Islands and Tapas cruise on Journey - our story

[uktog]

Having enjoyed the reports of others, I am now going to attempt another trip blog with pictures. Please bear with me as sometimes the technology challenges me, but here goes.

 

As board readers will know, we have several Azamara cruises under our belts, our last cruise was on Celebrity in a Royal Suite having had to make a last minute switch when Journey got damaged. I posted on that cruise that whilst it was an enjoyable cruise, the food, service, standards and ambience did not match our memories of Azamara, even though the per diem costs we are high as the suite on Azamara was to cost.

 

Fast forward a few months and after some hectic work commitments we spotted an opportunity for one week Azamara Journey cruise in an ocean view cabin – we have never decided to cruise and booked within a month of sailing, sailed for as short a time as 7 days for many years and had a room smaller than a suite on Azamara or had no balcony on any cruise since 1997 so we were really experimenting whilst hoping our memories of Azamara were not overinflated.

 

Our cruise departed from Barcelona and included calls at Minorca (Mahon), Majorca (Alcudia), Gibraltar, which was to host our Azamazing Evening, Spain (Cadiz) and Portugal (Lisbon which included an overnight stop).

 

We flew to Barcelona two nights before the cruise and stayed at the Crowne Plaza Fira which was an excellent hotel, a little away from the Centre but easily accessible and with one of the best Club Lounges we have experienced serving all day without restriction. The hotel is located a two minute walk from the Barcelona Magic Fountains of Montjuic which have the most spectacular displays Thursday-Sunday evenings.

 

 

 

 

We had been to Barcelona before and on each trip, we had watched La Sagrada Famillia being built but this was our first trip when we could go inside. We prebooked tickets online (a must, there are rarely opportunities to get tickets on the day and if there are they are only after a long wait in line http://www.sagradafamilia.cat/sf-eng ). We had hoped to go up the Nativity Towers as well but it was so wet they cancelled Tower access for the day and automatically refunded the Towers access cost to the card we used for booking.

We were absolutely blown away by what we found and whilst we originally planned to be about two hours including the towers access we ended up being there over three hours and that was just the main parts of the Cathedral. (I have over 40 pictures so it was hard to chose one). And when we came out the sun was shining – the sun was to stay with us for the rest of our cruise, temperatures were idea for us, mid to high 70s.

 

 

Our trip to the port was very straight forward (10 minutes by taxi) and we were immediately delighted to see how many old friends in the crew were still there even in the check in area. We had no priority for boarding but actually no one needed it and from hotel to a drink on the back bar took us under 30 minutes – now that is some speed. For those wondering about a cruise involving Barcelona on Azamara, this is a destination where Azamara do deliver their promise about docking as close as they can to down town. Here you can see the view from the back bar to the foot of La Ramblas a less that 3 minute walk

 

 

Rooms were ready well below 1330 and we were surprised how spacious we found our new home. Yes, the shower was small but it was not a problem, the storage on the shelves and inside the mirror was ingenious and there is more hanging space and drawer room than in a Celebrity Aquaclass room.

 

The room was kept immaculate all week by Husein and Andre and we could detect no issues re wear and tear and the bed was so comfortable. Our room was on Deck 4 and we soon discovered the advantage of this location – one floor away from most of the action and often on the same deck as the gangway in port.

 

Will talk about the ports of call in the next post, but jump forward to almost the end of the cruise and we have to say the food on board was exceptional, there was never a problem with a dish and the seasoning was exactly to our tastes. We do not remember some of the dishes being on menus before, maybe they were on nights we had been at Speciality Restaurants but our biggest problem was choosing between items, not choosing an item!

 

We enjoyed the lunch buffets and also as ever had to have a burger lunch one day. This trip, we did not use room service at all and out of choice substituted a breakfast in Windows for a breakfast enjoying the mini pastries and sausage rolls in Mosaic on a few days. We did not visit the Speciality Restaurants, in seven nights with an Azamazing Evening, White Nights and one other special dinner elsewhere we did not have time to fit a Speciality in and we were loving the food and service in the main dining room so much.

