Onboard Quest Costa Rica Intensive, Jan. 15-25, 2018

We're onboard Quest and happy to report that everything is just as good as we remember from the Norwegian Fjords a year and a half ago. Have looked carefully for those reported signs of early wear on the new light-colored furnishings -- and can't find any.

Two dinners in MDR with excellent results. Late lunch this afternoon in The Living Room was great -- tasty small sandwiches and lovely scones with clotted cream and jam. Inclusive wines have been quite acceptable: two reds and two whites offered each day, and when I asked for yesterday's red at dinner they got me a bottle, no problem.

There were a lot of upgrade fairy reports on our roll call but we hadn't applied because we had booked a Club Continent suite -- so I called LCV and they offered Club Ocean for $1,000 or Club World for $1,500. I thought that's a lot of money, but the suites look wonderful -- but I thought those upgrade prices were pp. No! -- they were for both of us, and with the CW we got $300 OBC -- and that was pp! So the net cost was only $900 and this suite is so wonderful!

The only problem so far is figuring out how we're going to spend all our OBC!

Thank you for posting your first impressions of your Quest Costa Rica cruise, Jazzbeau!

Enjoy a wonderful :ship: :ship: vacation!

Looking forward to reading more of your assessments.

Enjoy the cruise and your CW!

Phil

Totally agree, Jazzbeau, the ship is looking great. We’ve also had 2 great meals in Discoveries, and are happy with the wines.

It’s been lovely to see many old faces aboard, especially Aldin who we first met on our very first Azamara cruise.

Captain Carl talked about his move over to the Pursuit at the LCV cocktail party yesterday evening. I think he’s going to get very emotional by the end of the cruise.

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Totally agree, Jazzbeau, the ship is looking great. We’ve also had 2 great meals in Discoveries, and are happy with the wines.

It’s been lovely to see many old faces aboard, especially Aldin who we first met on our very first Azamara cruise.

Captain Carl talked about his move over to the Pursuit at the LCV cocktail party yesterday evening. I think he’s going to get very emotional by the end of the cruise.

 

 

 

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Please say hi to Aldin from Mr Phil. I haven't seen him for a while. Always smiling. Have fun!

Phil

Totally agree, Jazzbeau, the ship is looking great. We’ve also had 2 great meals in Discoveries, and are happy with the wines.

It’s been lovely to see many old faces aboard, especially Aldin who we first met on our very first Azamara cruise.

Captain Carl talked about his move over to the Pursuit at the LCV cocktail party yesterday evening. I think he’s going to get very emotional by the end of the cruise.

 

 

 

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Enjoy your cruise, please say hi to Aldin from Carol & John Porter or one love might be better [emoji3] hope to see him later in the year.

Tell Captain Carl we will see him on Pursuit’s maiden and don’t forget the Indian buffet.

Many thanks [emoji120]

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Can anyone onboard confirm if ALL cabins have new mattresses?

We are excited about our FIRST Azamara cruise, we are also in the Club World Suite! We are Celebrity Elite Plus, so we know our way around Celebrity but only know about Azamara from what we have read online. We will be on the 12 day Sea of Cortez in Feb. Any additional information you may have regarding a first time cruiser on Azamara would be appreciated!

- Will someone shore side call or email before the cruise to help with a couple requests?

- Are all of the Chef's Table in the same restaurant? How many typically are on a 12 day?

-Any useful information on the Suite?

-Will Azamara address the State Dept. Warnings for several of the ports?

Thank you in advance, the information we have gotten from this site has been very helpful.

Will someone shore side call or email before the cruise to help with a couple requests?

No there are no pre cruise calls, However, unless your requests are very complex, you will find they will address them once you meet your butler early afternoon

- Are all of the Chef's Table in the same restaurant? How many typically are on a 12 day?

They are all served in Prime C, there are four menus they try and run each one once

-Any useful information on the Suite?

You will also be invited to a wonderful dinner Best of the Best that only the top two suites are asked to. It is held in the Library and attended by senior officers. It has a unique menu.

You have access to the spa area on the front deck which gives an alternative to your wonderful balcony

-Will Azamara address the State Dept. Warnings for several of the ports?

They pay attention to guest safety s if it is not safe to go to a port, they won't go

Can anyone onboard confirm if ALL cabins have new mattresses?

Can’t say I’ve noticed any difference.

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Please say hi to Aldin from Mr Phil. I haven't seen him for a while. Always smiling. Have fun!

 

 

 

Phil

Will do!

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Enjoy your cruise, please say hi to Aldin from Carol & John Porter or one love might be better [emoji3] hope to see him later in the year.

