Celebrity Cruise - Summit Casino

 It was with no small degree of anticipation that we boarded our first voyage with Celebrity Cruises: a four-night jaunt from Fort Lauderdale, Florida over to Bimini and Nassau in the Bahamas. This was a cruise offer we received from the Borgata Casino in Atlantic City that allowed us to choose from a list of “free” (more on this later) cruises from Royal Caribbean and Celebrity.

Having already cruised with NCL, Carnival, and MSC, we were looking forward to the more upscale tone promised by Celebrity. Not to be found here were the boorish drunkards inhabiting your typical four-night Carnival cruise. Yet, Celebrity does aim younger and less stuffy than the scooter-bound octogenarians who supposedly inhabit Holland America's ships. We were eager to see if Celebrity struck the right balance between classiness and fun, between maturity and youthful exuberance.

We especially went into the voyage understandably curious about the casino. After all, it was our casino play that got us the offer in the first place, and with continued consistent play, we can anticipate receiving special deals directly from Celebrity itself going forward.

So is the casino a cut above the mainstream both in ambiance and game selection as Celebrity's reputation would have us believe? Are the patrons an unruly mob fighting over seats at their favorite slot machines? Or are they sophisticated gamers cooly observing rounds of five-figure baccarat wagers with the detachment and panache of James Bond?

We'll address these topics and more in our Celebrity Summit casino review. This review focuses chiefly on the casino, so we'll necessarily have to gloss over many of the details pertaining to our stateroom, the dining facilities, and other onboard amenities.

<h2>Ambiance and Atmosphere</h2>

The team onboard Celebrity Summit have done their best to make the casino feel like an upscale retreat from the cares of the world. There's nothing seedy or disreputable-seeming about it. The ceilings are high, the furnishings decent, and the area spacious.

The casino is located on Deck 4. It's basically all one room, but there are a few spillover machines extending into the adjacent sections.

We've been in cruise casinos before where slot players were jammed in next to each other like sardines and navigating the table games was akin to playing a round of Konami's “Frogger.” But aboard the Summit, there's plenty of space separating each machine from the next, and the tables are arranged to make them easy to walk around.

Unlike most casinos on cruise ships, <span style="font-weight: bold;">THERE'S NO SMOKING IN THE CASINO</span> on Summit. This probably contributes to the better environment within as there are no ashtrays to fall and disgorge their annoying contents, nor are there armies of smokers lounging around and interfering with the legitimate players. There is an outside section of Deck 4 where smoking is permitted, so anyone who feels the urge can step away for a few minutes and then jump right back into the action.

Among the slots available were some of our favorites, including:

• Buffalo Ascension

• Rich Little Piggies

• Dancing Drums Golden Drums

• Magic Treasure

• Zhao Cai Zhu

• Coin Combo: Hurricane Horse

• Coin Combo: Perfect Peacock

• Duo Fu Duo Cai Grand: Dragons

• Duo Fu Duo Cai Grand: Ingotcha

Other popular titles included Prosperity Link, Dragon Link, Dancing Drums Prosperity, Buffalo Chief, Buffalo Gold Cash Collection, Coin Trio Fortune Trails, Coin Trio Piggy Burst, Quick Hit, Double Money Link, Lucky O'Reily, Huff n' More Puff. There were also about six or eight video poker machines, but the pay tables were atrocious as is usually the case in cruise casinos.

As far as table games are concerned, we encountered Blackjack, Roulette, Three Card Poker, Craps, and Ultimate Texas Hold'em.

There was also a poker table but no scheduled tournaments. Rather, a $2/$5 No Limit Texas Hold'em cash game would start up most evenings based upon demand at around 8 or 9 p.m. This game would run continuously until it broke, which was generally after midnight. 

The rake was a hefty 10% up to $15: atrocious by terrestrial standards; yet better than some poker games at sea. The quality of the game helped make up for some of this exorbitant house take; many pots went multi-way limped.

How to Earn Points

You earn points by playing eligible casino games and using your SeaPass card.

Blue Chip Club and Offers

Thank you to Mike for writing this article. See more of his work at Professional RakeBack.