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Ship Review - Azamara Journey/Comparison to Celebrity/RCI


mrsaquashark
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In sum, Azamara is fantastic way to enjoy long days in ports. It was perfect for the port-intensive, sea-day-free itinerary we were on, but the ship requires some work to be a true premium/luxury cruise line.

 

About Us: DH and I are 30/29 attorney/college professor from NYC. This was our seventh cruise, and we've previously been on Carnival, Royal, and Celebrity ships. We have unabashedly admitted in the past that Celebrity Silhouette is our favorite ship, and we definitely have a preference for newer ships. We freely admit that these things colored our impression of Azamara Journey.

 

Our Shipmates: While we tended to run on the younger side, most of our fellow passengers were also well-traveled, active couples and families with extensive cruise/traveling experience. We loved the community feel of the ship and easily made friends with everyone we encountered. We appreciated that the cruise line apparently appreciates the expertise of its passengers, as Azamara is refreshingly devoid of the "touristy kitsch" typically found on cruises (gold by the inch, pushy photographers, tanzanite hawksters, soda machines with 900 flavors, prominent "art" auctions).

 

Embarkation: As noted in our port review, extremely quick and easy, with very quick luggage delivery as well. We embarked mid-afternoon and were able to go straight to our stateroom. We have become accustomed to our embarkation glass of bubbly on Celebrity, and were glad to see this again on Journey.

 

Stateroom: V3 7107: We thoroughly enjoyed our stateroom. We were fond of the dark wood décor. However, some of the little details that made it onto Silhouette were not present. The storage above the bed was missed (DH uses this for many of his clothes, as I am too short), the shower was small, but we managed, although I missed that lovely shave bar, and our tv did not have a music station (DH omitted our bluetooth speaker from our packing list anticipating that the tv would have this functionality). The storage was adequate, although I did not discover the smaller drawers in the vanity until day 4 or so, and this probably would have influenced how I unpacked our things, had I known. Loungers on the balcony were missed, but the large table was appreciated for room service breakfast. Our balcony was unequivocally our favorite breakfast venue on the ship.

 

Pool area: This was an extremely port intensive cruise. The only time we spent on the pool deck were embarkation day, our "sea afternoon" following the stop in Canakkale, and DH spent a little time in the pool after we returned from Mykonos. We found the loungers extremely comfortable, and if anyone who works for Celebrity is reading this - please replace those monstrosities in the Silhouette solarium with these extremely comfortable padded chairs with pillows! I also found the hot tubs well suited to my short stature (5'2"), as the water level in these came up to right around the middle of my chest, as opposed to being up to my neck like so many other hot tubs are. We did not understand why the pool closed at 8PM each night, as we would have loved to enjoy a late night swim a few times. Perhaps on these port intensive itineraries with the late stays, the pool could stay open past midnight for a few nights during the cruise. The weather was so warm after departing Istanbul that I bet a lot of people would have enjoyed a night swim. We also noted that the listed maximum occupancy for the main pool is 16 people, which seems a little small for a ship that carries nearly 700 passengers. The pool towels were a baffling disappointment: they were visibly worn and had rust stains from the loungers.

 

Spa: We went to the spa together during our "sea afternoon" following Canakkale to make the appointment, and openly discussed in front of the desk clerk at the spa which treatment we were going to get (as in, debating them so we would choose the same one) and made an appointment for a body scrub and massage right around sailaway time from Rhodes. The locker rooms were nicely appointed, although I kept forgetting that I had given the desk my room key in exchange for the locker key and nearly forgot to get my room key back! However, once we have changed into the robes in the locker rooms, we come out for our treatment, and they put us in separate rooms. When we asked why were in separate rooms instead of the same one, we were told that the spa on Journey does not have a room to accommodate couples treatments. I think this is something we should have been told when we booked the treatment, as it was obvious that we were booking together, and we booked the same treatment at the same time. The treatment was lovely and my therapist was excellent. The one upside to separate treatment rooms is that DH didn't even have to hear the hard sell about the products, as they only gave that to me. For some reason, the spa charges French VAT, although our invoice at the end of the cruise indicated that this charge had already been refunded to us. I was disappointed in the "quackery" marketing practices: the spa is overseen by a "Doctor" and their marketing implied that spa treatments could treat medical problems.

 

Dining:

 

Discoveries Restaurant: We are NYC foodies, so we are hard to impress and don't expect to be impressed by food on cruises. We found the food in Discoveries to be right around the same level as the MDR on Royal Caribbean, and perhaps this has to do with the open seating (we usually opt for late traditional) but the service was not quite as good. The food was good, but neither memorable nor outstanding. In fact, we enjoyed the food on Celebrity better.