 

We always managed to get a table for two as we wanted without any wait and although the tables are close together we did not find this an issue – if you are concerned about this tell the Maitre D at the door, they will try and put you on a window seat.

 

The included wines were all to our tastes, there were issues with the supply of rose wine but this was solved by the bringing on board of a very nice Portuguese Rose.

 

The only thing I still cannot enjoy is the coffee served in Windows and the Main Dining Room but in the morning we take a “to go” from Mosaic up to breakfast and in the evening we tend to leave the dining room and have our post coffee in Mosaic. DH says the coffee elsewhere has improved, maybe it is now psychological with me but I do not enjoy it.

 

Ports of call next .......

[uktog]

A port where again we docked right beside the stairs up to town and its lovely churches, walls and narrow streets. If you did not fancy the steps, a little train came past from time to time. You can also walk slowly up the slope rather than tackle the steps.

 

 

 

The sail into Mahon is beautiful and the area surrounding the berth is very pretty

 

 

 

One little gem to the right of the berth area is the Minorca Gin factory Xoriguer Gin is unique to Minorca. It is in the orange roofed buildings

 

 

 

Here there is a replica of the production processes – they no longer produce harbour side – but you can taste as many as you like, no charge. This is neat gin and we adored all the flavours – we have a bottle of chocolate flavoured gin home with us which will be a great dessert drink and I can see some chocolate gin strawberries appearing on our menus soon.

Once at the top of the steps (maybe refreshed by the Gin) a delightful sight is the local fish market

 

 

One thing about Mahon, it is not a town targeting tourists and that is its absolute charm. We did not pass a “souvenir shop” but we loved seeing all the local food shops and bakeries and the residents going about their daily work. It does however have some lovely old walls and Portes (Gates) to explore. An easily walk aroundable town and the good news, it is downhill on the way home

 

[uktog]

Alcudia is a new stop for cruiselines. We were in fact only the second cruise ship to call there. Palma is still accessible from there by bus or excursion if you want but many people really enjoyed the day around Alcudia. The weather was cloudier in the morning, the afternoon brightened up. If I had looked at the forecast we would not have gone out until later in the day and had a beach day as this wonderful beach is ten mins walk from the ship

.

 

 

 

Do not be put off by Alcudia Port area souvenir tat areas get into the old town or onto the beach. It is about a 10 minute walk on level surface (with lots of resting benches) to the bus stop that will take you into the old town or to Palma which is about 90 minutes away

 

 

 

The port people do have a little bit of work to do – there is a beautiful taxi rank but not one taxi turned up. I am sure they will get the message soon!

 

 

It was so lovely when we came back to the port to have locals serving you cakes on the pier and then we were entertained to some lovely local folk dancing for half an hour before sail away.

[uktog]

There is so much about Gibraltar that we do not like having been here several times before – cheap duty free shops, the usual shops from our high streets etc etc. Anyway, initially the plan had been to stay onboard and not go ashore until the Azamazing evening. However, having had an at sea day DH was having itchy feet so we agreed we would have a trip ashore in the day.

 

In the terminal, we met up with the local taxi drivers (all controlled by the Gibraltar Taxi Association http://www.gibtaxi.com/ENG/rocktourENG.html and work on standard non negotiable prices) who do a set rock tour £22 per person in minivans. The next driver was a cheeky Cockney chappie and so having persuaded DH he could go in a van driven by a QPR supporter we waited for the van to fill but then we two set out with 7 others (hmm the van was an 8 seater) but we actually really enjoyed the trip. Alfred the driver really knew the Rock and with the smaller van he could get to areas not accessible by shore excursions where we me this other cheeky chappie keeping an eye on Journey

 

 

 

More importantly Alfred knew where this Ape Mum was with her three day old baby – evidently Baby Apes are black haired for the first few weeks of their lives

 

 

The Azamazing Evening was special – this was the kind of event you could not set up on your own. We had seen the caves in the day and had seen the staging and realised this could be a good night – oh boy it was.

