Officer Guest Slots Tournament

February 16, 2012

One of the oddest Guest Encounters in which I participate is the Officer Guest Slots Tournament. This is not to say this is the oddest competition on ship. From my perspective, the Officer vs. Guest ping pong tournament, or the Bocce Ball tournament on our top lawn are a little unusual to me. Other activities, such as the Thriller Dance Off are even more out of the ordinary. But this is one that Laura roped me into right away, and I find it the most absurd 15 minutes of my cruise cycle.

It starts with being raffled off. Literally. Every guest who wishes to participate in this tournament is given a raffle ticket. The officers arrive while our Casino Host, Ralph, hawks his wares, meaning us. “We’ve just been joined by Dave, our amazing T&D Manager . . . let’s give it up for Dave!” Hard to sneak into an event with eagle-eyed Ralph on the lookout. Each officer then picks a raffle ticket and he is paired with the lucky ticket holder. Several minutes of banal ‘getting to know you’ conversation follows until all officers are paired up with a guest.

Then the ‘competition’ begins. Each officer and guest are paired on a electronic slot machine. The entire object of the game is to see how many points your team can earn in four minutes. The guest plays for the first two minutes, and then the officer jumps in for the final two. The key to this game is to keep hitting the Spin buttons as fast as possible, so that the machine never stops recording the results. At this pace of frantic hammering on the buttons, it becomes less a game of slots and more an out of control “Whack a Mole” session. Generally speaking, the guests that play in this event are among our more senior members, and at that frantic pace you are mostly concerned that no one has a heart attack in their efforts to earn a prize.

This is all about luck and nothing to do with skill. Such is the nature of slot machines. In my last competition my guest hit the jackpot twice in the first minute giving us a commanding lead. Unfortunately, Lady Luck turned against us soon thereafter, and we watched as our lead frittered away until we ended in 6th place out of ten teams. Not surprisingly, the one officer who had not played before and who was pulled in as she was simply passing by, our Senior Doctor, Jennifer, pulled off the victory. I accused her of being a slot machine hustler and that we’d be watching for her next time.

In just a few minutes, the guests get an up-front and personal engagement with an officer, three guests walk away with nice prizes, and the officers’ only take-away are bruised hands from hammering on the buttons. But, once again, Celebrity scores big by having infinitely professional, yet completely approachable, officers. Even if we talk insufferable ‘smack’ to one another behind the scenes prior to this intense little competition. Ship’s officers are some of the most competitive people you ever want to meet.

And the adventure continues . . .