 

DH has serious allergies to nuts and shellfish - and we felt this was an issue much better handled on Celebrity, Royal, and Carnival. I had indicated the allergies to our TA and then about 90 days out, called Azamara directly to make sure that our TA had relayed the information. We also spoke to the Maitre D on the first day just to cover all of our bases, and we always remind our waiter when we order as well. We understand that dinner the first night can be hectic, but that doesn’t excuse the fact that they originally placed a shrimp dish and then a pine nut containing dish in front of DH after we specifically mentioned this. When we dined in Discoveries on the night following our Azamazing evening (during which there was no sit down dinner service, everything was buffet) we were chastised for not having ordered the day before (ordering the day before is a common practice for the allergies) even though there had not been an opportunity to do so! Another night, we had ordered the day before, but then they informed us that they had run out of the dish DH had ordered the previous night. Why are we ordering the day before if you are going to run out of what we ordered? In Santorini we had elected to eat dinner ashore, so DH did the preordering thing at breakfast the next morning and the waiter who took the order and then went to enter it into the computer didn't know why we were preordering. At this point, shouldn't the computer have told him? It was baffling, actually, and we had much better experiences on less premium cruise lines.

 

For the actual dining service beyond allergy issues, we found the service to be consistently slow, with a bit too much time between courses, especially between ordering and the first course. The included wines were hit or miss, and on a couple of occasions we took advantage of the tidbit we found here about ordering the wine from a previous night. On one occasion though, the dining room claimed they were out of the previous night's red wine when one of our dining companions had just been drinking it out at the casino bar, and she was the one who traveled out to the casino bar to retrieve the bottle.

 

Windows: We mostly utilized Windows Café for breakfasts (DH and I each also ended up there some days before our late dinners for a snack.). The selection was rather limited, and we found it odd that the Sunset Bar was not open to serve screwdrivers or bloody marys with breakfast, like the bars on Royal/Celebrity. However, one very nice waiter did go somewhere to scrounge up some vodka so we could turn our OJ into screwdrivers one morning. (While Azamara prides itself on having an all-inclusive experience with no gratuities, it was clear that those who tipped got better service. We were happy to oblige.) Additionally, we found the waiter delivery of our omelets and made to order eggs a nice touch, as were the cloth napkins and actual porcelain plates.

We liked the outdoor area, but had a bit of trouble finding a table compared to our experiences in Oceanview Café on Silhouette, and we did miss the couches and armchairs that are found there. Additionally, we thought the area closed too early, particularly on nights with late sailaway. Is there any reason Sunset Bar shouldn't be open for an 11PM sailaway?

 

Mosaic Café: DH says this was the best coffee on the ship. I enjoyed the size of the little pastries in the case. I am a bread and pastry fiend, and find myself on X loading up a large plate of pain au chocolate, croissant, danishes, etc... at breakfast but Mosaic Café had similar pastries at about half the size, which for me equalled about a quarter of the guilt!

 

Room Service: We only utilized room service for breakfast. The ordering card gave ½ hour timeslots, but we specified a narrower 15 minute time slot and this was granted every time. The setup of the table on our balcony on delivery was inconsistent, as it was laid out with utensils and the tablecloth sometimes but not others. As always, some food will arrive room temperature, but we realize that this is a pretty much unsolvable logistical problem. Eggs were inconsistent. For my over easys and DH's poached, we would find that one of our two eggs was perfectly cooked while the other was overdone. Additionally, presentations were inconsistent, as fruit was sometimes plated and sometimes served in an ice cream dish. Bacon and potatoes were an awful, flavor-lacking insult. Also, on X, if you ask, they will bring you a pitcher of juice rather than just a glass, but that was refused on Journey, even when we asked.

 

Additional note: Across the board in all dining venues, we and our touring companions noted that the quality of the fruit was quite subpar for the entire length of the trip.

 

Bars, Lounges, and Entertainment:

 

Casino Bar: We usually took in a cocktail here before dinner and listened to the musical stylings of Max DiFaz the piano player, who is a very nice guy and extraordinarily friendly. We could tell Max loves the customer service aspect of his job and was probably the best example of the famed Azamara service we heard about. When we were seated next to him he overhead us discussing Disney, he took a pause in his song to play a quick Disney tune—and when he overhead us discussing Italian food, the theme to Godfather started playing! What fun! We would also pop in here before bed for a nightcap on our way to perhaps losing a couple of dollars. The bartender and server Ernesto was a standout here.

 

Looking Glass Lounge: We ended up here every single night, and for quite a few sailaways. The drink service was good. If anyone was on this cruise and saw the crazy people on the dance floor, we were those crazy people! We thought the DJ in here was disappointing. His playlist was the same pretty much every night, except for the hour that was ABBA themed one night, and even then he started off with really obscure ABBA songs and it took him about 20 minutes to get to the good stuff. There would be one or two good songs played, and then one song that was completely impossible to dance to, which would kill the vibe and empty the dance floor. The DJ should be more in tune with the feel of the room and try to keep the party going, while also mixing the songs up a bit. There were a couple of nights where DH or I could predict what song was going to play next based on the song that was playing--so it was obvious that the DJ was going through rote playlists in the SAME EXACT ORDER every night. Also, many of the songs played had a low quality sound to them. We were not sure if they were being played off of a low quality computer file or if the speakers in Looking Glass need replacing (we leaned a bit toward the former) but someone should remedy this, as it was really quite noticeable.

