When you take a small upscale cruise ship like the Azamara Journey, and put its casino in the hands of the people who run the large casinos on Celebrity's far larger ships, you end up with what appears to be one of the most professionally run casinos of any of the small premium or luxury cruise lines.

Let us start by saying that VIP players looking for a weekend or week of high-stakes action at sea are unlikely to seek out the new Azamara Journey or its even newer twin sister, Azamara Quest. The casino only offers six gaming tables, most of them catering most of the time to lower-stakes, often inexperienced cruiseship players.

But if you or your spouse decide to take a cruise on the Azamara Journey because of the ship's ambience, amenities or off-the-beaten-path destinations, the casino management and staff can be counted on to attempt to accommodate VIP players -- even if you are looking to play blackjack for $100 to $2,000 per hand until 3 every morning.

When we previewed the Azamara Journey casino on a one-night sailing, there were players crowded around three blackjack tables, one three-card poker table, and the roulette table. We were told on the previous cruise, there had been more three-card poker players aboard -- so one of the blackjack tables had been converted to a second three-card poker table for that cruise.

The sixth table is an eight-seat automated PokerPro table that enables players to compete at Texas Hold 'em without benefit of a live dealer. Players each sit in front of a touch screen that reveals hole cards and chip stacks. When it is a player's turn, the machine prompts you to check, bet, raise or fold.

While these tables are sweeping the cruise industry (all Carnival and Princess cruise ships now feature them), the number of cruisers playing on the Azamara Journey appears to vary greatly from cruise to cruise, and on our sailing, the PokerPro table was pretty lonely.

Several cruisers have asked us whether Azamara might ultimately replace the Texas Hold 'em table with a craps table (they occupy similar space), since craps is not offered on either the Journey or Quest (as is the case on many smaller ships). We were told it is unlikely, since the problem is lack of crew space on a smaller ship for the extra dealers that would be needed for craps.

Along the wood-paneled walls of the Azamara Journey casino there were the usual array of ringing and clanging machines for slot players.

A strong point of the Azamara Journey casino was the experienced dealers, who were all recruited from the casinos on Celebrity ships.

The overall casino experience, for a ship of this size, appears to be excellent. While a VIP player is unlikely to choose the Azamara Journey primarily because of its casino, if you decide to sail on either of the Azamara ships for other reasons, the casino looks to us to be a winner.

--The Savvy Cruiser