Azamara pricing

[Grandma Cruising]

You must be very picky - or maybe we’re easy eaters! We love the food in Discoveries - on our cruise in January there were some absolutely outstanding dishes. Lamb in particular was always very good. The food in Prime C is wonderful, especially of you’re a meat lover like my DH.

 

 

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[uktog]

You must be very picky - or maybe we’re easy eaters! We love the food in Discoveries - on our cruise in January there were some absolutely outstanding dishes. Lamb in particular was always very good. The food in Prime C is wonderful, especially of you’re a meat lover like my DH.

 

 

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I agree, I suspect Flatbush is very wedded to the other cruise line and doesn't want us to highlight Azamara's good points. That said I do not have a rosy glow I do know Azamaras less good points as well

[Flatbush Flyer]

You must be very picky - or maybe we’re easy eaters! We love the food in Discoveries - on our cruise in January there were some absolutely outstanding dishes. Lamb in particular was always very good. The food in Prime C is wonderful, especially of you’re a meat lover like my DH.

 

 

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Not picky- in fact, look forward to trying new dishes. What I can't stand is poor quality ingredients (e.g., less than the equivalent of US "prime" [or even "choice"] beef), erroneous interpretations of classic recipes (e.g., aragosta fra diavola, which oceania does perfectly) and short cuts (e.g., using packaged rather than daily fresh pasta).

Compounding this is our basis for comparison. Having lived in New York and San Francisco and often eating out or cooking complex dishes at home raises the bar for what we consider decent.

And then, there's "food safety." We've experience self-serve buffets on other lines and, while most passengers have common courtesy and good manners, it only takes a few slobs touching the food to elicit a "gross!" from me.

Finally, we tend to do longer cruises of more than three weeks. So, menu repetition is an issue as well.

As for Oceania: if I had to fault the line on anything related to food it would be a lack of some ethnic condiments, a somewhat mediocre list of mid-priced wines and the need to specify fresh citrus juices for premium cocktails.

BTW, last year we attended a presentation by the Azamara CEO at the local office of a major "cruise specialist" TA. When asked to compare Azamara to Oceania, his answer was that Azamara is about port time/special events while Oceania is about food.

 

 

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[TravelBugM]

Ditto - We really enjoy the food on AZ. And we are really good home cooks. We find there's no need to spend extra $$$ on the specialty restaurants as the included offerings are excellent.

[Flatbush Flyer]

I agree, I suspect Flatbush is very wedded to the other cruise line and doesn't want us to highlight Azamara's good points. That said I do not have a rosy glow I do know Azamaras less good points as well

 

No: Azamara is usually the only other cruise line we look at when trying to get to some very specific ports in an itinerary. However, the Azamara "net daily cost" has recently increased in very significant ways that severely impacts the value.

One of our "best friends" couples love Azamara but have started to look elsewhere.

BTW, Oceania's specialty restaurants are no extra cost.

 

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Edited March 7, 2018 by Flatbush Flyer

[Mrs Miggins]

Does anyone know what the position is on price drops where you have an onboard booking made in 2016 that has LCV discounts on it. There has been quite a price drop so I am now "behind" for my category of cabin before the discount is applied. I had the early booking OBC of $400 plus OBC for booking onboard. Would I lose both and my onboard discount if I asked for todays pricing - I am UK based and final payment is due in 10 days. Doing the maths its now about £800 different before discount so its getting close to being worth asking for a reprice

 

There is a lot about this on the BOGO thread a little further down the list. My understanding is you can make one change to a booking made onboard. However Bonnie posted some T & C's that appears to say that you would then lose all the OBC, I cannot believe that is right, and is certainly not what we were told last June when we booked onboard.

[mare s.]

Just came in at the end of this discussion. I have to second Grandma Cruising's assessment of food on the January Quest cruise we were both on. It was outstanding. I've cruised on Oceania and agree that the buffet is somewhat better than Azamara and I like that it is not self serve (although I had to wait a few times to get someone to serve me.) I also loved the grilled to order lobster tails and shrimp every night. I thought their Italian specialty restaurant excellent (and I love Aqualina.) That being said, we found the food in the Main Dining Room pretty bad (I couldn't eat their Jacques Pepin chicken one night...way over salted, and another night the fish did not taste fresh) and their pool grill dreadful (think undercooked chicken.) Maybe it was just a fluke on this particular voyage, but I'd give the edge for food to Azamara.

 

Back to the original thought on this thread...Azamara's pricing is getting out of reach. I regularly receive Oceania brochures and I have to say I'm seeing a lot of tempting, and affordable, itineraries. We have another Azamara cruise booked for next year (we were lucky and were able to book the circle Japan when it first was released and since then prices have shot up tremendously) but after that, we'll have to wait and see.

[nordski]

BTW, last year we attended a presentation by the Azamara CEO at the local office of a major "cruise specialist" TA. When asked to compare Azamara to Oceania, his answer was that Azamara is about port time/special events while Oceania is about food.

 

 

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Interesting. Does that comment suggest that Azamara needs to “fix” its food? Does Oceania need to “fix” its port time/special events.

 

I take it that this identifies areas of emphasis not something that needs to be “fixed”. And is exactly why we don’t cruise on Oceania.

 

But, to help us better understand your point, who was the chef on your last Azamara cruise?

 

 

 

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[Grandma Cruising]

I have locked this thread - later posts not really relevant to thread subject.

 

 

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