Azura A821 Observations

[DamianG]

We're on our last day heading to Southampton so I thought I'd post a few general observations about our experiences.

 

Not So Good:

• The ship seemed unstable through Bay of Biscay both ways despite a fairly calm sea and low swell.
  
• Someone left a bowl of fruit salad on the steps of a stairway. I wonder how many passengers just stepped over it before I moved it?
  
• Someone left a baby chair with food all over it and all over the floor in the Verona Restaurant with no attempt to try clear up.
  
• We saw people filling drinks bottles at the machine in Verona even though this is not allowed.
  
• We saw one guy angrily doing a **** salute and shouting "the Fuhrer must be obeyed" after being refused a drink as the bar in Manhattan wasn't open yet.
  
• Tendering into Monaco was a painfully slow process, over an hour to get there and similar to get back.
  
• In Gibraltar we were moored next to the German ship Mein Schiff 6 and on the sailaway loads of passengers were on the port side of the ship waving Union Jack and St George flags at the other ship. Maybe it was just a bit of fun but I found it embarrassing.
  
• Maybe just us but we found Captain Evans Hoyt quite dull compared to some of the great Captains of over the last 15 years. In fairness his Portunus Party speech was quite good but in terms of personality he was nowhere near as engaging as the likes of (say) Robert Camby or Chris Wells.
  
• We are lucky to be invited to the Caribbean Tier lunch and we always look forward to it. This time our table was hosted a young reception worker on her first contract so she didn't really have any experience of hosting or engaging everyone. It was still a nice lunch but conversation hardly flowed and it somehow wasn't as much fun as on some of our previous cruises.
  
• Freedom dining was hit and miss for the first few evenings. We always felt rushed and on one occasion the wine waiter missed us completely and only came over to offer us a drink after 35 minutes when we were already through 2 courses. Fortunately things got better (see below).
  
• At 4:55am this morning I thought I heard a beeping sound then shortly after there was an announcement in the corridor. I couldn't hear it properly but 10 minutes later there was a full announcement broadcast in all cabins asking for 2 gentlemen in a cabin on C deck to call reception. I wasn't sleeping well anyway but it gave my wife a shock and woke my son up as well.
  

Very good:

• We used Parking4Cruises for the first time instead of CPS and it worked a treat. There was a big queue for CPS but I drove straight in to the drop-off area, unloaded the cases, my son and the in-laws then we drove round to the short stay car park to drop-off the keys. The whole process took less than 15 minutes which is a lot less than the queueing time we've experienced with these big ships previously. All that and £60 cheaper too. Thanks to everyone who recommended this company on the Cruise Critic message boards.
  
• We lucked into Table 10 in the Peninsular Restaurant one evening and the waiters were fantastic. They didn't rush us, engaged with my son and made sure he was happy with the food, and were generally good fun. The wine waiter was excellent, attentive and engaging as well. After that we always requested Table 10 when checking into Freedom Dining and we quickly realised that several passengers on neighbouring tables were always requesting the same location as well. After a few days the restaurant managers were keeping the table for us and it has made our dining experience much better.
  
• Our wine waiter also tipped us off about a wine tasting experience which generally wasn't advertised much. It was thoroughly enjoyable and afterwards we stayed a while chatting to a nice family that were sat at the same table.
  
• We didn't want to do an excursion in Livorno and were aware of many negative comments on social media about the port itself but thought we would give it a try. We had a lovely day, visited the aquarium which our son loved then had a nice lunch nearby. We also noted a swimming pool / water park that our son would enjoy next time we visit. We got a taxi to the aquarium which was a bit expensive for a short journey but we easily caught the bus back and would do that both ways next time.
  
• We thoroughly enjoyed all the other ports as well, made our own plans every day without excursions (including a lovely day in Civitavecchia) with good weather all the way. Only our last stop in Gibraltar was a bit lacking in things to do (for us anyway since we have been there many times). It was quite overcrowded with 2 ships in port as well but on the plus side we saw lots of dolphins on the sailaway.
  
• Our cabin steward has been fantastic, one of the best. Every night he places our son's soft toys in different poses around the cabin and we all look forward to seeing what he's done each evening.
  

We still love cruising with P&O, it's just that as long standing cruisers we find some of the things we see on these school holiday cruises annoying or upsetting hence the negative comments above. I'm probably getting a bit grumpier as I get older too!