 

Cabaret Shows: We only made it to the opening night show. The dancers and singers are clearly talented, although for this show, we found the singers on the screen providing the extra voices to be a bit of a distraction from the live performance. Other nights, we spent lingering in the dining room with our group and ended up missing the shows. We found the late nights in ports a more compelling draw than the shows.

 

White Night: This was in Santorini (which I thought was strange, since Santorini was also the port where they offered the Nights in Cool Places Excursion and our sailaway was equally late in Kos) and anyone who has read our port review knows that we barely made it back to the ship that night, so we missed the first bit of the White Night Party and didn't get to sample the buffet. However, based on what we did see, we declared it the absolutely best executed pool deck party on a cruise ship we had ever attended. The deck was nicely decorated, the entertainment was good without being so loud as to preclude conversation, and the vibe was really mellow and enjoyable. One drawback is that we felt the party ended too early—there was no reason to shoo people into the other venues at 11pm.

 

Azamazing Evening: We touched on this in our port review. It was in Ephesus, and we found it to be a lovely and unique experience that was definitely worth attending. We were impressed at how graciously all of the ships passengers were accommodated—a herculean task apparently effortless to the experienced crew on Azamara. One tip: while they tell you to remember your bus number, you can take any bus back to ship: we enjoyed a half-hour of exploring/shopping after the concert and took the last bus back to the ship.

 

Ship Motion: We were pleasantly surprised at how smoothly the ship sailed, especially through our two adventures with migrants! Our only night of even slightly rough seas was between Mykonos and Athens, and this was completely manageable. DH usually avails himself of the seasickness patch, but did not use it on Journey and he was perfectly fine.

 

All in all, the ports made the trip for us. In sum, Azamara was a perfect "floating hotel" to experience ports, including late nights and dinners in ports--but the ship needs more to be a five-star luxury experience. We didn't find enough of a difference in food or service compared to Celebrity to completely sell us on the Azamara experience, and we freely admit that we enjoy some of the additional amenities on the newer Silhouette. However, we definitely enjoyed the late port stays and if the itinerary was compelling, we would consider Azamara agai--especially compared to other cruise lines with more limited port opportunities.

 

PS -- For our review of the ports, see this thread :)

Edited by mrsaquashark
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I honestly do not know what to say here. Phil and Lottie etc please what do you think.

 

Feel free to share your thoughts. We overwhelmingly had a wonderful experience, but thought more could be done to live up to the line's reputation. I think there's a few easy things they could do (e.g., not having worn, rusty pool towels) that could be easily be a big, immediate improvement...

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Thank you for such a detailed review of your cruise. Eventhough you had some disappointing experiences, it was a fair and well-balanced review. I have to say that my husband and I abandoned the premium lines (Crystal & Regent) after our first cruise with Azamara last year. We feel that Azamara provides a 5-star experience without the rigid formality of Crystal and more people in closer range of our age (we are 38 & 39) than either Crystal or Regent. Many of the negative points that you express sound very unlike what we found, so I'm sorry you were on a cruise that was a bit off. Thanks for taking the time to give us your feedback. I know it's very interesting reading for all on the Azamara board. Stay tuned for Azamara's extensive renovations next year. Like you, we love Celebrity's Solstice Class ships, and we can't wait to see a more modern Azamara emerge. Looking forward to our Greek Isles in 2016 =)

 

 

 

Michael

Edited by TxnAquarian
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Feel free to share your thoughts. We overwhelmingly had a wonderful experience, but thought more could be done to live up to the line's reputation. I think there's a few easy things they could do (e.g., not having worn, rusty pool towels) that could be easily be a big, immediate improvement...

 

since i was on a cruise when the new chairs arrived in 2012 i am guessing the towels did too. I believe it is sunlotion as i have seen it on the chairs too. .a darker towel would of made more sense but MIA went for bright..

 

as far as your cabin goes you are comparing 175 to 194 sq ft. The "M" class ship if i recall are the 175. i slept in 194 many times. .the space above he bed for me us useless and my shoes are under he bed due to a small closet.. i agree the "S" ships bathroom is nicer. the balcony chairs on AZ are newer and i hate hem too. but again that is MIA

 

you did not really say anything about how great the bartenders are or your room attendant. as far as the MDR why did you not go to Prime C hat has great food.. i pre order a lot as i like super spicy food and find all i have to do is ask..

 

I have done 28 cruises on this line and have about 15 booked... not it not prefect but you went on and on about the decor and food. one is being fixed and the other -well you should of spoken to Hebert the H&B manager. I know he was on JR in August..

