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Oh, how the other half lives!
Or in this case, the top 1 per cent!
Card Player magazine publisher and poker pro Barry Shulman, who last year dropped $200,000 for a 61-day, Mediterranean Sea cruise on a luxury cruise ship, is at it again.
This time he's on a 94-day, Pacific Ocean cruise on the same ship.
And if, like his cruise last year aboard the Crystal Cruise Lines ship Serenity, he's shelling out big bucks for the ship's priciest stateroom, he's paying a whopping $250,000 for this year's cruise!
Shulman on Tuesday blogged that he and his wife, Allyn, were leaving on Wednesday for a three-month world cruise aboard the Serenity, one of the world's fanciest cruise ships.
Last year, Shulman blogged regularly for the Card Player website (www.cardplayer.com) from his two-month cruise on Serenity, including showing photos of his stateroom, the Crystal penthouse, the most expensive stateroom on the ship.
Shulman neglected to mention the cost of his cruise in his blog, but Gambling911.com investigated the matter and revealed that Shulman's vacation was costing $200,000 total for he and his wife.
Gambling911.com also revealed that the actual cost of the trip was $400,000, but Shulman was able to snag a two-for-the-price-of-one deal and get the trip at half-cost.
Now Shulman is on a three-month cruise, and although he hasn't revealed yet which stateroom he's occupying, it's likely he's once again in the penthouse--he's a high roller who's always travelled in style, so why stop now?
Shulman also hasn't revealed how much this cruise is costing him, so Gambling911.com investigated the matter and learned that if indeed he is once again in the pricey penthouse stateroom, this cruise is setting him back a whopping $250,000!
Gambling911.com also learned that the actual cost of the cruise is $500,000--yes, half a million dollars--but once again Shulman was likely able to take advantage of a two-for-one deal offered by the cruise line, a deal offered in these tough economic times (but apparently not for Shulman) by the line to entice business.
In addition, Gambling911.com can reveal that the costly cruise, which left Los Angeles on January 18, will visit 32 ports of call in 13 countries before returning to L.A. on April 21.
Among the cities to be visited by Shulman on the cruise are Lahaina and Honolulu, Hawaii; Noumea, New Caledonia; Sydney, Melbourne and Perth, Australia; Bali, Indonesia; Bangkok, Thailand; Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing, China; Nagasaki and Osaka, Japan; Singapore; Seoul, South Korea; Sihanoukville, Cambodia; Petropavlovsk, Russia; Vancouver and Victoria, Canada and Dutch Harbor and Kodiak, Alaska.
The Serenity is a massive cruise ship that is part of the ultra-fancy Crystal Cruises luxury cruise line, the top-rated and most expensive cruise line in the world.
The Crystal Penthouse is a 1,345-square-foot suite that includes a living room, dining area, pantry, library, workout area, bedroom, veranda and two bathrooms, and comes with a butler.
The average stateroom on the ship is just 202 square feet, with no butler.
In addition, the penthouse contains amenities such as a treadmill, three large flat-screen television sets (one each in the bedroom, living room and master bathroom), a bidet, a jacuzzi, Internet access, a refrigerator, a coffee-maker and a microwave oven.
As for the ship itself, the 820-foot-long, 13-deck Serenity holds 1,070 passengers and 655 crew members and boasts a full showroom with stage, a massive dining room, a movie theater, a gym, a spa, a salon, a book and film library, a putting green, a shuffleboard court, a skeet-shooting area on deck, a tennis court, a nightclub, a computer room, a casino, several elevators, over a dozen shops, two swimming pools and 10 restaurants.
According to official tournament records, Shulman has earned over $4 million in his career playing tournament poker, including earning more than $1 million by winning the World Series of Poker Europe Main Event in 2009.
In addition, he has also won several other major poker tournaments, including a WSOP stud tourney in 2001 and a Los Angeles Poker Classic Omaha tourney in 2002.
He also makes big bucks playing poker online, and of course earns even more as publisher and owner of Card Player, which has a website and puts out a print edition.
In a recent Republican presidential candidates' debate, Mitt Romney tried--unsuccessfully--to make a $10,000 bet with another candidate.
If Romney wants to find someone to bet $10K with who won't flinch at the amount, he ought to look in the penthouse stateroom aboard the Serenity.
By Tom Somach
Gambling911.com Staff Writer