 

 

 

First Azamara coped with the logistical challenge of getting small buses up narrow roads and, when we arrived, there was a little nippy ape hassling people as they got off the bus – and in Gib you are not allowed to chase off or harm apes.

 

The tiered seating was great –no problems seats for everyone and great sightlines. The band were outstanding and the bandmaster (British Military seconded) had a great sense of humour and a brilliant way with a multinational audience.

 

 

 

Lighting added to the moods and it allowed the photographers to play

 

The concert was in two parts, with drinks and rather good canapés served in the interval.

 

 

They asked those in the front areas to move down into an open section those higher up in the seating areas had waiter runners bringing trays of wine, soft drinks and canapés up to them. It worked surprisingly well and we certainly enjoyed what we had. After all we had been told there was a buffet pre departure in both Windows and Discoveries and on return to the ship there was a buffet in Windows and a very very naughty dessert buffet in Looking Glass (by the way Chef Frederico either my home scales are lying or I really do not like you ...)

 

The music in the concert was fantastic with both brass band and the pipes and drums and a really lovely programme – and the logistics to get us all home worked fine as well

 

And a lovely touch when we got back to the room – a nice little gift from the Gibraltar Tourist Authority – all in all now have a different view of Gibraltar than the jaded one from previous trips, a great day was had.

[uktog]

Cadiz was the first port where we were using a Land Discoveries outing.

 

Our reasons were this was our fourth time in Cadiz, we have done the hop on hop off bus twice (a great way to see the town) and wandered around side streets once (another great idea) but we thought this time we have to do Seville, however did not want to be over organised. We discovered Azamara were offering a Seville on your own excursion – basically the ticket covered the 90 min transportation during which time the guide signposted the sights to see.

 

When we came out to join the excursion, we saw the tariff of taxi fares for private round trips to Seville and you would have needed 4 persons in the taxi to cut the Azamara cost. Our bus was only half full so we could all spread out and so this trip was good value IMHO. We had 4.5 hours on our own in Seville

Seville is beautiful, I think we needed 4.5 days. It was a Sunday so we were only able to spend a short time in the Cathedral

 

 

 

We moved on to Real Acazar – certainly one the most spectacular buildings we have seen in Europe... and then there are also the gardens

 

 

I would suggest pre booking your entry online, http://www.alcazarsevilla.org we were a little badly organised in this respect so wasted about 20 mins in line but this was soon forgotten about when we saw this

 

 

And this

 

 

This is another place I have so many pictures of

 

We wandered up a side street after our walk around Real Acazar – a place that we have to go back to and finish – and found by chance a great Tapas bar http://www.santander15.com/ where no one else spoke English but boy was that a lovely lunch, great bottle of wine....................and I had planned to photo the lovely sunflowers covering the fields between Cadiz and Sevile which is sunflower oil production company but I regret I was asleep for most of it....

 

I think this excursion is the kind I really like – a lot of freedom once we get somewhere including freedom to choose when/where/if we eat but the security of transport there and back. As more and more of us can download apps of walking tours of places, this is the way to go Azamara.

[uktog]

It was a beautiful sail into Lisbon – we were due to arrive after 1300 but Captain Johannes (make sure your Port sock is on your left foot...... your little brother will help you....) burned his fuel bonus as he put it and we docked around 1200 so people could start exploring much earlier.

As ever we were docked right down town

 

 

Which also gave a further opportunity for great evening photos.

 

 

Here we had also opted for a Land Discoveries trip. We had read much about Medieval Obidos and wanted to visit without too much hassle. The trip appealed again it said we had time on our own and not a short shopping opportunity and this proved to be the case. It was a larger coach although not full there was probably nearly 30 on board – oh no. However, two guides came on and with multi channel audio communicators they split the bus in two and we were in two nice sized groups and it was very easy to wander and still hear the guides.

