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Impressions from first time Azamara cruiser


ak1004
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Hello all,

 

We we are currently sailing on Azamara Pursuit from BA to Rio, and I wanted to share some perspective from a first time Azamara cruiser. We previously sailed on Celebrity Princess Holland Cunard Oceania Costa RCI and Carnival. This is our 12th cruise. Our benchmark is Oceania (we sailed on the Riviera last September).

 

Overall Pursuit is a great ship and we are having an amazing time. However we liked the Riviera better. Here is why.

 

The service is excellent, comparable to Oceania. But sometimes things seem a bit less organized. For example, some of the excustions were delayed 15-20 minutes. Never happened on Oceania. Also there are some lines when leaving the ship and coming back. Nothing major, not even close to what you see on big ships, but still slightly longer waiting times than Oceania.

 

The dinner in the MDR is great, but not as good as Oceania. The open seating works very well for us, never had to wait for a table. The buffet is disappointing. Good quality, but selection is pretty limited. It is not bad overall, but few levels below Oceania. The buffet area itself is also very small and feels a bit crowded at times.

 

Internet is probably the worst we experienced so far on cruise ships. 300kbps is not what you would expect from a luxury line in 2019. Major disappointment.

 

Spa does not have couple massage. This is the first time on any ship that we were not able to do a couple massage. The massage itself was very good.

 

Cabin on Oceania was small, here it's even smaller. Not a big deal, we don't spend much time in the cabin.

 

Entarteinment is good, not great. They don't have a real theater like on other ships, just a big lounge with chairs. No angle, so if you don't sit on few first rows, the view is pretty limited. Not too many activities, and the ship feels a bit sleepy at times.

 

The pool area is small and feels a bit crowded. But no problem to catch a chair. Hot tubs are smaller than usual and not hot enough.

 

Service is fantastic as you can expect from a luxury line.

 

Very limited food options. If you want to have a snack after 9pm, the only option is room service. We tried it yesterday, it took them 45 minutes and two follow up calls to bring the order.

 

Dress code is relaxing, no formal nights, which is perfect for us.

 

The azamazing event was very nice and well organized. Gereat atmosphere. The show itself felt a bit amateur. The pre even buffet was very crowded and poorly organized.

 

Overall great ship, great service, good food, but so far we prefer Oceania Riviera. Both lines are still better than mainstream ships from Celebrity or Princess which feel much more crowded, with longer lines.

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Yes thank you for your perspective on Azamara v Oceania ak1004. 

 

I have only done one Oceania cruise on Marina and I thought the ship, the food and the cabins were wonderful. What I didn't like was that the ship really did feel dead after 10pm. Everyone went to bed very early as they were all on insanely early tours the next day. The entertainment was pretty dire as well.... so maybe there wasn't much to stay up for! 

 

However, I do think there was an older demographic on the Oceania cruise that we were on and I'm certainly going to give Oceania another chance to impress me. I think the O class ships are beautiful. 

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Really appreciate your evaluation.

 

I would note that Oceania cruisers seem to differentiate the experience on Riviera/Marina and on Oceania’s fleet of “R” ships.

 

Some prefer the former two and others the latter.

 

If you sail the latter I look forward to your further comments.

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@Lottie A we felt that both Azamara and Oceania are dead after 10pm. For us Riviera size is perfect, still feels small and personal, but not too small. On the Pursuit you also fee the ship movement a little bit more. And some areas are a bit too small.

 

The entertainment on Riviera was also better so far. Not as good as Celebrity or Princess, but better than Pursuit.

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I have to say that my experience of room service on Pursuit was always excellent.  I ordered it a few times and it arrived promptly and correctly.  Sounds like you’ve been unlucky.  I did have to wait a little longer one evening, but put that down to the fact the kitchens were busy with main dinner service.

 

Phil

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We have also sailed on Riviera and that was probably our favorite cruise experience.  We've booked three times with Azamara because of their PerryGolf cruises, and while we also enjoy the included alcoholic beverages and gratuities, overall we preferred Riviera.  Depending on the cruise, the O Life package can add good value.

We are considering an Oceania cruise on one of the R ships at the end of the year, and if we go, I'll be curious to see how I think the cruise lines compare when the ships are similar. 

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6 minutes ago, excitedofharpenden said:

I have to say that my experience of room service on Pursuit was always excellent.  I ordered it a few times and it arrived promptly and correctly.  Sounds like you’ve been unlucky.  I did have to wait a little longer one evening, but put that down to the fact the kitchens were busy with main dinner service.