Tell Captain Carl we will see him on Pursuit’s maiden and don’t forget the Indian buffet.

Many thanks [emoji120]

 

 

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Will do both if I get the opportunity.

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Will someone shore side call or email before the cruise to help with a couple requests?

 

No there are no pre cruise calls, However, unless your requests are very complex, you will find they will address them once you meet your butler early afternoon

 

- Are all of the Chef's Table in the same restaurant? How many typically are on a 12 day?

They are all served in Prime C, there are four menus they try and run each one once

 

-Any useful information on the Suite?

You will also be invited to a wonderful dinner Best of the Best that only the top two suites are asked to. It is held in the Library and attended by senior officers. It has a unique menu.

You have access to the spa area on the front deck which gives an alternative to your wonderful balcony

 

-Will Azamara address the State Dept. Warnings for several of the ports?

They pay attention to guest safety s if it is not safe to go to a port, they won't go

Thank you so much! We are looking forward to our first adventure on Azamara!

Please say hi to Aldin from Mr Phil. I haven't seen him for a while. Always smiling. Have fun!

 

 

 

Phil

Aldin says Hi back!

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Enjoy your cruise, please say hi to Aldin from Carol & John Porter or one love might be better [emoji3] hope to see him later in the year.

Tell Captain Carl we will see him on Pursuit’s maiden and don’t forget the Indian buffet.

Many thanks [emoji120]

 

 

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Aldin says Hi back. I haven’t had the chance to speak to Captain Carl yet.

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On a sadder note, our suite refrigerator contains Royal Club Tonic :eek:

We're onboard Quest and happy to report that everything is just as good as we remember from the Norwegian Fjords a year and a half ago. Have looked carefully for those reported signs of early wear on the new light-colored furnishings -- and can't find any.

 

Two dinners in MDR with excellent results. Late lunch this afternoon in The Living Room was great -- tasty small sandwiches and lovely scones with clotted cream and jam. Inclusive wines have been quite acceptable: two reds and two whites offered each day, and when I asked for yesterday's red at dinner they got me a bottle, no problem.

 

There were a lot of upgrade fairy reports on our roll call but we hadn't applied because we had booked a Club Continent suite -- so I called LCV and they offered Club Ocean for $1,000 or Club World for $1,500. I thought that's a lot of money, but the suites look wonderful -- but I thought those upgrade prices were pp. No! -- they were for both of us, and with the CW we got $300 OBC -- and that was pp! So the net cost was only $900 and this suite is so wonderful!

 

The only problem so far is figuring out how we're going to spend all our OBC!

Hi Host Jazzbeau,

Wishing you a wonderful time on Quest. Looking forward to your updates. BTW, we also greatly enjoyed the Living Room, and the delightful items offered !

Internet has been acceptably fast -- not as good as my FiOS service at home [what could be?] but way better than the internet in the Hilton's on the drive down to Miami.

Host Grandma Cruising -- and any others onboard -- please feel free to add your thoughts to this thread. I'm sure you will experience activities and parts of the ship that I don't, so we can all add to the mosaic together!

Tonight was the AzAmazing Evening -- and this was already the second example on this cruise of why we love Azamara.

I'll back up to the first thing: our cruise was scheduled to depart from Caldera, Costa Rica. The day before, Azamara sent an email to advise that due to high winds the ship would be in Puntarenas [6 miles north of Caldera, deeper into the bay and thus more protected]. They knew they couldn't reach everybody [DW got the email but I never did], so they arranged shuttle bus service from Caldera to Puntarenas. They also had to work with the Puntarenas tourism folks to staff the TI building for checkin, more buses to get us along the wharf to the ship, and the Costa Rican immigration authorities to process onboard Quest. A lot of extra expense for Azamara, but handled so well that it all went very smoothly – except that the immigration folks didn't finish their work until several hours past our 5 pm sailing. Luckily we were having a sea day so no heroics were needed to keep on schedule, but the Captain was very professional in the announcements – and very open about the details of the weather and logistics involved. All in all, a very impressive performance by Captain Carl and the entire team!

Now about tonight. The AzAmazing Evening was scheduled to be an outdoor folkloric performance in the oldest part of Panama City. The tenders had already operated all day for shore visits, and are scheduled to do so again tomorrow – and they would have to do a third shift in a very short window to get 600 guests [not everybody goes on the AA Evening, this was the Captain's number] to the port and back again at the end. They had also arranged a fleet of shuttle busses from the tender dock to the performance site, set up the catering operation for drinks and hors d'oeuvres, and engaged the folkloric performers. But we had thunderstorms off and on all day, and they realized that it wasn't likely to clear as forecasted – which would be at best uncomfortable and at worst dangerous.