 

 

Obidos is a beautiful natural Spanish village where everything is so real

 

 

And although there are souvenir shops, they were good quality shops interspersed with lot of local character and characters outside

 

 

 

The village has lovely walls and DH kindly climbed up one for some pictures of the village.- climbing up big steps is not for me and the top would not be good for my fear of heights but I do like the pictures he got

 

 

I would certainly recommend this four hour trip to anyone on Azamara, I suspect on some other lines we might have had one guide for all of us on a full bus, but it was as good as a private trip in my view.

[uktog]

Everyone on Azamara do all they can to make your cruise fantastic. It is the little touches, the hellos, the smiles, the remembering the drinks orders from one night to the next, there are so many examples. The officers are visible, but not in your face and the humour between Captain Johannes and Eric De Gray is so funny.

 

Eric, as cruise director is high energy and so much fun

 

 

But how on earth does he walk in these heels – I would find them murder!

 

 

It was lovely on the (somewhat chilly) White Night the last night that we could say farewell to all the crew on deck.

 

 

Everyone of them deserved our thanks – even these naughty guys who have made my scales so faulty

 

 

The attention to detail is as good as ever and with people like Heike and Jonathan keeping an eye on the hotel operations things are as promising as ever.

 

We honestly did not notice any signs of cut backs, so if they have happened, they have been subtle and in areas that do not concern us. Yes, as with our previous cruise, there are less onboard acts (one great guitarist Pablo and one good new piano entertainer Imani) but this is a destination cruise line so you can understand why there is no focus on poolside entertainment on post intensive cruises. It is nice that the Journey orchestra has not been downsized, they are multi talented and support the guest acts and show events so well.

 

On this cruise, the entertainment was two acts – one a Comedy hypnotist David Knight who did not really hit the spot for us, but then its all personal taste, the second was Brooks Aehron the pianist who is much more what we like. We have seen Brooks several times on large ships but felt he really is better on Azamara – the intimacy of the Cabaret Lounge really suits his show and I do hope Azamara can book him regularly as he is so talented and works his audience so well.

 

Le Club Voyage held two events onboard, a drinks reception for all members and a breakfast for all Explorers and above the morning we sailed into Lisbon in Prime C which was a very nice event. I really do think though they are struggling with this recognition programme – don’t get me wrong, the laundry and internet perks are really appreciated, but it seems that once you have reached the second membership level of five they do not have any more options for perks. On a seven night cruise, there is no option to run any other events so their options are further limited.

 

You do have some discount options in the onboard stores, but the value spend required is $1000+ in stores that have rather poor stock lines and have as its a port intensive cruise, very little opening hours. We were going to buy a jewellery set only to find they had broken up the sets in both the colour combinations we would have considered to sell to previous guests and had not replaced the missing parts so they lost a $500 sale there.

 

I think Azamara really do need to think what are the purposes of the two onboard stores, particularly given the limitations on opening times on port intensive cruises.

[travelinjudy]

Hi!

I am thoroughly enjoying every word of your blog on this trip. It makes me feel as though I was there, too. Thanks for taking the time to do this.:)

Regards, Judy

[Texed]

Wow! Excellent. Thanks for posting. :)

[uktog]

Journey was on a really tight turnaround leaving again at 1600 so they could not offer a late disembarkation option which we had originally planned to take.

 

We were not asked when we wanted to disembark but we found the cruiseline had relied on the information we had provided during our online checkin. They also made it very simple, as independent travellers although there were luggage labels and suggested timeslots the letter also said for independent guests, we could leave at any time from 0715-0915 without having to change our labels. The labels were being used just to organise the luggage into smaller groups, making finding the cases easy.

 

 

There were no customs or immigration processes to go through and taxis were readily available, even though unfortunately we got the rip off merchant so thats 10 euro we will not see again.

 

 

Having left our luggage at the Sofitel (a very good central Lisbon hotel) we decided to go on the hop on hop off bus, but this time to take the trip out to Estoril and beyond. The hop on hop off is 25 euro each but the ticket lasts 48 hours and covers 4 lines. If you take the yellow out of town line you have to allow 3-4 hours but it is a great way to see beyond Lisbon and you would still have time on to do one of the in town lines as well on Day One – if you have two days these are great value.

