had it double pitched into a 5-2 Seven it would still have been a No Roll.

It's likely the most frustrating thing you'll face will be limited hours of operation for the craps table(s). Like everywhere else in the casino industry, Royal's casinos lost most of their dealers during the COVID shutdown. They have had a difficult time getting their old dealers back and recruiting/training new ones.

Good luck, and enjoy your cruise.

Heavy

 

Wow! Thanks for your in depth response!
I'd love to be on those craps cruises with you!

 

Well, if you've booked direct with Royal (as opposed to booking through a casino host) then I couldn't help you out with anything like a comp on Royal for at least a year after your next cruise - more likely 18 months. They "own" you as a customer for a certain amount of time after your last cruise. If you do not take another cruise while booking direct with them in that time period then you can book through a third-party company. The reason third party companies won't work with existing Royal customers is tht Royal won't pay them a commission to book the business - so there's simply no incentive to do so.

But I do host trips on other cruise lines. For example, I have one coming up on MSC next August called a Tables and Tournaments Cruise. It features another Table Games expert and myself (the other gent is primarily a card player - Blackjack, Let it Ride, Poker, etc., and will be working with people from that angle. I'm primarily a craps guy and will be running a couple of craps classes and hosting some other events on the ship. This one is out of Miami on the MSC Seascape on August 17th. Anyone interested is welcome to reach out to me.

 

gl

 

Well thank you.
I think it sounds very interesting.
Have you posted a link in another thread?

 

I won't post links here since I don't want to get crossways with the moderators and their terms of s ervice. But you can access all of my upcoming event info via my private Facebook groups if you'll join them. There's no charge. They are Heavy's Axis Power Craps Group and Heavy's Wrong Way Craps Group.