Royal Caribbean making major casino smoking change
It's a big change that impacts a number of the cruise line's most-popular ships.
Royal Caribbean made a bold choice when it opted to use its newest ship, the Oasis-class Utopia of the Seas to sail 3-4 day "weekends."
Dubbing the experience the "World's Biggest Weekend," the cruise line committed to use its newest ship solely for short trips. That's an investment in bringing more people into cruising at the expense of short-term financial gains.
Related: New travel alert issued for Carnival, Royal Caribbean cruise port
Traditionally, new ships sail week-long sailings to maximize revenue. In this case, Royal Caribbean has opted for shorter sailings to give people new to cruising the best experience possible.
That experience extends to the casino and the casino on Utopia of the Seas. The ship actually offers two casinos — a traditional casino with a smoking area, and a second non-smoking casino/
Because the ship sails shorter getaways, the casino, especially on the 3-night trips, gets a lot use. Many complained that it lacked enough machines and tables.
The cruise line has listened, making a change that is has also made on the recently-refurbished Allure of the Seas. Many expect that Royal Caribbean will ultimately bring that change to all Oasis-class ships, many of which are being used for shorter sailings.
Royal Caribbean fixing a casino problem
Although Utopia and Wonder of the Seas are new ships with the latest and greatest, they missed the mark with one thing, the size of the smoke-free casinos. They were built with a great intended purpose but got quickly overrun with many more cruisers anticipated who wanted that option while playing table games or slots because they were built just too small.
This is also true on older Oasis-class ships which were retrofitted with the smoke-free casinos.
On Utopia of the Seas, the original smoke-free casino was small and held only a handful of good slot machines, but now, they have expanded that casino by taking over the space that was once the Crown Lounge.
Under the new setup, which is similar to the updates made on Allure, the cruise line has added about 100 new slot machines to the smoke-free area.
To accomplish this large expansion, they had to move the Diamond/Crown Lounge to deck 16 and closed the Attic bar.
The smoke-free area now has a dedicated bar inside the casino, instead of just drink servers. This greatly helps with the bar service and other needs. I
If you are a diamond member or higher and use the Crown Lounge, you will also love this move as the lounge is big and now has a view on the port side.
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Royal Caribbean expands non-smoking casino
Transcript:
Dennis Post: Good morning, cruisers. It's Dennis from Postcard Travel Planning and Come Cruise With Me. That's comecruisewith.com. Go there, sign up for the latest travel news from around the world on cruising.
We're in the casino today, and if you haven't guessed it, we are on the biggest weekend. That's Utopia of the Seas, and they just did some renovations here to the Smokefree Casino. The Smokefree Casino was very small, and I guess by customer recommendations they changed it the past two weeks.
They renovated this whole casino, and it is huge now. They took out the attic, which was over there. It was a nightclub.
The Diamond Lounge (Crown Lounge), which we're sitting in right now, which has now moved up to Deck 15, and they've expanded this whole area. So what I'm going to talk to you about is Next Cruise right now. Next Cruise booking bonus right here.
If you haven't done that, we can explain what it means. When you gamble in the casino, whether you're on table game or slot machines, you gain points, and while you're gaining points, that actually means something. It's not just points.
You actually get something. The more points you get, the higher tiers you get, and then you might get an offer of a discounted cruise or sometimes a free cruise. On here, there's a tiered system, and if you look here, as you go up, 1,200 points, really where you need to be, 1,200, 1,500 points.
They're going to give you a cruise certificate, and they call it the Rack Up the Rewards with Royal Caribbean, and that cruise certificate allows you for the one person or two people to go on a cruise heavily discounted, and then the more you play, the more often you come back, the more you get. So it's a great deal. So if you want to get away, if you want to do the casinos, give us a call at Postcard Travel Planning.
I booked most of the casino rates, but we have 33 great agents with Postcard Travel Planning. Give us a call at 386-383-2472, and also don't forget, Come Cruise With Me with Dan Kline, because he is going to keep you updated. He gives you the best articles, him and his staff at Come Cruise With Me.
Stay safe, everyone.
(The Arena Group will earn a commission if you book a cruise.)
Make a free appointment with Come Cruise With Me's Travel Agent Partner, Postcard Travel, or email Amy Post at amypost@postcardtravelplanning.com or call or text her at 386-383-2472.
