cavaaller

The weather was lovely, so we did a tour: HoHo buses and TukTuk drivers (1,5 hour tour for 100€/6 Pax) are waiting for guests directly at the hotel / next to the terminal. Daytickets for public transport (metro, bus, Tram, Elevator Sta. Justa*, Funicular Bica, Funicular Glória, Funicular Lavra) 6,60 €, link to buy online or on metro stations: Points of sale wherever these logos are visible: I had downloaded the Rick Steves audio tour for Lisbon so we did this tour by foot: This is a link to the googlemap I created. The tour is about 6,3 km long and should take about 2,5 h (plus breaks)

We wanted a hotel fairly close to the cruise port. Azamara docks at the new Cruise Terminal JTab ( see which terminal your cruise ship docks here) There are three hotels in direct proximity to the terminals: one hotel directly across the Apolonia terminal: the Editory Riverside Hotel. Rooms are very small and rather expensive. And two hotels near the New Terminal: The Aurea Museum Hotel and the Palacete Chafariz d’el Rei. Both are beautiful and on the expensive side which made it very hard to chose. Although the Chafariz is by far the less practical hotel (only accessible via very narrow cobblestone pathways, no elevators at all – you have to carry your luggage a lot, far and there are many many stairs) I chose this because I just loved the pictures I saw online. It seemed like a real château – quirky, stylish and just like a very palatial (pun intended) way to start our cruise. Communication with the hotel was very good – they arranged a transfer that met us at arrivals at LIS airport. Extra wishes (separate duvets and late checkout) were granted without hesitation. Our room was stunning, the staff amazing (!) and the hotel is so conveniently located, we were glad, we chose it!

I would love to take you with me on our cruise on the Azamara Pursuit March 2023 (9-night Med Highlight Voyage) Our itinerary: LISBON, PORTUGAL GIBRALTAR, UNITED KINGDOM MALAGA, SPAIN BARCELONA, SPAIN BARCELONA, SPAIN NICE, FRANCE FLORENCE/PISA(LIVORNO),ITALY FLORENCE/PISA(LIVORNO),ITALY ROME (CIVITAVECCHIA), ITALY Me and my husband are in our 50ies, new to Azamara (but having cruised with Celebrity Cruises and MSC YC many times). We are looking forward to this new experience because after what I have read here on CC, Azamara might be an even better fit for us than Celebrity: We like a quiet atmosphere, like to explore on our own, like good food, attentive service. We do not cruise for the entertainment and/or the parties but enjoy a good conversation. Our journey begins at the Mony at Cologne Airport. In accordance with the Moxy concept, this hotel is sparingly furnished and equipped. The rooms don't even have a kettle, let alone a coffeemachine. But that is no real problem – you can either enjoy breakfast at the hotel, which is relatively cheap at 15 euros, or eat at the airport. The breakfast is good, the staff are very nice, we did not regret staying here. Our flight Is only a little bit delayed which is actually quite surprising: Germany is in the midst of collective bargaining in the public sector. As a result, massive strikes unsettle the transport system every two days or so. The airports also suffer greatly. It feels like once a week everything is at a standstill here at one airport or another. In CGN we had this problem a few days ago – not very altruistically (of course I am aware of the importance of these strikes) , I'm glad that everything is running smoothly today.

Do you remember, if boarding started at 14 o clock?

I read it here (link)

By any chance - did the butler tell you if/that you can order roomservice off th e speciality restaurants menus? (I found this perk in a fact sheet about the owner’s suite benefits and am not sure if it is outdated or not)

What a beautiful suite. Thank you for sharing! Did you habe a choice of liquors/spirits as the first bar set-up?

So excited to read a live from! Thank you for taking the time to do this!

Thank you for your input @nordski and @roberts2005

our flight is at 14 h

I just booked a cruise ending in Civitavecchia . I searched this forum and found that the recommended options for private transfers (2 pax) seem to be RomeCabs/CIV Shuttle Express/CCS (all 140 E) and Rome in a Limo 170 E. We have some OBC and unfortunately the excursions that would have interested us (eg Malaga → Alhambra) are not offered (or already sold out?) so I wonder if I could use some of our OBC to buy a transport to the Airport on board? What would you recommend - private transfer or wait to board and hope to be able to purchase the Cruise-Line's transfer with OBC? (The Transfer would cost 65*2=130 if I bought it via my TA- so just a little cheaper than the private transport).

