Review of Azamara Journey Adriatic Wonders cruise October 6, 2022

[Gardendog]

Great review, meals and all! Great meeting you ad DW on this cruise.thanks for posting.

[voyager1964]

Thank you very much for the very thorough yet not overwhelmed with photos review.

May I ask you a question? Why did not you use room service for breakfast in the CW suite?

Edited January 4, 2023 by voyager1964
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[Host Jazzbeau]

On 1/3/2023 at 8:55 PM, voyager1964 said:

Thank you very much for the very thorough yet not overwhelmed with photos review.

May I ask you a question? Why did not you use room service for breakfast in the CW suite?

We have in the past, and it worked well.  [Even though we order in two shifts:  DW gets up early; I sleep in until the last minute.  The Butler gets used to it...]  I'm not sure why we didn't think of it on this trip!

 

But – I found that the food in Aqualina is really elevated above the MDR, and I'm not sure that room service can deliver from Aqualina at breakfast.  [I'm sure someone will answer this question!]

[ak1004]

@Host Jazzbeauthank you for the outstanding review!!

 

We are considering cruising in this region, probably in 2024 or 2025. May I ask why did you choose Azamara for this specific cruise? We sailed with Azamara once, and enjoyed it very much, but the cabins were really small compared to Oceania newer ships, so I would probably go with the lowest suite if sailing Azamara again. Oceania has similar itineraries, and when comparing O standard cabins with Azamara lowest level suites, Oceania is significantly cheaper. Was the itinerary the main factor for selecting Azamara?

[Host Jazzbeau]

5 hours ago, ak1004 said:

@Host Jazzbeauthank you for the outstanding review!!

 

We are considering cruising in this region, probably in 2024 or 2025. May I ask why did you choose Azamara for this specific cruise? We sailed with Azamara once, and enjoyed it very much, but the cabins were really small compared to Oceania newer ships, so I would probably go with the lowest suite if sailing Azamara again. Oceania has similar itineraries, and when comparing O standard cabins with Azamara lowest level suites, Oceania is significantly cheaper. Was the itinerary the main factor for selecting Azamara?

Itinerary is always the main factor in choosing our cruises, but the choices are filtered by the small number of cruise lines we follow.  Azamara is one of the top choices for us, because once you decide to book only CC or CW suites all the issues about cabin size go away, and we like everything else about Azamara.

 

Oceania has nice ships and great food, but they don't do destination-intensive itineraries – maybe as they build their new A-class ships they will need to emulate Azamara more to fill their R-class.  [Several cruise lines use their older, and therefore smaller, ships for more interesting itineraries.]  We can hope!

[ak1004]

3 hours ago, Host Jazzbeau said:

Itinerary is always the main factor in choosing our cruises, but the choices are filtered by the small number of cruise lines we follow.  Azamara is one of the top choices for us, because once you decide to book only CC or CW suites all the issues about cabin size go away, and we like everything else about Azamara.

 

Oceania has nice ships and great food, but they don't do destination-intensive itineraries – maybe as they build their new A-class ships they will need to emulate Azamara more to fill their R-class.  [Several cruise lines use their older, and therefore smaller, ships for more interesting itineraries.]  We can hope!

 

Thank you, very helpful. The slogan is "Oceania is about food, Azamara is about destinations"?

 

That said, I did a quick search and Oceania does have a few very intensive itineraries in this region. For example:

 

https://www.oceaniacruises.com/mediterranean-cruises/venice-to-athens-SIR231002/

https://www.oceaniacruises.com/greek-isles-cruises/venice-to-athens-VIS230520/

https://www.oceaniacruises.com/greek-isles-cruises/athens-to-venice-RVA241015/

 

But you probably wanted some of those Croatian ports?

[Host Jazzbeau]

Those Oceania itineraries are better than most on Oceania, but not 'country-intensive' itineraries like Azamara is famous for.  And yes, we wanted Croatia-intensive.  [The Greek part grew when Venice was eliminated and Piraeus said we had to wait an extra day for a berth.]

 

PS – I'm now looking at this itinerary for a future Adriatic follow-up:

https://www.noble-caledonia.co.uk/tour/2949/crossroads-of-empires/?search_url_id=44

Only 50 passengers on this ship, and the few duplicate ports still have other things we haven't seen.  

 

And I'd love a cruise that goes from Venice down the east coast of Italy with intensive coverage of Abruzzo, Puglia and Calabria.

[Grandma Gilly]

Thank you for a great review. One thing I’d not heard about before was suite breakfast in Aqualina. Is this only for the top suites or does it include Club Continent suites?

[Riocca]

4 minutes ago, Grandma Gilly said:

Thank you for a great review. One thing I’d not heard about before was suite breakfast in Aqualina. Is this only for the top suites or does it include Club Continent suites?

It’s for all the suites Club Continent included, has been very popular on the cruises we’ve been on.

[kimberlydrzymala]

Question about booking specialty restaurants as we are new to Azamara. We are also staying in the CW Owner’s Suite so we will have free access to the specialty restaurants but since the menu does not change we would like to be able to book them after we can see what other things are available that day. I understand that the Chef’s Tables need to be booked quickly after boarding but are the specialty restaurants flexible about booking? 

[Grandma Cruising]

57 minutes ago, kimberlydrzymala said:

Question about booking specialty restaurants as we are new to Azamara. We are also staying in the CW Owner’s Suite so we will have free access to the specialty restaurants but since the menu does not change we would like to be able to book them after we can see what other things are available that day. I understand that the Chef’s Tables need to be booked quickly after boarding but are the specialty restaurants flexible about booking? 

Not really, they get booked up pretty quickly.

