My only experience on a cruise was on Norwegian, so this may be different than what you'll find on a different line:
I really enjoyed the experience on the ship. The atmosphere was much more relaxed and friendly than in most Vegas casinos. I would advise visiting the casino as soon as you can. Mine offered an orientation where you could sign-up for their player's club, etc before they reached the point where they could open the actual games. In doing this, take advantage of any and all promotions available; and be sure to tell them specifically that you want to play blackjack. Ask about any promotions specific to blackjack, and about any tournaments they might have.
With the player's Club card, which by itself is almost worthless (You have to play about 4 hours a day at $25 a hand to get a whopping $25 off your bill.), I got a "Free Ace", which was a card I could use at the table so that an ace would be my first card on my first hand (I busted my hand; but my wife got a natural on hers.) They also had a special on chips, where you could buy three red chips for $10. My wife and I both did this; and then, becase of a record keeping error, we were solicited to do it again later in the cruise, which we both did again. That is $20 in free chips.
The tournament was in a format I didn't care much for; but the buy-ins were only $10 with a club card; and that included a $5 match-play coupon each time. I bought in several times, but was knocked off the leader board shortly after finally making it on. Still, it was fun. I probably got back most of what I spent on the tournament entries using the match-play coupons at the tables.
When I first got onboard, all of the blackjack games were hand-shuffled 6-deck shoe games. During the trip, they installed a couple of continuous shuffle machines, which I think shuffle three decks together. THat was my first experience against this type of machine; and I ended up winning a little overall on that table.
They stand on all 17s. They allow double after split and double on any two cards. Aces can be resplit; and resplits on all hands can be up to a maximum of three times. Blackjack pays 3:2. They do not allow surrender. Penetration on the shoe games was about 70%.
There were always plenty of $5 tables. I went some at the very crowded late evening times, and only had to wait for a seat once. And most of the time, you had your pick of seats. They had one table which was open all day long with a $5 minimum and $300 maximum. If you went during odd hours, it was almost a sure thing you'd be one on one with the dealer, or at the very least, only have one other player on the table.
At night, there were always at least three $5 tables open. They also had a $10 table, a $25 table, and a $100 table. I rarely saw anyone playing at the $25; and only saw one guy playing at the $100 level one time. The $10 table would get about half-full in the evenings; but was almost never busy in the daytime, if they even had it open.
If you're interested in other games, they had several: Carribean Stud, Let It Ride, Three Card Poker, Pai Gow Poker, Casino War, Roulette, and Craps. They even had a Texas Hold-em table that was open in the evenings. And of course, they had a full compliment of machines in lots of denominations ranging from quarters up to $5.
It was a fun part of the trip for me; and I managed to make about $500 in profit at the tables.
