Having sailed on both Celebrity and Azamara in recent months we were very happy with both cruise lines and would happily sail with both again. The main determining factor for us in choosing which cruise line to sail with is the itinerary and value for money and when applying the latter criteria I’m not convinced that Azamara justifies the price differential it usually charges over Celebrity.
Azamara is rightly described as a premium brand fitting nicely between mainstream cruise lines and those that are truly luxury such Seabourn, Silversea and Regent. To best answer the OP’s original question I will break down my critique under different headings.
PORT ACCESS
There is no doubt Azamara wins out here as having smaller ships they can often dock closer to the places of interest that you want to visit. To illustrate this point, on our recent Celebrity cruise visiting Vietnam we stopped in HCMC but were docked in an industrial port almost a two hour drive away whereas had we been on Azamara we would have docked up the river in the centre of town.
STATEROOMS
Our greatest disappointment with Azamara are the cabins themselves which we found to be dated and cramped when compared with Celebrity. We were on the newly “refreshed” Azamara Onward but the cabin still looked very tired with chipped furnishings, touched up paint work, the smallest bathroom I have ever experienced at sea and a truly awful shower curtain. Certainly not of the standard you would expect of a “premium” cruise line but that’s just the nature of these R class ships.
SERVICE & INCLUSIONS
Despite reading some negative reviews prior to boarding we found service on both cruises to be generally very good but it was certainly a little more personalised on Azamara as you would expect being a smaller ship with a higher staff to passenger ratio.
We did enjoy that on Azamara most alcoholic drinks, speciality coffees and gratuities are included in the fare. Admittedly this was less of a factor for us personally as we don’t drink much and our loyalty status with Celebrity affords us free speciality coffees and some free alcoholic drinks of an evening. We didn’t however appreciate that despite being a “premium” line Azamara charges extra for it’s speciality restaurants.
FOOD
We had read recent criticisms that both cruise lines had implemented cut backs when it came to dining but we saw little evidence of this and found the food to be generally good on both. In our opinion Azamara had a slight edge in the food served in the Main Dining Room (although we were pleasantly surprised by our most recent experience on Celebrity which seems to be making an effort to up it’s game).
The buffet however on Celebrity had a lot more options and were of better quality than the offerings we found on Azamara. Also we found on our Azamara cruise that the buffet restaurant was too small for the number of passengers and it was difficult to find a seat, particularly at lunch time.
ENTERTAINMENT
Not surprisingly given the larger size of their ships Celebrity wins out in this area with the sheer number of activities that they can offer. We found both the guest entertainers and production shows to be very good and the theatre itself provides a great venue to showcase its entertainment. That having been said we were also pleasantly surprised by the standard of entertainment on Azamara and given the inherent restrictions of a smaller ship we thought that they did a great job too.
In summary, we really enjoyed both cruises, and while neither was perfect we would happily sail both cruise lines again. Ultimately your own personal preferences and priorities will likely dictate which is the best fit for you but never loose sight of the fact we are all extremely privileged to have the ability to make such a choice.
Happy Sailing !!!