 

The journey to Estoril and on out to Cascais is beautiful if a little windy and wild

 

 

 

 

 

If we had had more time we would have loved to explore the town squares even if the mosaic makes you dizzy!

 

 

 

Or even gone onto one of the beaches

 

 

Estoril is also reachable more quickly by local train which leaves just near the port if you want an alternative day out

 

So our seven night adventure came to an end. We enjoyed the r and r opportunity we had had and we were surprised how much we enjoyed our smaller room, and a cruise very unplanned for us. We believe the crew are working so hard to maintain standards, yes some small changes were seen (OK I’ll give an example, the cup cakes in Mosaic are a lot smaller) but not one of these changes adversely impacted on our holiday.

 

We were struck by the number of first time guests we met, typically Oceana, Crystal, P and O and Regent guests who indicated they were surprised they had not discovered Azamara sooner and were so glad they now had. Everyone of this group we spoke to had either booked another cruise onboard, purchased a future cruise certificate or had identified the cruise they wanted to book next on Azamara in preference to other lines. There will always be some new to Azamara who say no it is not for us, but this “conversion rate” was heartening and I will use this as my evidence that Azamara is getting it right as others may decide I am biased given my number of previous cruises on Azamara!!

 

For us, the destinations each day matter which is why our posts here have concentrated on the ports. We have all the Pursuits dailies and other pictures of life on board so happy to answer any specific questions on anything onboard or ashore!

 

Thank you for reading

[Jem 12]

Thanks for a very enjoyable read, makes me wish I had an Azamara cruise in the pipeline!!!!!

 

Jean

[themoon]

Thanks for sharing, you made me feel like I was right back on board :).

[HudandPug]

Thank you :)

[dln929]

Thank you for writing up this report! I am eating it up. With the exception of Alcudia, we are sailing to all the same ports this September on the Journey. Your AzAmazing Evening is what ours will be so I found those photos and your description particularly wonderful. I am so excited for September, thanks to you.

[Spursgirl]

Great report Ann,

 

Thought this was a lovely itinerary and completely agree about the sail in to Mahon. It is stunning.

[English Tim]

Thanks for taking the time and trouble to produce this excellent work.

 

Presumably, judging by your comments, most cruises you book a suite. How does the value of an OV compare with a suite and how do you rate Celebrity rooms, as opposed to Azamara?

[starfruitvj]

Great review. I was in room 4035 on the Journey in May, with Husein and Andre taking great care of our room too. Glad you enjoyed yourself!

[oddjob16]

Great post, Ann. See you in Venice in three weeks. New Captain on board.:)

[nordski]

Great review and wonderful information.

 

Thanks for the time and effort in creating such useful posts on this forum.

[KirkNC]

Thanks for the report!

[excitedofharpenden]

Good stuff Ann. Thanks for taking the time to write and post pictures too. The AzAmazing evening looked wonderful.

 

Phil

[tgg]

Hi Ann, So glad to hear that you got to the Alcazar. It was the highlight of our cruise that went up the river and docked in Seville. Your report brings back some great memories. Thanks.

 

Toni

[Andy]

Thanks for the great trip report Ann. I enjoyed your insights, and the beautiful photos. Welcome Home !

[munch1]

Great review. Thanks for posting. Looking forward to our next "Journey" from Rio to Biscayne.

Sharon

[ljk76]

Great review and wonderful information.

 

Thanks for the time and effort in creating such useful posts on this forum.

 

Ditto! Great information and wonderful photos! Brought back great memories made in Lisbon, Seville, Barcelona...docked in great spots by Captain Johannes. In a few weeks we will be joining the Quest in Venice, so this has our anticipation level even higher. It was also great to hear you found a standard size cabin perfectly fine. Our previous Azamara cruises were in CC suites, but we booked with the double upgrade offer which just made more financial sense, especially for a 7 day cruise.

 

Thanks, and I feel like I've seen you post on that board, so perhaps we will have the opportunity to meet you in the Adriatic!