14 night-Best of Italy on 5/15 - Anyone booked?

[Ron T]

My wife and I have a deposit on the 5/15 Best of Italy aboard the Azamara Quest. We're still not 100% certain that we will finalize this cruise (money is due in a few weeks) as we are disappointed with the shore excursions being offered by Azamara. We've been to Italy twice before, aboard the Celebrity Millenium, and were hoping for unique shore excursions at these magnificent ports. We are finding that they are actually offering less shore excursions than on the bigger ships.

 

Would love to hear from any others who are booked on this voyage. We are very frequent cruisers (just got off the Oasis this past Sat.) but this will be our first Azamara cruise.

[What A Market]

Hi Ron

Check out the Roll Call for this trip. You will find an ever expanding group of people participating in all the requisite planning.

[Ron T]

Thanks for pointing me to the Roll Call. Being new, I was not aware of its existence. There's many great, informative posts there, just what I was looking for.

 

Again, thanks.

[shoesonfire]

Hi Ron, as Tom (What a Market) already mentioned we hope you and your wife will join the roll call and be a part of the Best of Italy cruise. You'll note that many of the people are already planning private tours or just doing ports on their own. We had hoped also that Azamara was going to come up with excursions that offered tours that offered a different and more personal itinerary, in particular, some night time tours in the overnight ports. In any event, we're really excited about the cruise. Hope to see you at the cruise critic gathering.

 

Frank & Jan

[WooKeef]

You all are getting on as I am getting off a back2back...I will try to leave the vessel intact:p:p

[emcee207]

The took this cruise in 2008 and I booked all private tours myself with information gathered from the Ports of Call thread. Check it out.

BTW, it is a fantastic cruise.

[Andy]

My wife and I have a deposit on the 5/15 Best of Italy aboard the Azamara Quest. We're still not 100% certain that we will finalize this cruise (money is due in a few weeks) as we are disappointed with the shore excursions being offered by Azamara. We've been to Italy twice before, aboard the Celebrity Millenium, and were hoping for unique shore excursions at these magnificent ports. We are finding that they are actually offering less shore excursions than on the bigger ships.

 

Would love to hear from any others who are booked on this voyage. We are very frequent cruisers (just got off the Oasis this past Sat.) but this will be our first Azamara cruise.

 

Hi Ron !

 

As Azamara has smaller ships, and less passengers than larger ships, you may not find the quantity of excursions available. I highly recommened visting your Roll Call. Here is the link : http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=943183 . I hope you will find some great excursion ideas there.

 

If we can be of any further assistance, please let us know. Enjoy your Cruise !

[MandNCruiser]

We were on this cruise last year and loved every minute of it. The shore excursion selection was pretty lean for us too, but we were able to see everything we wanted through private tours or self-guided exploration. We did take one shore excursion offered by Azamara out of Livorno (went to Volterra and Pisa) and had a great time.

 

We definitely felt that even though the shore excursion choices were limited we were vary capable of finding our own way around (even though we weren't certain it was going to work out in advance). If you have the time to do a little research before you go you should be just fine - just plan to be back at the ship 1-2 hours before it leaves so you have a little space in case you get held up somewhere. This trip is great - if you like Italy at all I'm sure you'll love it!

[Ron T]

Since we've really not had sufficient time to research private tours and since final payment is due in just a few days, we've decided to postpone this trip until same time next year. We realize that the 2011 schedule has not yet been published, so we rolled our deposit and onboard credit to the October 2010 sailing of this itinerary, and then will roll it over to a May 2011 sailing, when the schedule comes out.

 

We just love Italy, having been on two Celebrity sailings between Barcelona and Venice, and want to make sure that we do this one right, shore excursions included.

 

Thanks for everyone's tips and insight.