 

done about 10 Celebrity cruises- but no one knows my name. on AZ come back a year later they know your face and name.

 

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Robin,

 

We appreciate your comments. I don't really think I said much about decor. We rather liked the overall decor, and I specifically mentioned liking the decor in our stateroom. We do understand that the stateroom is smaller, but we live in NYC, so space is definitely not ever our first concern.

 

I didn't really speak about our stateroom attendant because we didn't see him very much. However, our room was always very nicely made up, and one night he very helpfully directed DH to our room, as he very often forgets our cabin number.

 

The bartenders were a similar situation, there weren't many we really got to know, but that could be a function of how much time we spent ashore, and we realize that.

 

We didn't eat in Prime C for a couple of reasons, the most important being that we are not really steakhouse people. We did not really have a problem with the food itself, but research on these boards led us to expect something significantly better than Royal or X, and we simply did not find that to be the case. Our biggest gripe with the food was the handling of the allergy. This might be something that is hard to understand when it is not commonly part of your life, but having to pull out DH's epi-pen while at sea is probably very close to the top of my list of worst nightmares, so I thought it was important to relate our experiences there in detail.

 

Overall, we had a wonderful time and thoroughly enjoyed our experience. We would definitely sail Azamara again for the right port intensive itinerary. Our major point was that we didn't have an experience that quite matched what we see on these boards, and the differences between Azamara and X were not major enough to make us stop sailing X entirely.

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Outside of a wine dinner I never tasted steak in Prime C. I eat mostly starters . I have sent the main back I the MDR twice, I have a friend who carries her epi pen. I am lucky no allegories yet but I really not a fan of land animals but eat fish.

 

You did mention the size if shower abd the cabinet above the bed.. So it sticks with me,

 

The spa story .. Not sure what to say... There is a tour if the spa .. No asked and no one volunteered to say there is no couple' s room. So not sure who is at fault. I had the same hard sell of product on celebrity . Now I just say do not try to sell. Steiner really pushes them about it and we are sitting ducks.

 

I have changed rooms so many times between hotels and ships I. Seem to find the room but in hotel have given the wrong room number to a waiter. I figure as long as I am on the correct floor i or deck.

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In sum, Azamara is fantastic way to enjoy long days in ports. It was perfect for the port-intensive, sea-day-free itinerary we were on, but the ship requires some work to be a true premium/luxury cruise line.

 

About Us: DH and I are 30/29 attorney/college professor from NYC. This was our seventh cruise, and we've previously been on Carnival, Royal, and Celebrity ships. We have unabashedly admitted in the past that Celebrity Silhouette is our favorite ship, and we definitely have a preference for newer ships. We freely admit that these things colored our impression of Azamara Journey.

 

Our Shipmates: While we tended to run on the younger side, most of our fellow passengers were also well-traveled, active couples and families with extensive cruise/traveling experience. We loved the community feel of the ship and easily made friends with everyone we encountered. We appreciated that the cruise line apparently appreciates the expertise of its passengers, as Azamara is refreshingly devoid of the "touristy kitsch" typically found on cruises (gold by the inch, pushy photographers, tanzanite hawksters, soda machines with 900 flavors, prominent "art" auctions).

 

Embarkation: As noted in our port review, extremely quick and easy, with very quick luggage delivery as well. We embarked mid-afternoon and were able to go straight to our stateroom. We have become accustomed to our embarkation glass of bubbly on Celebrity, and were glad to see this again on Journey.

 

Stateroom: V3 7107: We thoroughly enjoyed our stateroom. We were fond of the dark wood décor. However, some of the little details that made it onto Silhouette were not present. The storage above the bed was missed (DH uses this for many of his clothes, as I am too short), the shower was small, but we managed, although I missed that lovely shave bar, and our tv did not have a music station (DH omitted our bluetooth speaker from our packing list anticipating that the tv would have this functionality). The storage was adequate, although I did not discover the smaller drawers in the vanity until day 4 or so, and this probably would have influenced how I unpacked our things, had I known. Loungers on the balcony were missed, but the large table was appreciated for room service breakfast. Our balcony was unequivocally our favorite breakfast venue on the ship.

 

Pool area: This was an extremely port intensive cruise. The only time we spent on the pool deck were embarkation day, our "sea afternoon" following the stop in Canakkale, and DH spent a little time in the pool after we returned from Mykonos. We found the loungers extremely comfortable, and if anyone who works for Celebrity is reading this - please replace those monstrosities in the Silhouette solarium with these extremely comfortable padded chairs with pillows! I also found the hot tubs well suited to my short stature (5'2"), as the water level in these came up to right around the middle of my chest, as opposed to being up to my neck like so many other hot tubs are. We did not understand why the pool closed at 8PM each night, as we would have loved to enjoy a late night swim a few times. Perhaps on these port intensive itineraries with the late stays, the pool could stay open past midnight for a few nights during the cruise. The weather was so warm after departing Istanbul that I bet a lot of people would have enjoyed a night swim. We also noted that the listed maximum occupancy for the main pool is 16 people, which seems a little small for a ship that carries nearly 700 passengers. The pool towels were a baffling disappointment: they were visibly worn and had rust stains from the loungers.

