ECCruise

Yep. Comes up in almost every Q&A with Captain/HD.

Another report re: shower doors on the O R class ships. Before experiencing them, our take was "Finally! No more shower curtains!" After experiencing them, our take was "No way! Shower curtains vastly preferable!"

Honestly, to some degree we had a feeling that Azamara may be slowing remaking itself to Celebrity based on our 26 days on Quest just completed a week or so ago. $50 Specialty restaurants. $125 Chef's table. The EXPO we have always enjoyed on longer sailings replaced by the "Quest Fair" (an old Celebrity tactic) that is nothing more than revenue generating departments (Shore Ex, Booze packages, Specialty dining) setting up tables in the LR selling their wares. No engineering department highlighting equipment, no security staff discussing procedures, no deck department, no HR, etc., etc. A major fail and virtually no attendance, unlike the events held in the Cabaret, which are typically very well attended. A bit too much Woo-woo for our tastes, frankly. There were times we really did feel like we were back on Celebrity with things like Liar's Club. No shuttles in any of the ports (admittedly, not needed in some) including Tenerife, where there has always been a shuttle since the very edge of the city is a 25 minute walk and center city is 35-40 minute walk, some of it uphill. The whole thing just had a different feel to us, including comparing to 36 days on Pursuit only a couple of months before. Lots and lots of first-timers on these 2 sailings so perhaps it wasn't as noticeable to them as it was to us.

Yes. Many are approaching $900 to $1000 US for a V1 for 2, though. The Canadian exchange rate must be bonkers. Having spent 62 days on Pursuit and Quest in last 4 months with varying satisfaction (and considerably off from as recently as a year ago) those prices are a no-go for us. Much better price/value relationship (both downstream and upstream) elsewhere.

Absolutely hate Celebrity's Martini Bar so that would be a hard pass for us. Plus, we were given the information (evidently based on insufficient revenue) that Atlas Bar(s) would not be making an appearance on the other 3 ships. Plus, these dry docks are not long enough to accomplish the changeover.

With the wide variance of how much of a page a stamp takes (anywhere from 1/5 a page or so to a full page) I would think it would have been prudent for Azamara to give some pre-cruise proactive guidance (e.g. 11 pages when asked).

Excellent advice and there is no longer an extra cost for extra pages.

More Azamara inconsistencies. No lobster in 9 sailings in the last 2 years. Quest ×4, Journey ×2, Pursuit ×3. As recently as December and last week. Caveat: we have no interest in lobster on a ship but do understand that people do enjoy it.

I am assuming then that they changed the experience from the one we had in Namimbia in December. Bad enough that they cancelled the Azamazing Evening which was an African cultural and musical experience in the desert (which we would gladly have spent a couple hours doing) but to have it replaced by the awful show we had to witness was an affront, frankly. Although the German community is a very small % of the Namibian population, about 70% of the show was German influenced. What was billed as an oompah band (but was 2 bad musicians playing American oldies) and traditional German dancers ( that danced to the "Cotton eyed Joe" an annoying American country tune) There was some African drumming and an a Cappella group, but nowhere enough to make up for the embarrassment of the rest of the show. And to be told, frankly, that the reason for axing this (and presumably the other 3 we've had cancelled in the last year) was strictly one of cost cutting.

Or, they were just deferring the lack of them to Miami.

I guess I am not comfortable paying the per diems they want going forward and dealing with the extreme inconsistencies we experienced between Pursuit 3 months ago and Quest today. And I have suspicions that what we are seeing is Miami yanking harder on the purse strings (and perhaps using Quest as the test)

I think that's one of the many things now overtaken by Miami. Tanya's words to us on the 17 day we are presently on was "we hope Miami sends us more lecturers."

Traditionally, Azamara has been good with lecturers, and although I would expect lectures on a sailing such as this, it may be something else that is changing. On our 9 day in Brazil this month, zero lecturers, neither destination nor Enrichment. On the 17 day that followed it, 1 Enrichment lecturer with a few varied topics. No destination lectures whatsoever, so all for 12 ports on the 2 sailings we had no information save the printouts the day of attival that they grab from Whatsinport word for word.

On Quest now and the standard internet is as it has been for years (and on HAL 2 weeks ago): slooooow. To get decent internet on both lines we needed to upgrade. And at a price less than we were paying for terrible internet 15 years ago.

Looking forward to your thoughts, Phil. We are currently on Quest in the middle of 26 days and starting to gather our thoughts. Some in the same vein.