Gruest speakers or enrichment on Azamara cruises

For an August 2018 trip, we must choose between two ships with good port-intensive itineraries; one is Oceania Nautica & the other is Azamara Journey. We have not sailed either line before.

Our general priority for at-sea days and other free time is learning about the culture and history of the areas we are visiting, rather than casino, spa-pampering, etc. While we research and study ahead, there are always new insights or facts with good speakers!

But in checking the website for Azamara, I saw only vague allusions to enrichment but could not find details on guest lecturers for our sailings, as with Cunard, which includes photos and bios way in advance. If the evening talks about the next day's port stop will simply be the ship staff subtly pushing unsold excursions, we'll be mightily annoyed.

When I phoned Azamara with this question, the call center guy did not have the information. Yikes, it's less than 4 months out!

What's been your experience with Azamara for guest speakers/enrichment? (or also Oceania, tho FYI, I have posted the same query on that board)?

QUOTE

Our only Azamara Cruise was in 2016. We had a wonderful Enrichment program. Our featured speaker was an expert on the regions we visited. We also had bridge lessons and watercolor lessons. I see the AZ website has changed to a generic description of the enrichment program, but, even on our cruise, the enrichment speaker wasn’t the one listed on the website.:rolleyes: Hope this helps.

We were on a 12 day Az Sea of Cortez cruise in Feb 2018. There were 2 lecturers, both very knowledgeable. Their talks were during the morning/afternoon. Both were college professors and had visited most of the ports. We have never been on Oceania.

We have 2 more Az cruises booked.

We have taken 2 Azamara cruises and 1 (first and last) Oceania cruise. The "enrichment" lectures on Oceania were precisely what you fear. Azamara speakers are much better.