[kimberlydrzymala]

33 minutes ago, Grandma Cruising said:

Not really, they get booked up pretty quickly.

Thanks for confirming - I was sort of afraid that is the case. I guess we will just book on day one and work around it. 

 

[Mackdogmolly]

12 minutes ago, kimberlydrzymala said:

Thanks for confirming - I was sort of afraid that is the case. I guess we will just book on day one and work around it. 

 

Depending on the ship you are on, the main dining room (Discoveries) menu may be available for the entire cruise on your tv. I know it is on the Quest 

[Host Jazzbeau]

The Chef's Table is initially only offered once for each menu, and if you go on the wait list you don't even know what day it will be.  On our recent cruise they decided to move White Night because of the weather, which required switching nights with a Chef's Table at the last minute! You just have to figure the Chef's Table is so good that it's worth giving up whatever is on offer in Discoveries.  [Your Butler can usually get you in to Prime C or Aqualina any day you want when Discoveries doesn't suit.]  

[curmudgeon98]

Really enjoyed reading this well documented report.  We were in the region in May-June of last year.  Two weeks on the Onward from Ravenna, followed by 12 days on land in Croatia/Slovenia.  We didn't hit as many Adriatic ports on the ship, as our ship itinerary was more Greece oriented.  

 

I'll throw in a few comments from the peanut gallery on some of the locations we saw from a different perspective.  

 

Ravenna - we would have liked to have seen Ravenna before the cruise, but we had last-minute notification of the shift of departure port from Venice to Ravenna, so we stuck with our pre-cruise time in Venice (which we always enjoy)

 

Koper/Slovenia - We had several days touring Slovenia by car, so a somewhat different perspective.  Lake Bled is quite scenic, but I'm not sure I would have considered it worth the long bus ride.  Postojna Caves would be a significantly closer alternative (though Jazzbeau was avoiding cave options) - it has an electric tram to take you deep into the cave system, though plenty of walking once you are in.  There's a fairly standard style of kremsnita (creme cake) in Slovenia which is pretty good, but we had some homemade in a little gostlina (gasthause) which was even better.

 

Pula/Istria - Truffle territory.  We found some amazingly good food in obscure locations.  The local prsut (dry cured ham similar to prosciutto) can be quite good as well.

 

Zadar/Krka falls - A nice location.  Not massive falls, but quite scenic.  If you have the chance to enter the park via the boat trip from Skradin, that would be a nice bonus.  Similarly, if you have lots of time, there are scenic sections reachable by boat trip on the upriver side of the falls as well.  

 

Kotor - We just spent our day in the old town.  Cats must have a very strong union there; they seemed to run the place.

 

 

 

[AJCM]

16 hours ago, kimberlydrzymala said:

Thanks for confirming - I was sort of afraid that is the case. I guess we will just book on day one and work around it. 

 

I’d think if you’re in a club owner suite, you’ll be accommodated in either specialty restaurant on any day, if you wish. You might not get your preferred time but I expect they make the effort to look after owner suite guests. Just ask your butler on the day or the night before.

 

As I don’t really know if that is the case, you might consider booking multiple nights as soon as you board, because many experienced guests will book either the 3 night package or suite benefit on boarding. Then, if you prefer to dine elsewhere on any given nights,  you just need to contact the specialty number on the morning (and your butler will do that for you if you ask). 

 

When booking, they’ll be able to tell you the dates for white night and Azamazing. The seatings are 6.30 and 8.00. If you’d like a meal not on the menu, they’ll likely prepare that for you if they have at least 24hours notice.

[berkshireboy]

3 hours ago, AJCM said:

I’d think if you’re in a club owner suite, you’ll be accommodated in either specialty restaurant on any day, if you wish. You might not get your preferred time but I expect they make the effort to look after owner suite guests. Just ask your butler on the day or the night before.

 

As I don’t really know if that is the case, you might consider booking multiple nights as soon as you board, because many experienced guests will book either the 3 night package or suite benefit on boarding. Then, if you prefer to dine elsewhere on any given nights,  you just need to contact the specialty number on the morning (and your butler will do that for you if you ask). 

 

When booking, they’ll be able to tell you the dates for white night and Azamazing. The seatings are 6.30 and 8.00. If you’d like a meal not on the menu, they’ll likely prepare that for you if they have at least 24hours notice.

This is not always the case!  We were in an owners suite on Persuit's 7 Night Croatia Intensive cruise from 10 to 17 October last year. On boarding we booked up the speciality restaurants for 5 of the 7 nights, leaving 2 nights without a booking - we needed to sort out shore excursions for those two nights.  Next day when we tried to book the outstanding two nights, having sorted out our shore excursions, we were able to get into Prime C [although not at our first choice of time] on one night but the second night was already fully booked in both Prime C and Aqualina with long waiting lists for both venues and we didn't get a slot.

In the event, that particular night there was a special event on at the Sunset Verandah [I think that it was the Discoverer Plus  but can't remember for sure] which finished at 6pm - just as Windows opened for its Indian night so we just moved inside to the buffet which was  very enjoyable.

If the cruise is full and a lot of people have booked the speciality restaurants then even your butler will not be able to get you in.

[Mackdogmolly]

On the other hand, I have a concern with people booking up the specialties every night “on spec”, only to cancel later, leaving no spots open for others, just because they can.

[uktog]

3 hours ago, Mackdogmolly said:

On the other hand, I have a concern with people booking up the specialties every night “on spec”, only to cancel later, leaving no spots open for others, just because they can.

Absolutely - and worse still some do it and then do not turn up at all  rather than late cancel or turn up 2 hours after their reserved time and then proceed to order items from other restaurants.  I do not know how the maitre d did not take a swing at the lady!