Struggeling with the photos will post those later.. 🙂 In the past 2.5 years I lived vicariously through your live reports (shout out to @groryjm @Jim_Iain@What A Market @GenerationX and many others - thank you very much !) So now that I am finally ready to board another cruise, I too would like to contribute, if you will read me. To give you a little background: I am (obviously) not a native speaker so I apologize for grammar and/or spelling and am cruising with my family. A long time ago we have sailed on Eclipse and on the Summit (my favourite ship) but since then have done mostly MSC and TUI cruises. We did experience a decline in quality in the MSC Yacht club mainly due to overcrowding, decline in quality in the food etc. -that is why we wanted to try Celebrity again. We were supposed to be on the March 20 cruise out of FLL on the Silhouette and on the March 21 cruise out of Tampa on the Constellation and on the July 21 cruise out of AMS on the reflection. Those three cruises did not happen for obvious reasons. But we made the best out of it: took the FCCs an put them to good use: We will be celebrating our and my anniversary on the Apex. It is the very first time in the retreat for us, and of course the first time in an “upper suite”. So hear goes nothing: Thursday we drove ourselves to Amsterdam and stayed one night in the Movenpick hotel right next to the cruise terminal. (This picture ist from sailaway) Our room was quite nice and you could easily walk to the centre. Amsterdam was incredibly crowded – I am not used to so many people anymore. We did not really enjoy our promenade – between the bikes racing like crazy, the millions of people rushing through the streets, no social distancing at all – not our type of thing. So we cut the sightseeing short. We live only about 3 hours from Amsterdam by car so it will be easy to redo this kind of trip when we are not as scared of catching “something”. On the big day we took our breakfast in the hotel’s executive lounge that has only recently reopened. You get your food in the main restaurant and sit in the less crowded space. Food was great – lots of fresh options. We saw the Apex come in early in the morning and could even watch her from our window: It was very hard to wait patiently for boarding – I knew that it would not start before 11 o clock – and so we checked out at the hotel at 10:50 already … In the terminal (PTA) retreat guests leave their luggage on the left hand side. The Porters identify upper-suite luggage and tag it as “priority”. Then you follow the main flow up to the waiting area, where you are directed to a “retreat” row. We were not the only impatient people – about 20 other retreat guests were already sitting in the area. At 11.10 checkin commenced. There were 4 officers (?) checking in retreat guests. When an upper Suite guest was identified, they called an escort who took over from there. We had to show our boarding passes about 6 times (wish I had known because every time I thought this was going to be the last time so I put it away again ) The Escort-person (I really do not know if he was a butler) told us some fun facts about the ship all of which I instantly forgot because I was so incredibly nervous and anxious to get to our suite. The Ship was totally empty, we were among the first to board. Our suite was ready so we could enter tout de suite. It is an incredible, huge, beautiful, amazing space that made me litterally jump with joy. The pictures do not do the Suite justice (even if they were posted correctly they would not) but there are many great videos online on yt so I will not even bother to post my amateur-video here. When I was done jumping up and down we were ready to have lunch. We went to an empty Luminae and enjoyed a terrific first meal on board (no pics, sorry). I had the kale salad (never have I eaten raw kale – but it was delicious) the rest of my family had the pea soup. Then I had the fish and my men had the steak. Both excellent. The afternoon was spent with the usual dreaded unpacking, after which I went to the spa because I chipped a nail: I had a manipedi. Although the price is quite high you just cannot beat the view. We had contact to the shoreside concierge Eric (he did not reach out to us but a fellow cruiser forwarded me the contact so I reached out to him). We had asked for some specialty dining reservations and for a Peloton to be present in our suite. I knew that asking for the Peloton was a long shot because as of late it is only being granted in the Iconic Suite but our butler was very nice to secure us one. So we had a reservation for fine cut for the evening. I must admit, that I was much to overwhelmed and tired to enjoy a meal but we went anyway. I shared a tomahawk steak with my DH which was good. Then we called it a night without desert and went to bed very early. Today the sea is really choppy. DH is prone to seasickness so he suffers. But I was so looking forward to this: We had roomservice breakfast – eggs benedict – On every cruise this is my favourite breakfast item. You cannot order that from roomservice on MSC - not even in YC, so I was so happy to see it is on the retreat RS-Menu. I used the little RoomService hanger: Our butler called ahead and set it up very nicely at our huge table. But: The eggs benedict were really disappointing ...😒 Everything else was fine. And it was heavenly sitting there, hearing the ocean and knowing there is nothing, I HAVE to do today. So I did what I wanted to do: After breakfast I took a peloton class, a shower and a series of naps in different places of the suite. The captain announced that the ship’s occupance is around 40 %, about 1500 people. It does seem empty indeed. Even today, at a seaday you can move around freely without too much effort to avoid coming too close. We enjoyed a café at café al bacio, a burger @ mast grille and most of all we enjoyed, that we are on vacation. There is nothing better than this, is there? A propos too close: Almost nobody is wearing masks – a nonchalance am not used to – maybe later in the cruise I will be able to relax a bit and maybe then I will also dare to lose mine. Right now I am much too afraid to catch it to go unmasked… So... We have not decided on dinner for tonight. I am leaning towards luminae (it being chic night) but I am not sure if it will be too crowded for my taste… Any opinions? IMG_1236.HEIC IMG_1239.HEIC IMG_1240.HEIC IMG_1242.HEIC IMG_1243.HEIC IMG_1245.HEIC