DS

We just got off the Pursuit on Saturday past. I brought paper copies of all the beverage packages home and scanned them in. (Assuming I can do things right...) they are attached below. Note that all of them say "All selections subject to change and availability" ( although the Premium package says "all sections"...) AZ Ultimate Beverage.pdf AZ Prem Beverage.pdf AZ Comp Beverages.pdf

We just got off the Pursuit on Saturday past. I brought paper copies of all the beverage packages home and scanned them in. (Assuming I can do things right...) they are attached below. Note that all of them say "All selections subject to change and availability" ( although the Premium package says "all sections"...) AZ Ultimate Beverage.pdf AZ Prem Beverage.pdf AZ Comp Beverages.pdf

No COVID announcements on Pursuit, nine days into cruise; have seen no haz mat suits or heard any rumors; only 294 pax; very few masks; hallways are mostly empty given # of passengers

On board the Pursuit: Food and entertainment Overall we have found the food to be good. In Prime C and Aqualina, with full menus, it seems better than the cruises we took in the spring and winter. In the MDR, we have been disappointed, not in the food, but the menus… we’ve retreated upstairs a couple of times because we could not find a tempting dish at the MDR… fortunately with 40% occupancy, we could be fit in, even without a reservation. When we have eaten in the MDR is has been fine… as always, EXCELLENT service. Lunches in the Windows have not seemed as good to me… although the potato chips and beer are FINE! For entertainment, we had a destination celebration in Gdansk (AzAmazing evening held on board). It was billed as a “Classical Violin”… but it was less than classical, IMHO. The solo violinist – who spoke NOT A SINGLE word, in English or Polish the entire evening—was accompanied by a recorded sound track with a very heavy bass beat. While some of the pieces were based on classical music, each piece was more frenetic than the one before. All in all, not to my taste. The Captain said that they hope to begin real AzAmazing evenings by the end of the year (as reported elsewhere on these boards…) Last night we had a real “White Nights” party on deck (not the “Bright Nights” scattered around inside. Although, being in Helsinki, it was not Night…. The sun did not set until after 10:30 PM, so the entire show was in daylight. (Compensation: sunrise before 4:30 AM!) There have been two production shows, and the Cruise Director show. Although different shows from the Quest earlier this year, not much overall difference. In Tallin they brought a local group aboard for a “folkloric” show… that word scared us off, and I heard no comments from other passengers over the next day or so about it. Tonight is a solo show by the lead male singer… late info… was quite good… he has a good voice ( NOTE: the assistant cruise director, Lee, is NOT an entertainer, so has no show.)

They generally don't notify you until about 3 days before the cruise. WE had one accepted for our current cruise that left July 6 from Copenhagen and got the notification 5 days before.... "early" probably because of weekend and 4th of July

ONBOARD THE PURSUIT: Updates on two topics: IT and wine. On the Quest and Journey there is an interactive feature on the in-room TV’s that allows you to see your onboard account, look at daily menus, shore excursions, etc. The Pursuit has never had this. Initially they had a smart phone app that provided that info. But now, that app has disappeared; you can’t download it, and if you already have it, it does not work. Turns out Azamara has changed IT providers. Bottom line, to see you account you have to go to Guest Relations and ask for a print out. Can’t wait for 2023 when they get their own IT system ( at least I think, I can’t wait….. hopefully the “good old days”…aren’t! The wine situation gets cloudier (even though the wines don’t—a good thing). I noted earlier that the first day only 3 of the 4 reds were offered. On day 2 and 3, only two were offered – the Merlot and Pinotage. I’ve had them on previous cruises this past spring and winter. The Merlot, I thought, was terrible. I think it still is. Its literally brown colored, and the taste is… well, nothing. I liked the pinotage before, but this time it seemed a bit astringent… admittedly only one day/bottle. Well, today they had the M & P again, BUT ALSO had two other (none Azamara branded) wines. A Jacob’s Creek Shiraz-Granche, and a “Le Grand Noir” cabernet-Syrah. Both came with Polish labels!. In the interest of science, I tried them both. Both were better, IMHO, than the Azamara-labeled wines… the cab-syrah being the better of the two. So, the story??? One waiter told us that the 2 wines were offered one night were chosen by the sommelier. Another waiter, being a bit more forthcoming, told us they had supply (supply chain??) issues, which was why they only offered two choices ( BUT… if you asked, you could get either the Az Cab or the Az Syrah). Tonight a third waiter told us they had supply problems and had to get some locally supplied wines – obviously in Gdansk ( Polish labels). So, the full story remains to be told… but I know which ones I will ask for tomorrow! (P.S. there were also at least one non-Az branded whites, including one labeled Puglia Blanco, which the waiter said ...that the sommelier said… was (like?) sauvignon blanc. It was “like” it, but a bit smoother, I thought…. Not bad!) That's tonight's update...

