lisiamc

That’s a shame as I much prefer Veuve Clicquot to NF.

I would guess that once Azamara is free from the remnants of Royal Caribbean, there will be an Azamara app. (Early 2023, but truly just guessing).

I think I’m in favour of food tours, at least in the right circumstances. My view is that everyone thinks they know Italian food inside out, because as you say, it’s the most popular food just about everywhere. But my theory is that Italian food in America has existed for so long, and evolved so much, that Italian American food should be considered as an entirely separate entity, with British Italian food as a sort of shirt tail relative. My epiphany was a person in a tour group who confided that he didn’t think Italian food in Italy was actually very good. Not a patch on Italian food in the USA, he said. It’s a very tired cliche but it’s still easy to run into the people searching for spaghetti and meatballs, chicken alfredo, garlic bread, or deep-pan pizza with a million toppings, with a cappuccino for afters. A food tour could give them a whole new perspective. And while the Slow Food movement is alive and well in Italy, I’ve also noticed the rise of apericena, at least in the Marche. And it is fun to occasionally make a dinner out of lots of delicious bits and pieces, with a couple of glasses of good local wine. A food tour seems like the love child of apericena and a degustazione menu, crossed with cicchetti and a pub crawl! Having said that I don’t hate the idea, I would also never suggest signing up for a food tour on a first or second visit to a city. I would save it for a third or fourth visit, when someone has done the must-sees and is branching out.

Eating is one of my great pleasures in life. We’ve cruised on Celebrity, Princess, Royal Caribbean, Costa, CMV, Silversea, Viking, and Seabourn as well as Azamara. It’s very subjective, but I think the food on Azamara has always been very good, and frequently exceptional. Not every menu choice has bowled me over, but that’s true of every other cruise line we’ve tried, as well.

We’re on Onward again in November, on a b2b, so it should be a long enough time on ship to see how they handle activities and meetings in the absence of the Drawing Room.

In my experience they tend to schedule the b2b meeting at the same time as prize redemption for participation in activities. We’ve pretty much had every prize we liked by now, so I quite often send DH to the meeting and pop along to the prize redemption and hand over the tickets or check sheets to someone with a lot of grandkids and not many points.

I’ve never seen a shark from a ship, but I’ve seen many whales, almost all at a long distance, but a few close up when we were anchored in Hawaii, loads of dolphins riding the bow wave, a manta ray, a school of barracuda, hundreds of flying fish, and one sea turtle, when we were docked. And lots of seals, if they count.

Not sure what this says about me and my barfly tendencies 😁, but despite early trepidation, DH and I both enjoyed the Atlas Bar, and look forward to seeing it rolled out on the other ships. It’s a bit like the idea of The Den was. I wasn’t sure how much I’d like it, but I really do. I don’t know why I was hesitant, since I never used the casino anyway. Maybe I’m just not fond of change, and it takes me a while to come around?

Check In

This is a perennial favourite topic on this board. If standards were not being enforced while you were there, it was not because they had been relaxed due to hot weather. I have noticed that the clothing of priests, nuns, friars, etc does not come in a special, less modest “summer version”. Respect for the rules is appropriate in any season. Your husband might not have been happy, but he did the right thing.

It’s hard to predict just by the description. We always go, and some of the ones that sounded the most boring were the best ones!

The have some things on Onward that I really liked. I couldn’t resist one of the amazing beaded handbags, and I found a watch as well. The costume jewellery that they stock now is nice enough, but I don’t like it as well as Coeur de Lion, which they had before the change of ownership, but not any more, apparently.

That’s great news! I’d love to see the mural restored some day.

The shelves that are going to be stocked with books are the ones in the side area of The Living Room. The shelves in the Atlas Bar have been removed. It will still be a quiet area suitable for reading during the day, though.

Well done you! I’ve never had an upgrade, either as the result of a bid or a guarantee. So I’d say always be certain that you’d be happy with any possible result, and you’ll be good.

We’ve always had ours allocated some time before, but I don’t think that’s always the case. I think it can go either way.

That may have changed. The new ones on Onward are more like 1200 watts. Quite nice, actually.

As I understand it, per their contract, Azamara won’t take over full IT function until March 2023. Until then, it’s RCI, and they flat out don’t care any more. It’s not their priority to fix it if Azamara isnt able to handle payments properly.

@DALIND I’m sorry you’ve had such a hard time. Are you a past Azamara cruiser? I hear that the loyalty ambassador has been more responsive lately than any other channel of contact, and you could try them. This is not much help for you, but we’ve made and paid for three bookings in the last 5 weeks, and like CoG72crewz says above, gone through a TA, and there has been no problem getting updated paperwork. Whilst they’re in transition from Royal Caribbean to Sycamore ownership, the IT system seems to be even worse than ever, and it was never particularly good!

I’ve always been pleased that they have Gordon’s gin on the included list. I’m also pleased to drink the Hendricks from the Ultimate list when we spring for that, too!

Another piece for the puzzle! I didn’t realise it was Michael’s Club as was. The last time we sailed on Celebrity, which was some years ago, it was the lounge for suite passengers, but was still called Michael’s. We were not suite passengers, but had our muster drill in there.

@uktogBon Voyage!

Oops, yes I do! Sorry about that. If there is a Hotel San Marco, I didn’t meant to cast aspersions.

I agree that layers are the way to go! No reason they can’t be in light colours, though. And I will probably bring a pair of sandals for wearing on-board, but closed shoes for ashore.

Each cruise line has a vibe of its own, with things that you will probably like, and things that you might not. In your shoes, I’d have a chat with a reputable, specialist cruise agent, who can help you figure out a cruise line that will suit you. You don’t necessarily have to book through them, but their advice could be very helpful.