 

Spa: We went to the spa together during our "sea afternoon" following Canakkale to make the appointment, and openly discussed in front of the desk clerk at the spa which treatment we were going to get (as in, debating them so we would choose the same one) and made an appointment for a body scrub and massage right around sailaway time from Rhodes. The locker rooms were nicely appointed, although I kept forgetting that I had given the desk my room key in exchange for the locker key and nearly forgot to get my room key back! However, once we have changed into the robes in the locker rooms, we come out for our treatment, and they put us in separate rooms. When we asked why were in separate rooms instead of the same one, we were told that the spa on Journey does not have a room to accommodate couples treatments. I think this is something we should have been told when we booked the treatment, as it was obvious that we were booking together, and we booked the same treatment at the same time. The treatment was lovely and my therapist was excellent. The one upside to separate treatment rooms is that DH didn't even have to hear the hard sell about the products, as they only gave that to me. For some reason, the spa charges French VAT, although our invoice at the end of the cruise indicated that this charge had already been refunded to us. I was disappointed in the "quackery" marketing practices: the spa is overseen by a "Doctor" and their marketing implied that spa treatments could treat medical problems.

 

Dining:

 

Discoveries Restaurant: We are NYC foodies, so we are hard to impress and don't expect to be impressed by food on cruises. We found the food in Discoveries to be right around the same level as the MDR on Royal Caribbean, and perhaps this has to do with the open seating (we usually opt for late traditional) but the service was not quite as good. The food was good, but neither memorable nor outstanding. In fact, we enjoyed the food on Celebrity better.

 

DH has serious allergies to nuts and shellfish - and we felt this was an issue much better handled on Celebrity, Royal, and Carnival. I had indicated the allergies to our TA and then about 90 days out, called Azamara directly to make sure that our TA had relayed the information. We also spoke to the Maitre D on the first day just to cover all of our bases, and we always remind our waiter when we order as well. We understand that dinner the first night can be hectic, but that doesn’t excuse the fact that they originally placed a shrimp dish and then a pine nut containing dish in front of DH after we specifically mentioned this. When we dined in Discoveries on the night following our Azamazing evening (during which there was no sit down dinner service, everything was buffet) we were chastised for not having ordered the day before (ordering the day before is a common practice for the allergies) even though there had not been an opportunity to do so! Another night, we had ordered the day before, but then they informed us that they had run out of the dish DH had ordered the previous night. Why are we ordering the day before if you are going to run out of what we ordered? In Santorini we had elected to eat dinner ashore, so DH did the preordering thing at breakfast the next morning and the waiter who took the order and then went to enter it into the computer didn't know why we were preordering. At this point, shouldn't the computer have told him? It was baffling, actually, and we had much better experiences on less premium cruise lines.

 

For the actual dining service beyond allergy issues, we found the service to be consistently slow, with a bit too much time between courses, especially between ordering and the first course. The included wines were hit or miss, and on a couple of occasions we took advantage of the tidbit we found here about ordering the wine from a previous night. On one occasion though, the dining room claimed they were out of the previous night's red wine when one of our dining companions had just been drinking it out at the casino bar, and she was the one who traveled out to the casino bar to retrieve the bottle.

 

Windows: We mostly utilized Windows Café for breakfasts (DH and I each also ended up there some days before our late dinners for a snack.). The selection was rather limited, and we found it odd that the Sunset Bar was not open to serve screwdrivers or bloody marys with breakfast, like the bars on Royal/Celebrity. However, one very nice waiter did go somewhere to scrounge up some vodka so we could turn our OJ into screwdrivers one morning. (While Azamara prides itself on having an all-inclusive experience with no gratuities, it was clear that those who tipped got better service. We were happy to oblige.) Additionally, we found the waiter delivery of our omelets and made to order eggs a nice touch, as were the cloth napkins and actual porcelain plates.

We liked the outdoor area, but had a bit of trouble finding a table compared to our experiences in Oceanview Café on Silhouette, and we did miss the couches and armchairs that are found there. Additionally, we thought the area closed too early, particularly on nights with late sailaway. Is there any reason Sunset Bar shouldn't be open for an 11PM sailaway?

 

Mosaic Café: DH says this was the best coffee on the ship. I enjoyed the size of the little pastries in the case. I am a bread and pastry fiend, and find myself on X loading up a large plate of pain au chocolate, croissant, danishes, etc... at breakfast but Mosaic Café had similar pastries at about half the size, which for me equalled about a quarter of the guilt!

