I've been on 2 carnival cruises, one with just my ex- gf and the other with her+her kids and my kid. Both times I paid for the entire approx. 300/person cruise cost (and the one with just two of us also $400 in airfare) playing poker. Ironically the couple trip (cheaper total) I played almost the entire time bc she was sick in the room after the first night. The family trip I played maybe 2-3 hours 4 nights.

The games are super soft 1-2nl with 10% rake capped at $7 (i think).
If you can set up a foreign home addy so you can play pokerstars...then my suggestion if you wanted to try this would be continuously book the cruises that go to Nassau.

Play on ship when game runs,
Play online on ship when game doesn't run (can you get cellphone inet out there? never tried)
Play at Atlantis when docked....

Find out if it's possible, assuming you have paid for a cruise, to board it at one of the ports instead of port of origin. Now if this week's cruise doesnt have a game running often enough, stay in Atlantis and play for a week instead of rebounding, and hop back on the next ship (obv you will want to find a cheap place in Nassau to stay). When you are in Florida between cruises you can play at the Casinos or dog tracks and stay in cheap hotels.

My experience with cruises has been that some lines are good, some lines aren't. Carnival has the best structure by far IMO - they have electronic tables which means more hands per hour, their rake is 15% but capped at $6 (which is high, but no dealers to tip is a hidden inflation of win rates), and the electronic aspect means that more players tend to buy in full because they just have to push a button to rebuy as opposed to overcoming the psychological problem of shelling out cash.

I've been on a few, and while there is just one poker table, it's almost always full. And it's like stepping into a time machine into 2003. Good lord the tables are soft.

Each of the cruises I've been on has been ~$1000 for me and my wife, so if you had a roommate, you could definitely do it on $500 a week.

I don't have any real idea of what your long-term winrate would be. Normal live winrates don't apply because the level of competition is much weaker than the softest $1/$2 table on a Friday night in Vegas. My sample size is only about 30 hours, so I can't say anything meaningful other than I've been beating the game for around ~$80/hr.

Granted, I ran pretty hot the last time I played on one. I fully realize that. I was on the right end of some pretty sick coolers. For example, I had AK and this other guy had A7 on an A83r board.

Yeah, I know. He had a pair of aces. That's so many aces! How can you fold when you have that many aces? Put it another way: pocket aces is the strongest starting hand. Now he had two aces on the flop, which is kind of like "the pocket aces of the flop." How can he ever fold there? Time to get it in with 100bb. Sick, sick cooler. Nothing you can do in that spot.

On the one cruise I've been on, the comedian would come play poker. That seems like the way to do it. I think he only did like 2 shows, too -- so it would appear that the rest of the time he was free to do whatever he wanted.

I'm not sure which employees would and would not be allowed to do this, though. The MC of all the shows would come by sometimes to watch, and we'd be like "take a seat!" and he'd be like "man I wish I could..."

So yeah, OP, just go get really funny first.

does poker run at the atlantis outside of PCA? You can get internet on the ship, but it is insanely expensive [the cheapest package works out to be about $20/hr], and pretty slow. If you dont need to play a lot of tables AND have a high hourly, it would be possible.

I've been on at least 10 cruises and played poker on the majority of them. To answer the OP's question, yes it can be done. Rake is a killer, especially on NCL, so you'd want to avoid that (10%up to $25 I believe). The rake can be beat though.
There are a couple Royal cruises that I believe still have live dealers spreading 2/5 (it playes smaller than a regular 2/5 where people can buy in for maybe $60). Look into taking the Majesty of the Seas or Monarch of the Seas out of Miami/Ft Lauderdale. I believe Monarch will be sold soon replaced by another ship, so that might not work for you. Live dealers on cruises promise a better/more active game because people are afraid of the electronic tables and believe they're all rigged etc... Trust me, with live dealers they give money away.
Carnival uses the pokerpro tables and I believe their rake increased to 15%, capped at 10 I believe. I could be wrong.
If you have a solid bankroll, you could try this. The downside is you'll get dinged as a solo traveler unless you can find somebody to do this with. They basically charge solo travelers double.
Bring a lot of quarters, you'll need em for the washer dryers on board.

as for this from a previous post:
Find out if it's possible, assuming you have paid for a cruise, to board it at one of the ports instead of port of origin. Now if this week's cruise doesnt have a game running often enough, stay in Atlantis and play for a week instead of rebounding, and hop back on the next ship (obv you will want to find a cheap place in Nassau to stay). When you are in Florida between cruises you can play at the Casinos or dog tracks and stay in cheap hotels.

you can't just hop on a cruise ship back if you want. doesn't work like that. Also, Atlantis doesn't spread poker other than when they do the pca.

I was on a Carnival cruise last week (Glory) and it was 15% capped at $6.

The table was full most of the time.

