Review-Journey 1/31/09

[denims]

My wife and I took our first “small” ship cruise on Azamara’s Journey on 1/31/09. (Port reviews to follow)

It was a great experience! The ship made us feel like we were on a scaled down version of one of the bigger ships. (The Journey being 30,000+ tons as compared to the 100,000 that we were used to)

The Journey, in our opinion, had an up-scale look to her; a lot of wood treatment with more expensive looking furniture.

The cruise experience on this ship was one of our best in our nine cruises. (Celebrity, Princess, Holland, NCL) The crew and staff were definitely the best we’ve ever had.

They were all over the place. Captain Theodoros Mitropoulos, Hotel Manager Niyazi Korkmaz, and staff Captain Emmanuil Aposkitis were continually walking the ship! (I know…who the heck was driving!!! LOL) They must have special training in public relations, because they not only were very friendly, but had great personalities!

Every working member of the ship must we trained to be overly nice to the passengers, because every time we turned around, there was someone saying “hi” to us. Their service was great!

The food and presentation in the main dinning room was good! Yes, there were a couple meals that did not meet expectations….but I have screwed up at home cooking for two!!!

The meals in the two specialty restaurants were superb! Outstanding service, presentation and food!

The staterooms were typical cruise ship size, but again a lot of wood to make you feel very comfortable. Our butler, Kursaree, was outstanding. Even though we prepaid our “tips”, we slipped him a twenty when we first arrived and for the next twelve days he was always around!

Keep in mind, like we all have read on these boards, the butler on Azamara is a glorified room steward! No big deal. We didn’t use him for anything special. He didn’t make SR reservations, but he did make sure we had a new ice bucket everyday at 4PM!

The cruise director, Tony Markey was outstanding! What a nice man! I don’t think he ever slept, because we saw him in every room at any time! I hear he had a very nice singing voice. We were at most of the shows, but never heard him. I guess he was at the Looking Glass in the late hours. The rest of the entertainment was very good. I was a little leery considering this was a small ship with no “big” stage! But the singers, magicians, comedians, etc., were great! Especially the piano player. (Can’t remember his name)

We tendered in half of the seven ports. Outstanding!!! Not a minute did we have to wait! The best service we have ever had!

Disembarkation….the hall ways were crowed at first, but it calmed down and we were off within ten minutes of our scheduled time.

The negatives:

Not much!

No big deal for us, but there is less to do on sea days then bigger ships. (We all knew in advanced) In fact, I saved a lot of money because they didn’t have many Bingo games.

It was a little rough getting out of Miami, but the Captain graciously changed courses to please his guest. (A negative turned into a positive)

In closing, hopefully someone from Azamara reads this so I can thank then for a wonderful cruise, and also thank Cruise Critic for some new friends that we have met!

Larry

[JJPacer]

It sounds wonderful. I can't wait to hear your review of the ports. We sailed on the Tahitian Princess which is a sistership of the Journey, and had the same wonderful experience you did. We booked the So Carib. cruise, because of the no hassle tendering, and it's itenerary included islands we were anxious to visit. Welcome Home.

[beckaboo]

I'm sailing on 2/24 (not that I'm counting it down or anything, haha!) and can't wait to read the port reviews... thanks denims for the review!

[kren]

We are sailing on 04/05, first Med. cruise. Thanks for your review,sounds like a wonderful ship and crew.

[Andy]

Hi Denims !

 

Thank you for your excellent review. I am glad you had a great Cruise on Journey. Welcome Home !

[estofon]

Hi, Larry! Your review is right on the money :D. I keep all my copies of the "Pursuits" for this cruise, so I can fill in the missing items. Tony does have a nice singing voice, and is very energetic on stage. I heard him one evening on deck 9, poolside, during the "Dancing with the Stars" event. I ask myself the same question, when does he sleep? :confused:

The pianist was Craig Dahn. I'm sorry to say that I missed his show. :(

[LMC]

Hi Larry and welcome home!

 

We are sailing 03/08 on the Journey- our 1st experience with the smaller ships. We are SO looking forward to it- your review makes us so anxious! Thanks for posting- look forward to the port reviews.

 

Linda

[mstrc1]

Great review Larry thank you, we enjoyed meeting you and Nancy and everyone on our cruise. This was also one of our best experiences ever and the crew and staff went out of their way to please all of the guests.

 

The captain did a great job in calming the rough seas as we had many days of 25 to 35 mph winds. We love the Journey and booked for 2010 while on board to take advantage of the OBC. The 12 days went by very fast but all in all this was a 1st rate cruise.

 

There were many complaints about the T-Pool before we got on the ship. But they took care of adjusting the temp to a nice relaxed body temp after the first day and the rest of the cruise was fine.

 

We had a great experience with all of our new CC members and hope we can do it once again down the road.

[hmorrow]

Really getting excited about our 3/20 TA on the Journey. Hoping they DO have bingo on the sea days! I usually win! More money for shopping. won't be long now. Helaine

[denims]

Really getting excited about our 3/20 TA on the Journey. Hoping they DO have bingo on the sea days! I usually win! More money for shopping. won't be long now. Helaine

 

On our feb 12 day cruise, there were only about 3-4 bingo days. (I won once)

 

And there were 3 out of 4 seas that DID NOT have bingo at all.

 

Goodluck!!!!!

[hmorrow]

Wierd-most ships ALWAYS have bingo on sea days. Fun for the passengers, and usually a money maker for the ship. Alas, I'm SURE we'll find something to do-or not! lol

Counting the days, and starting to think about packing.