 

Phil

 

Definitely possible and one experience is obviously not enough to evaluate. 

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Ordered room service again yesterday. Took 30 minutes to arrive. Which is an improvement but still too long in my opinion.

 

Today is a sea day. Breakfast buffet was packed. Lines for food, challenge to find a table.

 

Pool area very crowded. No free chairs at all. Service in the buffet very slow.

 

very limited activities even on sea day. So you cannot sit on the pool, and there is not much to do in other areas.

 

We never had those issues on Oceania. 

 

But the numbers tell the story. The passenger crew ratio on Azamara is 1:1.8 (400 crew 700 passengers). On Ocenia Riviera it is 1:1.5 (800 crew 1250 passengers). Plus much bigger public areas.

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I’m surprised that you haven’t been able to find sun-beds around the pool. We’ve done the Athens to Dubai relocation cruise 3 times. It has lots of sea days and there’s always been spare chairs around the pool. We often like to use the sun-beds on Deck 11, but when we stayed on Deck 9 we were able to find chairs.

There are also sun beds on Deck 5 which are lovely if you want shade and peace & quiet.

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57 minutes ago, Host Grandma Cruising said:

I’m surprised that you haven’t been able to find sun-beds around the pool. We’ve done the Athens to Dubai relocation cruise 3 times. It has lots of sea days and there’s always been spare chairs around the pool. We often like to use the sun-beds on Deck 11, but when we stayed on Deck 9 we were able to find chairs.

There are also sun beds on Deck 5 which are lovely if you want shade and peace & quiet.

Currently on the Pursuit and despite being officers bbq today we were able to get two sun beds on around the pool, together, at about 1.15pm. It’s busy but manageable ( and yes there were already being reserved st 8.25 am when I was walking the track this morning). Some things don’t change on most cruise ships 

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1 hour ago, Host Grandma Cruising said:

I’m surprised that you haven’t been able to find sun-beds around the pool. We’ve done the Athens to Dubai relocation cruise 3 times. It has lots of sea days and there’s always been spare chairs around the pool. We often like to use the sun-beds on Deck 11, but when we stayed on Deck 9 we were able to find chairs.

There are also sun beds on Deck 5 which are lovely if you want shade and peace & quiet.

I think it also depends on the passenger demographics and the extent to which the respect polite requests.  Our experience in the past is that cruises around latin america and that round trip out of Spain or Australasia have been much more challenging than those with a higher % of US, Canadian or UK guests

Note this is not a comment about the various nationalities, more a general feeling of what happens in some areas

Edited by uktog
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7 minutes ago, uktog said:

I think it also depends on the passenger demographics and the extent to which the respect polite requests.  Our experience in the past is that cruises around latin america and that round trip out of Spain or Australasia have been much more challenging than those with a higher % of US, Canadian or UK guests

Note this is not a comment about the various nationalities, more a general feeling of what happens in some areas

 

This is a very good point. We have seen many chairs and beds being reserved with no sign of the owners. Same at the buffet. 

 

But overall the limited amount of activities especially on a sea day is a bit disappointing. We attended a lecture about Rio and the guy said he is surprised to see such big audience. One of the guests replied: well there is nothing else to do on this ship..

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14 hours ago, ak1004 said:

 

 

 

But overall the limited amount of activities especially on a sea day is a bit disappointing. 

Sorry to hear that.  Pursuit has a dedicated activities manager who is not an entertainer (so no rehearsals to side track them) so it should be quite a full programme.

Suggest you make your views known to the Cruise Director maybe with suggestions on what missing. You should get a form in your  room asking how things are going so far.  Make sure you give your various feedback there as there’s a chance of fixes during the cruise during that route. 

Of course you also have the post cruise survey, doesn’t directly help you but it does help others. 

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9 hours ago, uktog said:

Sorry to hear that.  Pursuit has a dedicated activities manager who is not an entertainer (so no rehearsals to side track them) so it should be quite a full programme.

Suggest you make your views known to the Cruise Director maybe with suggestions on what missing. You should get a form in your  room asking how things are going so far.  Make sure you give your various feedback there as there’s a chance of fixes during the cruise during that route. 

Of course you also have the post cruise survey, doesn’t directly help you but it does help others. 

 

I can do it but I doubt it will make any difference. 

 

Someone asked the cruise director why the internet is so expensive and so slow. His response was that the price on Azamara is in line with other lines and the speed cannot be higher because it's an old ship and there is no infrastructure to support higher speeds. 

