Warning: Long Post

Well, I just returned home from a looong trip to the Fantasea Cruise ship (ship is a misnomer, ‘small’ boat is a better discription) it’s now 4AM. I’m still pretty coffee-wired so I thought I’d wind down and give everyone an account of my experience. After driving to dead center of NOWHERE, and then 4 miles out on a dyke built for fishing , there it was a 135 foot vessel with “Fantasea Crusies” on it. You walked out on a pier, passed what looked like a large 8’x8’ plywood box with a hole cut in it, that was the ticket office! Some people walking up I could overhear, were talking about the small size and if they wanted to go out on such a small boat . I saw them board so; I know they didn’t chicken out . We boarded at 6:30 PM and were served drinks in the relatively HOT bar . I assumed things would cool down once underway (wishful thinking). I took my drink and explored the boat; the casino was open but not operating and you could browse around and talk to the dealers. The casino had a perfumey, bug spray odor . All I thought about was the “Roaches at the Blackjack table” post here on the chipboard. As I type this I can still smell it on my clothes. There was 1 craps table, 3 blackjack tables, 1 roulette, 1 stud (generic Caribbean Stud) poker table, and maybe about 50~60 slot machines spread over two decks. There were roughly about 45~50 people who boarded, so it looked like 1 to 1 ratio on the machines. I only shoot craps and was hoping there wouldn’t be a packed craps table, as they only had the 1 table. All the limits on the tables were $5 and only 2x odds on craps. The seas were pretty calm and soon we had arrived, everyone manned their stations (games). I was the ONLY one shooting craps, I like to have a FEW other players as it makes the game more fun, but I can shoot by myself. After an hour, the game picked up about 4 players that came and went. The crew was in nice uniform but a few looked like dressed up wine-o’s , the waitresses wore rather worn out outfits that didn’t hold in their ‘love-handles’ and they could have been spruced up a bit. The dealers were mostly from the now closed Talisman, or from Florida where the boat was last, one was from Naw'leans Lousians , they all were nicely outfitted, professional, and friendly. I chipped up with about $300, most of which came home with me. As I played I sorted through the BETTER chips, another ‘play-on-words’ here. This was awkward since I was the ONLY one playing. But I did manage to pull what I needed. I had to put another $100 in as my stakes ended up mostly in my pocket. It was NOT a new rack like I had hoped for, but the old one they had used in Destin Florida. The $1’s say Extasy Casinos on them and ar worn badly, and these were the BEST ones. The $5’s, $25’s and $100’s are fairly new HC’s with Fantasea Casino Cruises on them and are in pretty good shape. I culled a little harder for the higher denominations. I had one request for a token and the girl at the cage found a really good one with not too much play. There were NO slot cards and the machines had NO place to stick one if they were to get them. After shooting craps I went over to the Blackjack tables to pick up about 20 $2.50 chips, only to find they pay with tokens (two 25 cent tokens). I asked about the ‘pinks’ and the dealer said they didn’t use them. So NO $2.50’s, I did make $55 sitting there inquiring about them. Went back to the craps table as time was getting short I chipped up another $100 to increase bet size. I only played 20 minutes more as I heard the engines crank up, They cut our gambling time short by 30 minutes for some reason. After the last bets settled, I cashed out at $380 (profit) up for the night. Not a windfall but it beats losing. So sailing with Captain Ahab and the Sea hags weren’t all bad after all. And I even endured all the slobbering drunks on the way back, it was FREE booze and no one passed that up, except me I had a 2 hour drive back. I CANNOT imagine this boat ever making it here, too far in the middle of nowhere, and not enough games, plus this boat is too small and narrow for rough water. There were a few ‘green’ ones on THIS cruise, and the water was FLAT!

Everyone who wanted “Stuff,” I will be emailing you tomorrow. --- Got $1’s $5’s $25’s $100, $1.00 Token --NO $2.50’s NO Cards— Hope everyone TREASURES these chips! I won’t be going back on this bucket for a while!

Heading for the sack! (after I lose the bug smell)
Mike