So they decided at 1 pm to bring the event onboard. The dining room had to adjust their preparation from the few non-participants to the entire ship roster, the performers had to be squeezed into the tiny backstage area [they had huge costumes!] and rehearsed in a completely new venue [where they would have to do their show twice since the Cabaret only holds half the passengers], the busses and catering cancelled, and the entire crew had to reset their expectations for timing and duties. Captain Carl and CD Russ gave kudos to all the crew, but they never mentioned what must have been major additional expenses for Azamara. It was obvious that their only concern was to give their guests the delightful experience promised, with no thought to the bottom line.

In the event, dinner went off as if they expected all of us from the get-go, the performance was wonderful [maybe even better because at least some of us got to sit much closer than we would have been outside, and after a hard day of sightseeing the convenience of a short walk to the Cabaret was so much easier than the shuttle-bus-wait-repeat that it would have been]

To me, the measure of a cruise line is less about how they do when everything goes smoothly and much more about how they do when things go wrong. Azamara has proved twice already on this cruise that they do really well in both cases.

Aldin says Hi back. I haven’t had the chance to speak to Captain Carl yet.

 

 

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Thank you Host Grandma, hope you have as good a time on Quest as we did last September.

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Tonight was the AzAmazing Evening -- and this was already the second example on this cruise of why we love Azamara.

 

 

 

I'll back up to the first thing: our cruise was scheduled to depart from Caldera, Costa Rica. The day before, Azamara sent an email to advise that due to high winds the ship would be in Puntarenas [6 miles north of Caldera, deeper into the bay and thus more protected]. They knew they couldn't reach everybody [DW got the email but I never did], so they arranged shuttle bus service from Caldera to Puntarenas. They also had to work with the Puntarenas tourism folks to staff the TI building for checkin, more buses to get us along the wharf to the ship, and the Costa Rican immigration authorities to process onboard Quest. A lot of extra expense for Azamara, but handled so well that it all went very smoothly – except that the immigration folks didn't finish their work until several hours past our 5 pm sailing. Luckily we were having a sea day so no heroics were needed to keep on schedule, but the Captain was very professional in the announcements – and very open about the details of the weather and logistics involved. All in all, a very impressive performance by Captain Carl and the entire team!

 

 

 

Now about tonight. The AzAmazing Evening was scheduled to be an outdoor folkloric performance in the oldest part of Panama City. The tenders had already operated all day for shore visits, and are scheduled to do so again tomorrow – and they would have to do a third shift in a very short window to get 600 guests [not everybody goes on the AA Evening, this was the Captain's number] to the port and back again at the end. They had also arranged a fleet of shuttle busses from the tender dock to the performance site, set up the catering operation for drinks and hors d'oeuvres, and engaged the folkloric performers. But we had thunderstorms off and on all day, and they realized that it wasn't likely to clear as forecasted – which would be at best uncomfortable and at worst dangerous.

 

 

 

So they decided at 1 pm to bring the event onboard. The dining room had to adjust their preparation from the few non-participants to the entire ship roster, the performers had to be squeezed into the tiny backstage area [they had huge costumes!] and rehearsed in a completely new venue [where they would have to do their show twice since the Cabaret only holds half the passengers], the busses and catering cancelled, and the entire crew had to reset their expectations for timing and duties. Captain Carl and CD Russ gave kudos to all the crew, but they never mentioned what must have been major additional expenses for Azamara. It was obvious that their only concern was to give their guests the delightful experience promised, with no thought to the bottom line.

 

 

 

In the event, dinner went off as if they expected all of us from the get-go, the performance was wonderful [maybe even better because at least some of us got to sit much closer than we would have been outside, and after a hard day of sightseeing the convenience of a short walk to the Cabaret was so much easier than the shuttle-bus-wait-repeat that it would have been]

 

 

 

To me, the measure of a cruise line is less about how they do when everything goes smoothly and much more about how they do when things go wrong. Azamara has proved twice already on this cruise that they do really well in both cases.

It’s one of the reasons we return to Azamara, they persevere when others give up or take the easy option.

Enjoy your cruise [emoji3]

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Host Jazzbeau

You are doing a great job in describing it all and I totally agree with all your comments. The staff are going above and beyond and putting us and our comfort and safety first . Our first cruise with Capt Carl and I am sure many will look out to travel with him again on Pursuit. He is selling it very well!

Lynda

Can anyone onboard confirm if ALL cabins have new mattresses?

I checked our mattress last night. It is definitely new, but I haven’t felt any difference, still the same comfortable mattress as usual.

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