Are there any playable games on ships? If so, do any of these offer in-dock options to play?
Yes, royal caribbean offers h17, das, no resplit aces, no surrender. Most ships deal out 7 out of 8 decks. Table limits of 25-500, and 50-1000 are common, and the biggest ships usually have 100-2000. On most ships, you have to get pretty aggressive before they will mind.
Norwegian offers 6 deck games, and usually they deal out like 4.5 decks. They usually have some tables with 50 or 100 minimums where the dealer stands on soft 17. Norwegian is more savvy than Royal carribbean. If they catch you on one ship, you're probably done on the others too. Royal Caribbean ships do not communicate much with each other.
Royal Carribbean's sister line Celebrity is kind of similar to Royal Caribbean, but their table limits are a little lower.
Carnival and their sister line Princess (and probably Holland America) offer a game called fun 21, which is a ripoff of spanish 21. They usually deal 6 out of 8 decks. But those tables are usually 6 dollar minimum, so everyone crowds it, and you're lucky to get 50 hands an hour. They also offer worse bonuses than Spanish 21, raising the HE by 0.1%. But they offer early surrender, which lowers the HE by like 0.25%. You have to do your own calculations to know when to surrender. And when the dealer has a 10 up, sometimes you have to surrender quickly because they check for the ace quickly.
Royal Caribbean and Norwegian give out lots of free cruises if you bet reasonably big. Carnival and Princess are very stingy with free cruises.
Usually, you can't play while the ship is in port, except a few special islands where the cruise line made a deal with the government.
If you play sufficient hours and money, you can garner a free cruise after each cruise, at different cabin levels, dependent upon your play (but still have to pay port fees, taxes, and suggested you prepay gratuities).
Also, most if not all cruise lines have “exclusive” clubs for cruisers who have varying levels of play throughout a year, thereby making them eligible for comped and discounted cruises (port fees, taxes and gratuities again) throughout the year, as well as invites to special events and tournaments.
"Your honor, with all due respect: if you're going to try my case for me, I wish you wouldn't lose it."
Fictitious Boston Attorney Frank Galvin (Paul Newman - January 26, 1925 - September 26, 2008) in The Verdict, 1982, lambasting Trial Judge Hoyle (Milo Donal O'Shea - June 2, 1926 - April 2, 2013) - http://imdb.com/title/tt0084855/
I've been on more than one cruise where the casinos cheat. They remove high cards from the shoe. You'll never see them spread the cards. They have no regulatory agency to oversee them, being in international waters.
Count down at least 10 shoes before you consider playing. If most of the shoes end at a significantly positive count, stay far, far away.
Personally observed exactly what beta stated on prior RCCL cruises.Originally Posted by Gronbog
I have previously procured free cruise certificates based upon my level and volume of play during individual cruises. I have also reached Prime status for a year, giving me eligibility for various free/discounted cruise comps and offers for special events, as well as a 7/8 night, annual free cruise anywhere RCCL travels.
Although they deal 8D, HS game, penetration always around 7/8, 3:2, DA2, Split Aces 1x (1 card only), and split to 4 hands max. I do not recall whether Surrender available, but will find out on upcoming free, comped cruise.
"Your honor, with all due respect: if you're going to try my case for me, I wish you wouldn't lose it."
Fictitious Boston Attorney Frank Galvin (Paul Newman - January 26, 1925 - September 26, 2008) in The Verdict, 1982, lambasting Trial Judge Hoyle (Milo Donal O'Shea - June 2, 1926 - April 2, 2013) - http://imdb.com/title/tt0084855/
To be more precise for the novice counters:
It looks suspicious if the running count at the end of the shoe is consistently above the expected level. In case of a balanced count, this is zero, but in case of an unbalanced count, the RC is expected to increase, but e.g. only by four per deck in KO, REKO etc. So when 7 out of 8 decks are dealt, one should expect the Running Count at the end of the shoe to be 7 * 4 = 28 above the Initial Running Count. If it is always higher than that, you should be alerted of a biased card pack with Tens and/or Aces removed.
Last edited by PinkChip; 07-27-2019 at 06:22 AM.
No surrender on any of my RCCL cruises. Last one was in May of this year.
I did find early surrender on a MSC cruise once, although I'm not sure whether it was part of the actual rules or because the dealer didn't know the difference.
For those suspecting short shoes, cut the discards into play a few times to help see what's there.
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