 

If anyone else is on board I'd be interested to hear their thoughts.

 

Thanks

 

Damian

Edited August 24, 2018 by DamianG

[Josy1953]

We also found Captain Hoyt to be quite dull. He rarely spoke from the bridge and we never saw him around the ship. The only time that he time that he broadcast from the bridge was when there was a heleivac and he told us to keep off the balconies when the helicopter was coming in and leaving. Definitely the least engaged of all the captains that we have come across.

[L751]

Hi can you remember your cabin stewards name. We had a similar experience :)

[Britboys]

Always good to see a balanced viewpoint. P&O get a lot right - but not everything. Just like most mainstream, mass-pax cruise lines! Thanks for taking the time to post Damian.

[Jules.]

Our Britannia cruise was quite lovely. It was the passenger who left a half drunk pint in the men’s toilets and the ones who moved dirty plates from their table to ours in the buffet whilst we had just got up to get some cakes (!) who marred it a little. We just got on with it, we were on holiday after all.

Don’t think I’d enjoy a party cruise at all

[sidekick180]

We're on our last day heading to Southampton so I thought I'd post a few general observations about our experiences.

 

Not So Good:

 

• The ship seemed unstable through Bay of Biscay both ways despite a fairly calm sea and low swell.
  
• Someone left a bowl of fruit salad on the steps of a stairway. I wonder how many passengers just stepped over it before I moved it?
  
• Someone left a baby chair with food all over it and all over the floor in the Verona Restaurant with no attempt to try clear up.
  
• We saw people filling drinks bottles at the machine in Verona even though this is not allowed.
  
• We saw one guy angrily doing a **** salute and shouting "the Fuhrer must be obeyed" after being refused a drink as the bar in Manhattan wasn't open yet.
  
• Tendering into Monaco was a painfully slow process, over an hour to get there and similar to get back.
  
• In Gibraltar we were moored next to the German ship Mein Schiff 6 and on the sailaway loads of passengers were on the port side of the ship waving Union Jack and St George flags at the other ship. Maybe it was just a bit of fun but I found it embarrassing.
  
• Maybe just us but we found Captain Evans Hoyt quite dull compared to some of the great Captains of over the last 15 years. In fairness his Portunus Party speech was quite good but in terms of personality he was nowhere near as engaging as the likes of (say) Robert Camby or Chris Wells.
  
• We are lucky to be invited to the Caribbean Tier lunch and we always look forward to it. This time our table was hosted a young reception worker on her first contract so she didn't really have any experience of hosting or engaging everyone. It was still a nice lunch but conversation hardly flowed and it somehow wasn't as much fun as on some of our previous cruises.
  
• Freedom dining was hit and miss for the first few evenings. We always felt rushed and on one occasion the wine waiter missed us completely and only came over to offer us a drink after 35 minutes when we were already through 2 courses. Fortunately things got better (see below).
  
• At 4:55am this morning I thought I heard a beeping sound then shortly after there was an announcement in the corridor. I couldn't hear it properly but 10 minutes later there was a full announcement broadcast in all cabins asking for 2 gentlemen in a cabin on C deck to call reception. I wasn't sleeping well anyway but it gave my wife a shock and woke my son up as well.
  

Very good:

• We used Parking4Cruises for the first time instead of CPS and it worked a treat. There was a big queue for CPS but I drove straight in to the drop-off area, unloaded the cases, my son and the in-laws then we drove round to the short stay car park to drop-off the keys. The whole process took less than 15 minutes which is a lot less than the queueing time we've experienced with these big ships previously. All that and £60 cheaper too. Thanks to everyone who recommended this company on the Cruise Critic message boards.
  
• We lucked into Table 10 in the Peninsular Restaurant one evening and the waiters were fantastic. They didn't rush us, engaged with my son and made sure he was happy with the food, and were generally good fun. The wine waiter was excellent, attentive and engaging as well. After that we always requested Table 10 when checking into Freedom Dining and we quickly realised that several passengers on neighbouring tables were always requesting the same location as well. After a few days the restaurant managers were keeping the table for us and it has made our dining experience much better.
  