 

Both responses are inaccurate. We paid last year $10/day on Princess (and the speed was 20 times faster). And we sailed on older ships with much higher internet speeds. 

 

And even if it was true the ship just spent 3 months in dry dock so they could install a new infrastructure if they wanted to.

 

I believe Azamara made a business decision to focus on certain things and ignore other things. Their customers obviously don't care about internet, or certain daily activities like dance classes, zumba, music at the pool etc.

 

They also have certain limitations that come with the ship, like lack of a real theater so the evening entertainment cannot be in par with ships that have a real theater. 

 

It is what it is. 

Edited by ak1004
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There have been dance classes and I think they were popular. They were taken by the professional dancers who were part of the entertainment set-up, but a while ago Azamara experimented with their entertainment, providing short plays, opera performances and cabaret acts instead of their former ‘song and dance’ shows supplemented with guest artists. The experiment was not a success, and they are now returning to the old format, so maybe dance classes will return.

There are usually trivia quizzes, some activities such as darts, table tennis and shuffleboard tournaments, IT classes, yoga and Pilates classes, but a ship with under 700 passengers will never have as many activities as many of the larger ships.

In addition for many of those who return to Azamara again and again the main attraction is the emphasis on destinations, the friendliness and the level of service rather than the activities provided.

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19 minutes ago, Host Grandma Cruising said:

 but a ship with under 700 passengers will never have as many activities as many of the larger ships.

In addition for many of those who return to Azamara again and again the main attraction is the emphasis on destinations, the friendliness and the level of service rather than the activities provided.

 

Absolutely! 

 

For us when we compare to Oceania, the Riviera has similar level of service and very friendly staff but at the same time much better food, better entertainment and more daily activities. And it also feels less crowded despite having 1250 passengers because the public areas are much bigger.

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40 minutes ago, Host Grandma Cruising said:

I can’t compare with Oceania as I’ve never been on their ships, but with nearly twice the number of passengers as Azamara, they will be able to provide more activities.

 

Riviera: 65000 tons, 774 L × 105 beam, apple

R ships: 30277 tons, 593 L x 84 beam, orange

Edited by flyingshoes
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4 hours ago, Host Grandma Cruising said:

I can’t compare with Oceania as I’ve never been on their ships, but with nearly twice the number of passengers as Azamara, they will be able to provide more activities.

Actually, Oceania R ships provide many more activities than AZ. I spent 30 days on Insignia for S.A. and was involved in many activities during the day. Example: when on AZ they have a ping pong table (with dirty balls). When handing in my mid cruise review, asked to possibly have tournaments as O does. They did put it in their next day newsletter and nobody showed up. On O we had a very friendly international group from all over the world every day and it made for friendships and fun. Golf games too among many other fun things to do. 

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3 hours ago, flyingshoes said:

 

Riviera: 65000 tons, 774 L × 105 beam, apple

R ships: 30277 tons, 593 L x 84 beam, orange

Well, yes and no.

 

They both are still considered small ships, so good for those who want to get a better service and avoid the crowds of the mega ships. But in my opinion, Riviera offers the best of both worlds: still a small ship, which still feels much less crowded, but at the same time, more activities, and better entertainment. And it actually has a better crew/passengers ratio than Azamara, so service is at least as good if not better. 

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7 hours ago, portofinoitaly said:

Actually, Oceania R ships provide many more activities than AZ. I spent 30 days on Insignia for S.A. and was involved in many activities during the day. Example: when on AZ they have a ping pong table (with dirty balls). When handing in my mid cruise review, asked to possibly have tournaments as O does. They did put it in their next day newsletter and nobody showed up. On O we had a very friendly international group from all over the world every day and it made for friendships and fun. Golf games too among many other fun things to do. 

I think that probably illustrates one of the differences between the 2 groups of passengers. As I said before many Azamara passengers travel mainly for the destinations, although having said that the trivia quizzes are always very popular.  We rarely join in any activities on the ship but we did join a trivia team on one cruise and enjoyed it. 

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2 hours ago, Host Grandma Cruising said:

I think that probably illustrates one of the differences between the 2 groups of passengers. As I said before many Azamara passengers travel mainly for the destinations, although having said that the trivia quizzes are always very popular.  We rarely join in any activities on the ship but we did join a trivia team on one cruise and enjoyed it. 

That's true but even on distinction rich cruise there are usually at least 2-3 sea days. Plus I think Oceania has excellent destinations as well. On our last 11 nights Mediterranean cruise there was no single sea day!

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