Last night I promised some details of the Frankfurt airport experience: part me moaning, part warning for future travelers. We flew from Ft Myers directly to Frankfurt on Eurowings Discovery. It’s a Lufthansa subsidiary that flies to/from Ft Myers a couple of times a week. It’s the first time our travel plans matched with their limited service. Its nice to get the long-haul flight done first, without first having to travel to Atlanta or Chicago or… The flight was actually quite nice, newish plane. Biz class and Premium Economy were full—but main cabin economy was almost empty… almost everyone for a set of 4 middle seats to stretch out in and sleep! But a good flight overall. We landed in Frankfurt on time, a few minutes before 10 AM and our connecting (FRA -> Copenhagen) was at 1:00 PM, so a leisurely 3 hours to get from gate to gate… or so we thought! Actually we got to the second gate at about 12:15, just before scheduled boarding, after walking / standing in lines for more than 2 hours! As you know, Frankfurt is a big, busy airport… walking from our arrival gate for about a half hour (literally!) got us to security, which we had to go thru to get to connecting flights. This line was about 20 minutes long. Then another long walk to the next pier where our departure gate was—another 20 minutes or so. Then we had to go through passport control… Which had serpentine lines for waiting… and was down an escalator with little room at the bottom, so they were letting only a few people down at a time, and the rest of us had to queue up on the upper floor in the pre-escalator line… but this line was almost the full terminal in length! And took another half hour to get to the escalator, only to get in the passport line proper which took another 15-20 minutes! And finally, another long walk out to (of course!) one of the last gates (A56) on the pier. IN all, more than two hours to get from gate to gate. I won’t even go into the boarding process which was delayed a half hour (even though the plane was at the gate when we got there??) and then how the captain said they were waiting for some connecting passengers whose luggage had already been loaded to board or they would have to unload that luggage. Finally, they unloaded that luggage. And eventually the purser came thru the cabin with the names of the “missing” passengers… all of whom were already on the plane (one was the guy in the window seat next to me who was there before we boarded! Somehow these people had boarded but not been registered by the system! At this point their luggage had already been offloaded, so it had to be re-loaded… but it turned out there were no baggage handlers available at the time, so we had to wait 20 minutes before they could start. Finally we were ready to push back, but the push-back tractor had gone to another gate because of our delay, and we had to wait again for one to come back! All in all, we were 90 minutes late in departure… so much for German Efficiency! So, the warning is to not try to make tight connections in Frankfurt (or probably anywhere in the current environment). Never-the less, we made it to Copenhagen with very tired legs and only a relatively short delay. But now we are on the Pursuit and others are taking care of us! It’s great!

We embarked the Pursuit in Copenhagen today for a (truncated) 10 night Baltic cruise. In answer to some of the common questions on this board, I offer the following… There are 294 passengers on board, the smallest number of the 6 post-COVID cruises we have been on. We arrived in Copenhagen yesterday afternoon after a relatively smooth pair of fights from Ft Myers, FL – especially given all the issues with air transport the past few months. ( I’ll try to post another comment on the flights, especially our experience in Frankfort, later). Senior officers are Capt Antonio from Spain, Hotel Director Ngawhira, and Cruise Director Emily Love – I think she is relatively new at this position. The complimentary wines appear to be the Azamara branded wines (although it appears that there are only 3 reds available according to our waiter in Discoveries tonight, missing the Syrah that was on the Quest previously[SF1] ). I’ll refrain from more comments until I can sample a few more, given that today is the first day. I’ve no info on the contents of the upgraded beverage packages. The patio does not seem to open for dinner, at least thru tomorrow; no info on whether the Sunset Veranda in Windows is open…. Today was a bit chilly and windy as we departed and I saw no one out there when I walked thru, but I was not there the whole dinner time. I called this a truncated Baltic cruise because it is obviously not going to St Petersburg, Russia. Instead, it is going to Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland and ends in Stockholm. Since we’ve been to St Pete, and never to any of the other ports/countries (except Copenhagen and Stockholm) we love the itinerary… but I guess a lot of people didn’t—witness the only 294 passengers… Re COVID test… Oslo Dutch posted in the roll call for this voyage (https://boards.cruisecrit, ic.com/topic/2815766-baltic-cruise-july-6-to-16-2022-on-azamara-pursuit/page/2/ , post # 40 about a place to COVID tests in Copenhagen for about $20. We used it last night… walked in, were tested within 5 minutes, and had results 30 minutes later…. Very efficient, less than a 10 minute, only 1 turn, walk from Nyhavn . Easily accepted at check-in. Thank Oslo Dutch! So far, masks are VERY few and far between amongst the passengers… Azamara seems to use all CAPS to say they are no longer required, and very small font to say “but highly recommended.” We’ll see as we go along how the Captain handles any cases (on the Quest the Captains, especially Johanas, were very forthcoming about cases in their daily announcements… I’ve read that other ships have been less so… So, that’s the news from tonight… [SF1]

And on our March/April Quest cruises with the branded wines, mostly reds, 1 was terrible, one was mostly bad, two were tolerable. I gave the Hotel Director comments that this quality, and inconsistancy between days/ bottles, would not sit well with most cruisers who had any wine expereince at all. If all you want is "red" so be it... but most of us want more...

We've been on dozens of Azamara cruises and this has never happened.

Going back to the original topic: will-pre-cruise-testing-end-on-azamara-soon,....I hope NOT! If you read this and other boards you will see than many people come down with COVID on the cruise or shortly after. And most people are not masked on board.... even though they seem to be coughing up a storm, including in the Cabaret Theater. The demographic of Azamara cruisers make many of us more susceptible to adverse outcomes of COVID, even if not more susceptible to catching it. Even granting that many of these positive cases were “negative” upon boarding, it just seems foolish to remove any protection that is available. Allowing “positive” people to board will only increase the bad outcomes.

So... the "steel work' was done.... but the internal cabin concerns, documented onother boards, was not addressed... another Company???

Thanks Sue... who are the senior offices ( Capt, CD, Hotel Director)?