• Our wine waiter also tipped us off about a wine tasting experience which generally wasn't advertised much. It was thoroughly enjoyable and afterwards we stayed a while chatting to a nice family that were sat at the same table.
  
• We didn't want to do an excursion in Livorno and were aware of many negative comments on social media about the port itself but thought we would give it a try. We had a lovely day, visited the aquarium which our son loved then had a nice lunch nearby. We also noted a swimming pool / water park that our son would enjoy next time we visit. We got a taxi to the aquarium which was a bit expensive for a short journey but we easily caught the bus back and would do that both ways next time.
  
• We thoroughly enjoyed all the other ports as well, made our own plans every day without excursions (including a lovely day in Civitavecchia) with good weather all the way. Only our last stop in Gibraltar was a bit lacking in things to do (for us anyway since we have been there many times). It was quite overcrowded with 2 ships in port as well but on the plus side we saw lots of dolphins on the sailaway.
  
• Our cabin steward has been fantastic, one of the best. Every night he places our son's soft toys in different poses around the cabin and we all look forward to seeing what he's done each evening.
  

We still love cruising with P&O, it's just that as long standing cruisers we find some of the things we see on these school holiday cruises annoying or upsetting hence the negative comments above. I'm probably getting a bit grumpier as I get older too!

 

If anyone else is on board I'd be interested to hear their thoughts.

 

Thanks

 

Damian

 

 

We had a very similar experience of instability on the Ventura in May this year, not just going through the Bay of Biscay. It seemed to be for most of our cruise, which was only 7 nights. I have just booked on the Azura for May 2019 and one of the things I was really hoping, was that this ship would be more stable. Mainly for my girlfriends sake because she really didn't enjoy the movement of the ship. However, while I was booking next years cruise and talking to the lady at P&O, she told me that, at the time of our Ventura cruise in May there were some technical issues, which we were notified of a couple of hours after leaving Southampton, she said that one of the issues was with the stabilisers, which was why we felt so much movement and why the pools were closed for so much of the cruise. Apart from unpredictable weather, I am really hoping that our next cruise will be much smoother.

[Lees Cruisin]

We were on the cruise this past few weeks. I felt quite ill 1st 2 days with the ships movement, i bought tablets from reception and within 2 hour of taking one i felt fine. Although after the 2nd day there was hardly any movement till the last day. As regards the captain, my mum and dad renewed their vows on the ship after 40 years and the Captain did the ceremony. He was a lovely man and took time to chat to us all afterwards.

[Lees Cruisin]

The 4.55 am call was apparantly 2 teenagers running around the ship jumping in swimming pools and evading security. Woke everyone on the ship up i think, they should be ashamed of themselves.My wife commented earlier in the week but I only noticed on the last couple of days that it was like a youth club in a lot of areas on the ship

[DamianG]

Hi can you remember your cabin stewards name. We had a similar experience :)

His name was Connie, I wouldn’t like to guess his age but let’s just say he was older than any steward we’ve had previously. A lovely man.

[DamianG]

We were on the cruise this past few weeks. I felt quite ill 1st 2 days with the ships movement, i bought tablets from reception and within 2 hour of taking one i felt fine. Although after the 2nd day there was hardly any movement till the last day. As regards the captain, my mum and dad renewed their vows on the ship after 40 years and the Captain did the ceremony. He was a lovely man and took time to chat to us all afterwards.

Yes, the pools were closed on the first and last days even though personally I didn’t think the sea was too rough and the swell was relatively small.

Great to hear that Captain Hoyt was good for your mum and dad.

[Selbourne]

His name was Connie, I wouldn’t like to guess his age but let’s just say he was older than any steward we’ve had previously. A lovely man.

 

We had Connie on a previous cruise and he was excellent.

[DamianG]

The 4.55 am call was apparantly 2 teenagers running around the ship jumping in swimming pools and evading security. Woke everyone on the ship up i think, they should be ashamed of themselves.My wife commented earlier in the week but I only noticed on the last couple of days that it was like a youth club in a lot of areas on the ship

Thanks, what an ignorant thing to do!

On a separate note how did your plans go? I recall you made several posts pre-cruise seeking advice so I hope it all worked out for you and your family.

[Lees Cruisin]

Everything went very well thank you, all the shore excursions, the food , the drink , the whole experience. I was a bit unsure of cruising but i definitely will go again.