I really think the electronic tables are better for us because people are more likely to buy in full, you see more hands per hour, and there are no dealers to tip. And my experience (only 4 cruises on Carnival) is that people think it's weird at first, but they get over it quickly and realize it's just poker, and then they're happy after that.

Ive been on a cruise two years ago with the electronic tables.. Was not always fun but atleast 5 or more peopel playing after dinner hours. Good thing with the electronic tables you can play them during the day when the ship is docked although the casino is closed.

Games were uber soft but after seeing you win a couple nights in a row guys remember you and might not want to give you too much action.

They also had 3 scheduled tournaments during my 7 day cruise with buyins varying $60 and a big one the last day for around $200 (rake was horrid)

thing with the tournaments were there was only one table so if it was too many runners they would have round 1,2,3 and was a little time consuming but you could always advance then go to your room until your round started.

Electronic game had about a 7 min learning curves and made it easy for 1st timers to join as they didn't feel intimidated and I was always friendly enough to demonstarte and help new players sign up.

You just gotta sell it. You're the easygoing social guy who's just wow, getting lucky and catching cards. Hey, let's talk about sports or what everyone did during their last port or whatever.

Besides, if you've got a winning image and they aren't giving you action, that's the most profitable time to play. FOLD EQUITY. HAMMER THEM. It's super fun and you're going to have your highest winrate after you've established a winning image. Because you're winning and therefore you're lucky, so you have to have it. Bart Hanson talks about this at length.

The Royal Caribbean cruise I went on last year this time ran "tournaments" that were lol, but the cash was fun. They were insistent on spreading 2/5, but at least the rake was capped at I think 10% to $10 iirc. A few of the players were decent but whalish, so losing a $500 pot meant nothing to them. We played on a converted blackjack table, so 6 or 7 max iirc. They did eventually succumb to n00b pressure to lower to 1/2 nl when a game wouldn't run otherwise (last few days of the cruise).

The other cruise I went on a few years back (celebrity) spread a 2/5 live full table, 10% rake NO LIMIT lol I didn't even bother playing that nonsense.

the rakes are pretty high in the cruise ..

but the idea is feasible . let me know if you given it a try .

Hey OP,
look for Donkr PokerCruises sponsored by betsson.... 19-24 Oct 2014

Has anyone logged on to PokerStars from a cruise ship post Black Friday? What IP addresses do they use in the Caribbean? Was the internet speed/ping good enough to multi-table?

The internet charges are way too high to be playing online poker while cruising.

Also why even bother crushing if all you are going to do is grind poker?

The internet charges for Royal Caribbean are only $190 for unlimited for the whole 7-day cruise.

you get the right deal it is $200 a week... they don't want to set sail with all those unused rooms!

That's impressive. They've changed it a lot since I was last with them.

The other thing you would want to check is where you get free wifi. When we went it was only in a couple of public areas, not really a grinders paradise.

Just go on a cruise and find out for yourself. I find it hard to imagine anyone who has actually been on a cruise, AND played more than a few hours of casual live poker in their life, thinking this is a good idea.

It would be like grinding in Las Vegas, except more expensive and you're stuck on a crappy boat the whole time. Except when you go to exotic locations, during which time you can leave for a couple hours to wonder on your own or take over-priced low quality excursions sponsored by the cruise line. Sign me up!

I wonder if an American with no pernament US address could figure out how to live basically live on one or more cruise ships and get a permanent address that would satisfy PokerStars, maybe renting their house to a friend or relative to make it all legal while they try poker cruising for a year. Might be worth it for an American former Supernova Elite.

Grind online on the boat, and take a break or get dinner in different cities every day. And for variety you could play live on the boat once in a while.

I know that grinding online on a boat sounds stupid, but most poker players would think that SNEs who grind 70+ hours a week in their house are a little off (and many would admit it.)

So much for that idea...

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The offical IP adress for Liberty of the Seas is confirmed as an USA address.

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Do a prop bet for it.

Haven't been on a cruise in a long time...do many of them have these weekly unlimited internet packages now?

Any cruise lines where the internet IP address won't be a U.S. location? Any chance you could send Cruise documents /phone call Pstars/ whatever is necessary/ etc. to prove you will not actually be in the U.S.? Or is it just your IP is U.S. so game over can't play on it no matter what.

Dang... would be cool to try this for a month or 2 with the online combo. Even if it was pricey.

I don't think playing on a cruise ship is going to generate any amount of sustainable income for long periods of time, plus a lot of people are sea sick

The newer cruise ships are being built for ship-wide high speed internet. I can see doing it for maybe a few months or so. Having been on a few cruises I can tell you that longer than that and you're going to miss some aspects of land life.

I've noticed also a majority of the pros listed are all aesthetic landscape based, views, beaches, sun, rather than pro's that are going to increase your long term profitability, do you desire a long vacation by any chance OP?