rages100

Thank you for your fabulous review. We fly out on Friday to join the Silhouette to almost relive your cruise in person. Looks like I will have to re-read it as I have spent far too long reading about your cruise than planning ours. 

Anne

Really enjoying this, thank you for taking the time to do it. 

Thank you for your review, following it with interest as it is a very similar itinerary to ours next month. One question I do have as we have never been to the Caribbean before is what currency did you take? Do you get local currencies or just use us$?

Thanks for your reply. When have you been there? When did you book?

Did you get your visa onboard? Great to hear it was relaxed... :-)

We were there in March but did book a year ago which should have made a difference but that was one question no one ever asked. We did have to get the same visa on board as the Americans, $75. We were told before we went that we could get our own visa but would have to be the same as on board, it may be a little cheaper as an admin charge is added but we couldn’t use the £15 British visa as we were on an American ship.

We are British and found that we could come and go as we wished. We were never questioned. We did have a private classic car tour booked on one of the days but were never asked about our plans once we got to Cuba. We did have to fill in a form on embarkation that asked if we were doing a tour or making our own plans and a few other options. We were doing several of the options but you could only tick one box. It was all much more relaxed than we were expecting.

Cabin no. 7025

Ship Quest

March 2018

Definitely book again

No noise issues

Balcony normal size

Fairly close to lifts but only two flights up to pool deck and two flights down to restaurant, casino and other facilities.

We don’t lose a whole sea day, we depart at 6.00am from Santiago rather than the evening before., so just the overnight at sea lost. We are happy with this change.

We have booked a guarantee Verandah in the past and were very happy with the one selected. We have done two cruises both in August along this coast and loved them both, we do not tend to do excursions but did do a private tour in Sorrento where we chose to go to Herculaneum and Ravello but our driver was happy to tailor the day as we wished.

We have just got off Navigator and would have loved it to have still been a Mexican option. There was an Indian option every night in the MDR which were very popular with our party and although we like Indian there didn't seem to be a need for a speciality Indian restaurant.

We have found that cruises that take place during school holidays generally have a younger crowd. Very few children as there are no specific facilities for them but more extended families with teens and young adults. Azamara also seems popular with people that work in education because of the fewer children on board. We love children but it is nice to have a break when you work with them.

We had a lovely day in Newcastle, wonderful beaches and very friendly guides. Thanks for your hospitality.

Wherever the information came from in the first post it is true. I am a fare paying passenger, not being paid by anyone and the atmosphere on board is great. All pools were open for our sunny sea day yesterday. No idea about today but they will not be missed as it is raining.

Only met one winner so far, lovely lady who is a regular cruiser but never been on Britannia before, have to say I have heard enough to know she deserves her place on board.

We had a lovely night in the Limelight club, the food and Kiki Dee were both excellent.

Thanks, I was looking in cruise personalised.

Where do you find your points total?

Im not a fan of this change. We normally drive down on the day, a journey of approx 5 hours, and aim to get there at around noon normally to allow for delays en route. We would have to kill time somewhere before our allocated time with our wheelchair bound Mum in tow. In reality anyone driving down or using public transport on the day would be mad to plan to arrive at their allocated time slot as any delay could mean a missed departure so most would be forced to arrive earlier and wait in a packed departure hall.

 

The big benefit of a Southampton departure is the ease of boarding and knowing you can be on board for lunch. They have managed just fine boarding Azura/Ventura for the last few years so why change it now? I suppose they will save food consumption in the buffet!

 

We have check in slots on Anthem of the Seas next week but you choose your own slot when doing the online check in. Not allocated a random slot by the cruise line.

 

 

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We have one more cruise booked from Southampton but have already booked a fly cruise with another company for next year.

With a journey of 6 or 7 hours it has always been a bit of a hassle sailing from Southampton but knowing that we had a long window for embarking when we arrived was a great bonus. We have to allow at least a couple of hours for problems on route, knowing that we may have to kill time for hours when we get there has made a fly cruise more attractive as we can fly from a local airport and when you start looking around there are better deals than P & O are offering. We used to only cruise with P and O but time to move on.

Incidentally we have never had any waits of over an hour to embark on any of P and Os three largest ships in seven cruises. I think they have panicked because of teething problems with Britannia. They are saying that people want their cabin ready when they embark, we are quite happy to wait. It seems the real reason is the increase in ship tours, I really think people are going to try other cruise lines and they will lose people that were loyal to P and O.

Definitely thumbs down from us. I cannot understand why the powers that be would want to alienate their loyal customers in this way.

I cannot see that it would gain them much revenue as I definitely wouldn't pay for the Internet now, I would prefer to do without if I chose Azamara again. This is looking less likely as the feeling of being valued promotes loyalty. My loyalty is waning.

I was on this cruise and our party loved the beef, we wouldn't have had it if it was well done, so as Andy says it takes all sorts.

Again we didn't have a problem with the egg station in Windows but that could be due to the timing of breakfast and we only used the MDR on the last day. I do wish they would continue breakfast later than 10am though because when you have long days in port you can afford a more leisurely start to the day.

Generally we found enough loungers but a couple of the ports were a bit small and whereas this isn't usually a problem,they didn't hold enough interest if you were not on a tour. This meant a lot of people were back on the ship very early and it was sometimes difficult to get a bed in the shade, always seemed to be plenty on deck 5 though. I have to say that we have always found this more of a problem on bigger ships though.

Most of our cruising has been with P and O, RCI and Princess on larger ships and all of our party thought that the food on Azamara was the best. We have found that all the American ships are a bit stingy with the vegetables and we always asked for extra. We found the Azamara staff extremely obliging when it came to varying the accompaniments of the meals. Nothing was too much trouble.

They are never going to please everyone all the time but they made a very good attempt at keeping our party happy.

We were on the cruise out of Monte Carlo on Aug 3. After we embarked I was chatting to a lady over lunch who was getting off the ship in a couple of hours.

I wondered if she was family of crew but during the early afternoon there was an announcement for the people taking advantage of late disembarkation to leave the ship. We were not sailing until 11pm.

Usually there is a page right at the back of your e-docs that have your transfers listed. It is the page before the luggage label.

Our e docs say Capri but the itinerary on the online check in is Sorrento. We went by ferry last year and it wasn't a problem, we got the cost of the tickets refunded. This year is a bit more complicated as we are not due to arrive until 11 and leave the following morning at 5. The last ferry back is 6.30 which only leaves a half day on Capri.

I know it isn't Azamara's fault but it is a shame that we spent two days in Sorrento last year and are back there this year for the same reason.

Just noticed that our itinerary has changed. It seems that Azamara still hasn't sorted out its problems regarding Capri.

This happened to us last year as well but as we were scheduled to be overnight in Capri this year we thought the problem had been resolved. My son is going to be gutted as it was the highlight for him especially as it was an overnighter. I can't imagine we will be able to get back to the ship in Sorrento after a night out on Capri.

Bonnie - Why do they keep putting Capri on the itinerary when they know it will not happen?

Hi

 

could it be for the airline? Mixed messages.

 

Yvonne

We did wonder that but the airline tickets have already been issued.

We keep getting emails from our TA which have been forwarded from Azamara to say we need to complete our advanced passenger info online. The only thing missing is country where passport was issued and the issue date, neither of which can be filled in online.

We thought this was all sorted weeks ago but we are still getting these emails.

Please can you let us know how this turns out as we have a similar boarding time given in August. We have an Azamara pick up from Nice airport in the morning so were wondering what they were going to do with us until our boarding time of late evening.