Live from Azura Cruise 12th October - 28th October positioning to Tenerife

[carlanthony24]

3 hours ago, backbiter said:

My wife and I were also on this cruise. Really enjoyed the whole experience. The itinerary was great, with most ports new to us - had only been to Cagliari and Palma before. We liked the Azura a lot - more our type of ship than Iona, which we were on in December '21 - and we took advantage of the onboard offer to book again for October 2025.

All the staff were a pleasure to deal with. The excursions we did, in Sardinia, Majorca, Lanzarote and Tenerife, were all very well organised and pretty good value compared to our experiences with other cruise lines. 

Happy overall with the food and drink on board. A few beers were out of stock, but not a bad selection. Buffet food was pretty good, if unexceptional, although the cakes were not great - far too dry. The Epicurean was excellent and The Beach House was also good, but the choices in the main restaurants were largely unimaginative and 'samey'. This might not have been an issue on, say, a 7-night cruise, but after 15 nights we were both crying out for some variety, which has been a feature of other cruise lines we've travelled with.

The entertainment was good. Plenty to do all day and all evening, and a very nice friendly atmosphere all over the ship. Enjoyed the shows - some talented performers on board, notably Rachael Hawnt, who did an amazing - and funny -  Cher tribute act.

We were impressed with the efficiency of the airport transfers on arrival and departure, and had no problems with our TUI and Jet2 flights (The diversion to Sicily on the way to Malta was a pain but nothing to do with P&O).

I had noticed a flight had diverted what was the reason. Since you literally got to Malta. Only thing I could think of no parking available? Is it the repositioning you are doing in October 2025?

[carlanthony24]

31 minutes ago, room with a view said:

Thanks for your blog ...we are on the Azura over Christmas / New Year .

 

The MDR menus look uninspiring ...is there tomato soup on every night  ?

 

Looks like a lot of pork, lamb , beef and chicken most nights...and a limited choice of puddings ... ice cream /cheese platter . 

 

 

Tomato soup is on every night even if not mentioned. The Chicken and Steak, Icecream and Cheese plates are also available every night. Some of the menus we did not like so went to the speciality restaurants which we wanted to do at some point anyway. If you like Indian food and the Indian themed buffet night is on its well worth going for.

[Jennizor]

We are also on Azura for Christmas and New Year. Let’s hope that being the festive season the menu may be a bit more adventurous.  Whatever, we are just looking forward to being back on Azura, we were last on her in September 22 and had a lovely cruise.

[backbiter]

15 hours ago, carlanthony24 said:

I had noticed a flight had diverted what was the reason. Since you literally got to Malta. Only thing I could think of no parking available? Is it the repositioning you are doing in October 2025?

We were told that a drone had been spotted around Malta airport. We circled for a while but apparently fuel was running low so we diverted to Catania. We were there for about an hour while they refuelled and waited for a new landing slot in Malta. The whole incident delayed our arrival by 2 to 3 hours.

[carlanthony24]

1 hour ago, backbiter said:

We were told that a drone had been spotted around Malta airport. We circled for a while but apparently fuel was running low so we diverted to Catania. We were there for about an hour while they refuelled and waited for a new landing slot in Malta. The whole incident delayed our arrival by 2 to 3 hours.

Bloody drones.

[sandancer]

We were also on this cruise and I have posted separately about our wheelchair experiences. I thought I would offer my humble opinion on the dining. We really enjoy the speciality restaurants and try to book in advance if possible. We ate 3 times in Epicurean,(must mention here that Crepe Suzette prepared table side is back) 3 times in the Beach House, twice in the Glass House and once in Sindhu. We enjoyed them all and compared to other cruise lines they are very well priced. The other nights we ate in the Meridian and found the portions to be quite small. We simply ordered an extra vegetarian main course to share. Our only complaint was the cheese plate. The Head Waiter explained that the cheese plates are prepared 3 to 4 hours in advance so the cheese was hard and curling up by the time it was served. Just didn’t bother after the first night and confined our cheese consumption to the buffet at lunchtime when I would gather up the ingredients for ham and cheese sarnies. Breakfast was usually a coffee and croissant in Java. 

Overall we were happy enough and never went hungry. It’s the old story, you get what you pay for and if you want 5* dining don’t cruise with P&O.