MissyMom

We've sailed aft on AZ 3 times. Vibration is greatest on the lowest deck, higher up, less vibration. Soot is inevitable, but your steward will clean up for you. Neither was a deal breaker for us, and we enjoyed our time looking out at the sea as the ship sailed away. Absolutely beautiful at night with the moon shining on the sea. Exceptional experience.

Our experience as well. Stern locations are the best, but can be pricey.

Aqualina is Italian food

Aqualina serves the same filet steak as in Prime C. And Prime C has wonderful swordfish on the menu.

one of the luxuries of a small ship like the Journey is the lack of lines to disembark or embark, tenders or no tenders. . . Almost no wait on the Journey.

 

From the description of your family, I would recommend attending the White Night party. The food on deck is buffet, good quality.

Go to the gangway if you want to get off early; they'll most likely tell you to board the waiting tender.

1 or 2 ship excusion groups of 25 people or less are sent to the tender at a time when all the tickets for a group are handed out AND the bus, etc are ready to go. So there's a good chance some of the 200 tender seats are free. And you can speak with the senior officers who greet ship excusion groups leaving and coming back to the ship. Don't be surprised if they wish you happy birthday on your day.

On White Night, don't just get in the 1st (sometimes long) line for grilled meats. Go around to the right to the sushi bar (the normal cold salad bar area), or to the left for appetizers, custom made ceasar salad or baked potato by an officer, or fruit sliced for you by a chef. Also, the center table has vegetables, pasta, fish, other meats and my favorite, tender calamari. On the way back, check out the desserts.

We share an appetizer plate or two with calamari, olives, cheeses, etc. Then get sample plates of salad and, and, calamari again, and. Get more of what you like and enjoy the evening.

Leave room for crepe suzettes made with 2 or 3 liquors generously poured into the sauce with a side of ice cream, of course.

Salivating til May and our next Az cruise!

Andy was reusing the photos and materials posted on Facebook by Captain Johannes and Heike. So any blog will be very much dependent on Captain Jose and the officers on Quest. You may get less because Philip/Ryszard are not so IT engaged.

Ryszard had 7 ProCams set up to take pictures every few seconds in each area of work during the Journey refit. He had the many hours edited down and presented it in the theatre on the 4th cruise after drydock. He commented on them plus showed a short sped up recap before thanking the editors and a Q and A. I saw a link to this recap, maybe on youtube.

Haven’t read all the postings, so hopefuly not repeating what was already said.

We went to Australia and new Zealand on the celebrity ship they just sold. It stopped in port for only 6 hours some days after 2 or 3 sea days. We wished we had read the schedule better before spending soooo many sea days and sooo few land hours. Felt it was truly a penny wise and pound foolish decision.

Sorry, it was a Princess (former Renaissance) ship.

But the issue is still the land vs sea time if you travel a long distance ... and the total experience. When all 4 of us got lamb chops (our favorite) we had difficulty cutting them. The maitre d told us we needed to go to the specialty restaurants for good lamb chops!

We went on Princess because our friends wanted to spend less and get some free Internet time with their tier level. I'd rather take less trips with better food and overnight or longer stops to have time to see the ports we might not visit again.

We went to Australia and new Zealand on the celebrity ship they just sold. It stopped in port for only 6 hours some days after 2 or 3 sea days. We wished we had read the schedule better before spending soooo many sea days and sooo few land hours. Felt it was truly a penny wise and pound foolish decision.

We were on back to back cruises and the front desk told me they did not publish White Night until embarkation morning. The weather and needing to leave early to catch a tide, like on our last cruise, can change schedules made 2 to 3 years in advance.

On the other hand, when passengers pointed out that White Night was on the overnight in Rio, the captain stopped the ship in the Atlantic for a White Night with no breezes to safely cook steaks and lamb chops with charcoal on the outside deck. Azamara is big on listening to passengers.

The Discoveries menus can be viewed on the new interactive TV the day after the ship sails. Also, the Discovery menus are not done in numerical order so the first night might be menu #6 followed by menu #12.

While we haven't seen a buffet menu published ahead, I like surprises and often the menu relates to the location. Sometimes tomorrow's menu is announced after the show by the Cruise Director.

We book specialty restaurants the day we board based on the published schedule and our land discoveries plans and make changes if needed.

When people say there is free "Club Soda" -- do you mean the mixer with a high salt content? [Don't take offense, but I have heard people confuse Club Soda with Seltzer, which has no salt.]

Club soda.

We find the back of the ship much better than the front for stability. The downside of the front is the motion, having to keep the curtains closed in the evenings, the wind (no wind aft) and having to look over so much ship in front of the balcony. For us there is NO view like that of the wake.

Agree. Never had an issue in a stateroom on the stern, even in the North Sea or North Atlantic.

Hi Midwestchick,

 

I think the clock is fine, and there's an instruction sheet, if you need it. If all else fails, you can always call Guest Relations for a wake up call :)

 

Hope this helps !

The new phone system has an "easy to set" wake up call system.

Dial 0* and 0700 to set phone for 7am wakeup call. (1300 for 1pm)

Dial 0# to erase the call if you wake up early or just want to remove the wakeup call.

The room stewart sets the clock forward or back for time changes at turn down.

Are they available just for that day or to help us choose our speciality nights can we see all cruise?

Available for entire cruise.

Sounds to me you should stick to Regent et al given your attitude. Having spent 49 days on Regent, I will tell you there is no "real luxury" there, only trappings of luxury. Lousy flight routings, arrogant and aloof senior officers, captains who avoid passengers...not my idea of "real luxury."

I agree with Marinaro44.

Regent did not serve water to returning passengers on an Amazon River cruise until I finally met the hotel manager. Most remarkably, 6 neighbors pointed out THEY didn't NEED the water! Water stopped on the 105° F day.

When 90% of the ship returned on excursion busses at 2pm, yup, they closed the dining room because the chefs were going off duty. The HM said it was the a dining room issue. People brought plates of food from the cafe to their suite after waiting 20 minutes in line.

You saw the captain only when he raced to the smoking room.

But Regent is good for some.