 

Room Service: We only utilized room service for breakfast. The ordering card gave ½ hour timeslots, but we specified a narrower 15 minute time slot and this was granted every time. The setup of the table on our balcony on delivery was inconsistent, as it was laid out with utensils and the tablecloth sometimes but not others. As always, some food will arrive room temperature, but we realize that this is a pretty much unsolvable logistical problem. Eggs were inconsistent. For my over easys and DH's poached, we would find that one of our two eggs was perfectly cooked while the other was overdone. Additionally, presentations were inconsistent, as fruit was sometimes plated and sometimes served in an ice cream dish. Bacon and potatoes were an awful, flavor-lacking insult. Also, on X, if you ask, they will bring you a pitcher of juice rather than just a glass, but that was refused on Journey, even when we asked.

 

Additional note: Across the board in all dining venues, we and our touring companions noted that the quality of the fruit was quite subpar for the entire length of the trip.

 

Bars, Lounges, and Entertainment:

 

Casino Bar: We usually took in a cocktail here before dinner and listened to the musical stylings of Max DiFaz the piano player, who is a very nice guy and extraordinarily friendly. We could tell Max loves the customer service aspect of his job and was probably the best example of the famed Azamara service we heard about. When we were seated next to him he overhead us discussing Disney, he took a pause in his song to play a quick Disney tune—and when he overhead us discussing Italian food, the theme to Godfather started playing! What fun! We would also pop in here before bed for a nightcap on our way to perhaps losing a couple of dollars. The bartender and server Ernesto was a standout here.

 

Looking Glass Lounge: We ended up here every single night, and for quite a few sailaways. The drink service was good. If anyone was on this cruise and saw the crazy people on the dance floor, we were those crazy people! We thought the DJ in here was disappointing. His playlist was the same pretty much every night, except for the hour that was ABBA themed one night, and even then he started off with really obscure ABBA songs and it took him about 20 minutes to get to the good stuff. There would be one or two good songs played, and then one song that was completely impossible to dance to, which would kill the vibe and empty the dance floor. The DJ should be more in tune with the feel of the room and try to keep the party going, while also mixing the songs up a bit. There were a couple of nights where DH or I could predict what song was going to play next based on the song that was playing--so it was obvious that the DJ was going through rote playlists in the SAME EXACT ORDER every night. Also, many of the songs played had a low quality sound to them. We were not sure if they were being played off of a low quality computer file or if the speakers in Looking Glass need replacing (we leaned a bit toward the former) but someone should remedy this, as it was really quite noticeable.

 

Cabaret Shows: We only made it to the opening night show. The dancers and singers are clearly talented, although for this show, we found the singers on the screen providing the extra voices to be a bit of a distraction from the live performance. Other nights, we spent lingering in the dining room with our group and ended up missing the shows. We found the late nights in ports a more compelling draw than the shows.

 

White Night: This was in Santorini (which I thought was strange, since Santorini was also the port where they offered the Nights in Cool Places Excursion and our sailaway was equally late in Kos) and anyone who has read our port review knows that we barely made it back to the ship that night, so we missed the first bit of the White Night Party and didn't get to sample the buffet. However, based on what we did see, we declared it the absolutely best executed pool deck party on a cruise ship we had ever attended. The deck was nicely decorated, the entertainment was good without being so loud as to preclude conversation, and the vibe was really mellow and enjoyable. One drawback is that we felt the party ended too early—there was no reason to shoo people into the other venues at 11pm.

 

Azamazing Evening: We touched on this in our port review. It was in Ephesus, and we found it to be a lovely and unique experience that was definitely worth attending. We were impressed at how graciously all of the ships passengers were accommodated—a herculean task apparently effortless to the experienced crew on Azamara. One tip: while they tell you to remember your bus number, you can take any bus back to ship: we enjoyed a half-hour of exploring/shopping after the concert and took the last bus back to the ship.

 

Ship Motion: We were pleasantly surprised at how smoothly the ship sailed, especially through our two adventures with migrants! Our only night of even slightly rough seas was between Mykonos and Athens, and this was completely manageable. DH usually avails himself of the seasickness patch, but did not use it on Journey and he was perfectly fine.

 

All in all, the ports made the trip for us. In sum, Azamara was a perfect "floating hotel" to experience ports, including late nights and dinners in ports--but the ship needs more to be a five-star luxury experience. We didn't find enough of a difference in food or service compared to Celebrity to completely sell us on the Azamara experience, and we freely admit that we enjoy some of the additional amenities on the newer Silhouette. However, we definitely enjoyed the late port stays and if the itinerary was compelling, we would consider Azamara agai--especially compared to other cruise lines with more limited port opportunities.

 

PS -- For our review of the ports, see this thread :)

 

 

Food quality a top priority? Try Oceania.

