When it comes to smoking in cruise ship casinos, the only correct option is to agree to disagree.
For guests who smoke, being able to light up a cigarette while playing the slots is convenient and adds to the fun. But for those who don’t, there are complaints about the smell and second-hand smoke exposure.
Understandably, this hot button topic comes up frequently on Carnival Brand Ambassador John Heald’s Facebook page.
“One of the questions I get asked every day, multiple times, is when will we allow more smoking areas, or, equally if not more, when will we not allow smoking areas – and of course it all comes to the casino,” Heald said in a recent video.
Ultimately, the answer to this is tricky – as there is no way to make everyone happy and the cruise line also has to adhere to rules and regulations for the countries they are based in.
For example, the ships that sail out of Australia – which include Carnival Splendor, Carnival Luminosa, Carnival Encounter, and Carnival Adventure – do not allow any smoking in the casinos because smoking in enclosed spaces is illegal in “The Land Down Under.”
However, Carnival Luminosa does allow smoking in the casino when she is homeporting elsewhere – such as when she is based in Seattle for the Alaska season.
But for US based sailings, the cruise line has tried to find a compromise by offering both smoking and non-smoking options for enjoying the onboard casinos.
“It’s obviously something that our casino department looks at very carefully…I do want to just remind you that we have 10 ships that have either completely separate smoking areas or non-smoking casinos completely,” Heald continued.
“The very smart Beards at the casino will look at this very carefully…At the moment, we are trying to balance everything there so we have all that is needed for both sides,” he said.
In addition to the Australia-based ships, the existing Excel-class vessels (Mardi Gras, Carnival Celebration, and Carnival Jubilee), the Dream-class vessels (Carnival Dream, Carnival Magic, and Carnival Breeze), and the Italian-themed ships (Carnival Venezia and Carnival Firenze) all feature non-smoking casinos.
Carnival Vista also has a non-smoking casino on Deck 4 that is separate from the main smoking casino.
Is the Future Smoke-Free?
Among the cruisers who responded to Heald’s video, the overarching sentiment was that smoking should be banned completely from casinos on all Carnival ships – or that the smoking-friendly casinos should be switched with the smaller non-smoking casinos or smoke-free annexes.
Some carnival fans complained that people who weren’t actively gambling would crowd the casinos because they could smoke there.
“The most irritating thing is when non casino players sit and smoke even after the hosts make constant announcements,” one of Heald’s followers wrote.
Meanwhile, others brought up health concerns or pointed out that they could still smell the smoke in the non-smoking sections.
Someone else said: “I will say the smoking and non smoking side do not work very well on the Excel class as it still passes over to the non smoking side. I just choose to no longer lose my money in any casino I can smell smoke!”
I will also add that when I sailed on Carnival Radiance at the end of 2024, which does not have a non-smoking casino, the smoke smell traveled from the casino and spread into the ship’s main atrium on multiple decks.
Heald himself acknowledged that the world is going in a more smoke-free direction, and thought back to how there were many more spaces onboard where smoking was allowed when he first started working for Carnival in 1989.
Read Also: Can You Smoke on a Cruise Ship – What to Know
“I’m sure we will add more [non-smoking], as I said, as we bring out the new ships, and perhaps we will add more in future drydocks to other ships as well,” Head said. “Right now we are living in a more non-smoking world. That is a Juggernaut that is not going to be stopped.”
Further echoing that the cruise line is going in a more smoke-free direction, both of the upcoming Excel-class ships – Carnival Festivale in 2027 and Carnival Tropicale in 2028 – will have non-smoking casino options onboard.
But at the same time, Carnival won’t be doing away with smoking in casinos completely – at least not at this time – because it wouldn’t be fair to guests who enjoy having this option.