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Thanks for your thoughtful review. The subject strikes a note with me because up until 2011 I had exclusively cruised on Celebrity and took the plunge then and tried Azamara with some reservations in my mind. The main one was cabin and balcony size. I feel that whilst the standard balcony staterooms are smaller than those on the S-Class Celebrity ships I actually find them more user friendly with better storage. I dislike that Celebrity overbed cupboard in spite of being six feet tall. I don't like the placement of the main wardrobe side on to the bed/sofa and prefer it on Azamara by the cabin door. With a smaller ship it's never too far to go to get outside and as you say the deck furniture is much more comfortable. I find myself lying by the pool quite often, not something I have done or are likely to do on Celebrity. It's a much more relaxed, less frenetic environment and for me that goes for the whole ship.

 

Food is very subjective and I'm not a foodie, but feel that the standard in the Main Dining Room is a step up on Celebrity. I'm not alone. Others I travel with who have done Celebrity feel the same way. What you experienced with regard to your husband's allergies was not good. I don't have any so can't comment on how well they cater for these, but it seems like they dropped the ball for you. I don't think it's a general thing or we would be hearing about it here more often.

 

For me the entertainment is not a main draw for me, but I enjoy going to the shows. Some production casts are better than others. I love Voices, the one with the screens behind that you spoke of. Another subjective view. Looking Glass is the only late night dancing venue and I've found the atmosphere is very much dependent upon the crowd that are there. I'm glad you livened it up! DJs once again vary in their performance and involvement. My very favourite is Marcio who is just back on Journey from vacation so might not have been there on your cruise. In general late night dancing isn't a forte with Azamara. How much of an issue this is depends on the individual. For me I'm happy with two or three good nights up there. Nice to hear you mention Max. He is a great guy who is talented and thoughtful.

 

General condition of the ship including the pool deck, I can't say I've had issues with the state of the towels, but the pool butlers are very approachable and if you weren't happy then they would change them for you. I don't think the pools on Celebrity stay open late either. I'm sure it's a safety issue to stop late night partying there.

 

I agree that some of the bar hours are restrictive at times. I love the Sunset Bar, but it opens late and closes earlier than I'd like too.

 

My overall feeling is that I prefer Azamara to Celebrity. It's a better fit and more my style. This isn't to say I don't like Celebrity. I'm on Constellation next month and have three cruises booked on Reflection next year and they offer a nice product and I am very much looking forward to them, but it's Azamara that has the bigger heart to me. I really feel part of the cruise rather than being on a floating hotel. Love the late nights and docked more centrally. Azamara isn't for everyone though. It's great we have lots of choices out there. I hope you give them another try, maybe after the ships have been extensively updated in early 2016.

 

Phil

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We liked the outdoor area, but had a bit of trouble finding a table compared to our experiences in Oceanview Café on Silhouette, and we did miss the couches and armchairs that are found there. Additionally, we thought the area closed too early, particularly on nights with late sailaway. Is there any reason Sunset Bar shouldn't be open for an 11PM sailaway? )

 

Thanks for your comprehensive review and comparison with Celebrity, which we haven't tried. I've quoted your comments about the Sunset Bar. Sadly, once Azamara have "re-imagined" their ships, this bar will no longer be available in the evenings as it is to be an Asian-themed restaurant. Hopefully Azamara are still re-thinking this.

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Thanks for your comprehensive review and comparison with Celebrity, which we haven't tried. I've quoted your comments about the Sunset Bar. Sadly, once Azamara have "re-imagined" their ships, this bar will no longer be available in the evenings as it is to be an Asian-themed restaurant. Hopefully Azamara are still re-thinking this.

 

hard to believe that bar will be closed anymore than anyone can enjoy a drink in Prime C..i just thunk it will be hard to get a seat there from say 6 to 9 but the last hour should be ok .i go to prime c just to drink some nights

Edited by ellbon
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Thanks for your comprehensive review and comparison with Celebrity, which we haven't tried. I've quoted your comments about the Sunset Bar. Sadly, once Azamara have "re-imagined" their ships, this bar will no longer be available in the evenings as it is to be an Asian-themed restaurant. Hopefully Azamara are still re-thinking this.

 

 

As a solo/single traveler, I'm hoping to have many Asian dinners at that bar once the venue has become a speciality restaurant. I hope they allow that and also serve at the bar as opposed to mandate you sit at a table, but if not, a table it will be - on most nights. My only real complaint with Azamara in the past was the lack of spicy, Asian food. Everything is very French and quite bland. I'm really excited by this bold and much debated change!

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Feel free to share your thoughts. We overwhelmingly had a wonderful experience, but thought more could be done to live up to the line's reputation. I think there's a few easy things they could do (e.g., not having worn, rusty pool towels) that could be easily be a big, immediate improvement...

 

We did the Journey back in '12 and recently the Silhouette this past July and yes it's been many years but the for us we enjoyed the Silhouette vastly. Couple reasons include the newness of the ship, beautiful and comfortable cabins, upscale feel throughout, and the solarium.

We did have a couple hiccups (tendering and Tuscan Grille) but overall X gives a good package for the money.

 

Let's hope there are new builds on the horizon for AZ.

Edited by need2cruisesoon
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I really feel part of the cruise rather than being on a floating hotel.
I think this sums up best the Azamara experience. I've never felt this way on any other cruise line--not Celebrity, not Princess, not Renaissance, not HAL, not NCL, and not even Regent, despite a ship much smaller than Quest or Journey.

 

On our most recent Regent cruise we had a cruise director and hotel general manager who are normally assigned to Oceania ships (apparently they are now moving personnel across the sister lines). Neither could hold a candle to Russ, Tony, Eric, Heike, Philip, or Ryszard in terms of warmth, personality, style, or engagement with passengers. A completely different ambiance and experience to Azamara's, and not in a positive way.

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I meant the Azamara MDR food is a step up compared to Celebrity.

 

Phil

 

I also found this to be true, both in the MDR and Windows cafe. Loved the fact that Windows has every night a different theme night. I'm not a foodie, but both my DW and I thought that Azamara was a step up from Celebrity.

 

Rick

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Thanks for taking the time to write such a detailed review. Interesting and helpful. We too are foodies from the San Francisco area, but have found the food on AZ to be way-way superior to Celebrity (altho we did like Blu). We've got a couple of AZ crossings booked and paid for, so are looking forward. Not a perfect experience, but I continue to think that AZ is a very good buy, lots of luxury for a competitive price.

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Thanks for the well thought out review.

 

Overall, we find that communication between Miami and the ships on food allergy issues a little spotty, and thus not really very helpful. We continue to follow the suggested procedures but, like you, must always be vigilant once on board.

 

We also have found that the information in their computer system may be inaccurate or lacking. Once we have been on board a day or two, usually we have made contact with those who are familiar with the issue.

 

It has never become very serious to us, but it is a bit mystifying given the excellent service in all other aspects.

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Feel free to share your thoughts. We overwhelmingly had a wonderful experience, but thought more could be done to live up to the line's reputation. I think there's a few easy things they could do (e.g., not having worn, rusty pool towels) that could be easily be a big, immediate improvement...

 

 

Hi we sailed on Azamara Journey for the 2nd time in July, our 3rd Azamara cruise though.

 

I completely agree with you about the DJ, a nice guy but a very poor DJ compared with the two previous experiences, who we had thought were some of the best we had experienced.

 

Eric is also a great person, but I'm sorry when all the jokes are the same as a previous cruise and incidentally even the same as the programme on the TV, it becomes rather boring.

 

The Azamazing evening was also disappointing this time, we followed all the rules for attending but still found no seats for us when we arrived.

 

There was no dance classes which we had enjoyed previously.

 

We aren't suite guests so we ate in the main dining room mostly, we didn't find the food any better than on Silhouette.

 

Our other main grumble on this cruise was the very short time slot for breakfast, we are not room service people but don't want to be up at the crack of dawn when we are on holiday.

 

We are returning to Journey soon and I am determined to have an enjoyable cruise, but I am hoping for a different set of entertainers and one of the original DJs

 

The wait staff were all excellent and there was a lovely mix of passengers.

 

Thank you for your very good review.

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There was no dance classes which we had enjoyed previously.

 

We are returning to Journey soon and I am determined to have an enjoyable cruise, but I am hoping for a different set of entertainers and one of the original DJs

 

 

Just to pick up on these points, I think ballroom dancers Sasha and Dima will be on Journey when you are there and hopefully they will do some dance classes. There should be a completely new show cast too. DJ Marcio is on the ship now and I have always found him to be very involved.

 

Phil

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Hi Phil thanks very much for the update on the entertainment staff, I think that Marcio was one of the DJs who we thought was excellent.

 

There is not a lot of sea days so the dance classes are not a deal breaker but we do always enjoy them when they happen.

 

Jean

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Thank you OP for the very detailed review. We have not been on Azamara and have one booked. The advice I was given is in line with your review with respect to the ships. That is that they are a bit old, worn, and tired. At the same time, I have been advised that the service you get is far better than what you get on the mass market lines. However, it's disappointing that you rated the food as similar to Royal Caribbean, which I find to be a step below Princess.

 

I suppose my hopes for my future Azamara cruise are raised with the news of the refurbishments of these ships even though many of the loyal Cruise Critic members are threatening to find other alternatives. We do enjoy newer and modern ships and expanded dining choices, especially like the new Pan Asian restaurant they are discussing.

 

Since our cruise is not for another 22 months (we cancelled our cruise for next summer), we look forward to reading reviews of the Quest after the refurbishments. We are also looking forward to the port experiences which OP confirmed are better with the extended hours and even days in ports. That will be new to us.

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