Azamara vs Celebrity experience?

[KC Cruiser 54]

Wife and I are long time Elite+ Celebrity cruisers. Always wanted to try Azamara when it was part of the RCCL family, but never got around to it. We're now considering 15 day Baltic cruise on Journey, but hoping to get a little input on the relative experience of Azamara vs Celebrity. On Celebrity we typically would book a Skysuite, and on Azamara Journey, thinking of the Club Continent Suite. Has the Azamara experience declined at all since being sold off from RCCL? Thanks in advance for any input!

[ECCruise]

32 sailings on Celebrity, 20 on Azamara. The experience is night and day, for us, vs Celebrity. But that depends solely on what experiences are important to you. 

Edited February 16 by ECCruise

[KC Cruiser 54]

17 minutes ago, ECCruise said:

32 sailings on Celebrity, 20 on Azamara. The experience is night and day, for us, vs Celebrity. But that depends solely on what experiences are important to you. 

Sorry to have to ask, but are you saying that the Azamara experience is superior? Have you sailed Azamara recently, as I've read some reviews that indicate that the experience has declined since RCCL sold them and made Silversea their premium brand.

 

Also on Azamara is there a particular cabin category you've preferred?

 

Thanks so much. 

 

[ECCruise]

18 minutes ago, KC Cruiser 54 said:

Sorry to have to ask, but are you saying that the Azamara experience is superior? Have you sailed Azamara recently, as I've read some reviews that indicate that the experience has declined since RCCL sold them and made Silversea their premium brand.

 

Also on Azamara is there a particular cabin category you've preferred?

 

Thanks so much. 

 

Yes, for us. Azamara fits our preferences much better. We no longer sail Celebrity

 

5 Azamara sailings in the last 18 months (80 days+/-), 2 sailings in next month. 

 

No cruise line is immune from cost cutting and changes, and Azamara is no exception. 

 

We've sailed from Club Continent to Club World on Azamara, but frankly, insane suite prices on all lines (except maybe HAL) leave us cold. Verandas work just fine for us now, even on 30-40 day sailings. 

[woodlander1]

We have just disembarked after 42 days in a verandah cabin deck 6 on the first 3 legs of the world cruise.   It was our first Azamara cruise for nearly 7 years so we were a little apprehensive that standards would have dropped.  We can happily say that all was really good & Azamara fits the bill perfectly for us still.  Staff excellent as always, food offerings good, for us Prime C had the edge over Aqualina but both great.  Some super entertainment as well.  Yes the bathrooms are on the small side but how long do you spend in there - worked fine for us.

No hesitation in going again which we are next year!

[Dr H]

EEC has said it very well. We started on Azamara in 2010. We've had 2 cruises on Celebrity in the past few years - Alaska and Sydney to New Zealand intensive. Reason? We love Azamara, and I had never, ever heard a bad word about Celebrity from cruisers who had done both and were sailing with us on Azamara. I can't say it's day and night, but as I look back on it, yes, it is day and night. (NB: we just booked a Mumbai to Singapore via Sri Lanka/Thailand/Malaysia this December on Celeb.) Azamara is luxury from the moment you step aboard until you leave. You are treated that way if you are in an inside, guaranteed stateroom or the owners suite. The food is excellent throughout, and is hot. You are known by name almost from day 1. That said, there is NO nickle and diming you for a glass of water, a glass of wine, a cup of coffee in the overpriced specialty restaurants. The ships are small, intimate, and QUIET! Book a suite on Deck 8, you won't hear a band blasting music from Deck 5. (In our case, music on D3, Headache on D11). If you are eating in the MDR and forget something in your stateroom, you can leave, and return to your table in about 2 minutes. You won't experience heart failure hiking to the other end of the ship. The list goes on. As I said, we are sailing on Celebrity, noise, walking etc in December, Mumbai to Singapore. We had almost the same itinerary on Azamara a year ago, Dubai to Singapore. That would have run us about $9000 inside cabin, but we were able to knock off 6 nights because of a jump in status, plus onboard boarding, plus travel agent rebates. It was still expensive. Celebrity is hitting us up for $1000/head in December. I can swallow my pride and buy a coke or cup of coffee if I want, even with our status. Your interest in the suites - my line is if you've got the money, the mortgage is paid, the kids are off the payroll and you don't need a new car next month, spend it. After 10 years, we've discovered that our sweet spot for port intensive cruises is low category ocean view (never obstructed ocean view). Expensive cruise with an itinerary we would love but can't really afford - inside. Transatlantic with plenty of free time to use the veranda - veranda. Suites- when offered, or minimal price increase to upgrade. Make your own decisions for your own reasons. And ask yourselves, just what is it about Celebrity that  makes it special to you? You may prefer it in the end, but Azamara is a joy to travel with. We are counting down the days to our B2B March 15 cruise with Azamara.

[hamrag]

6 hours ago, Dr H said:

......Azamara is luxury from the moment you step aboard until you leave. You are treated that way if you are in an inside, guaranteed stateroom or the owners suite. The food is excellent throughout, and is hot. You are known by name almost from day 1....

 

Respectfully, based on our 4 Az cruises - 2 pre and 2 post Covid - that does not reflect our experience! Firstly, Az is not a luxury line, nor does it claim to be. It sits in the premium category between mass and luxury lines and, in our experience, achieves that most of the time (across about 80% of the cruise experience).

 

We have not, on any 4 of our cruises found the culinary experience excellent throughout. MDR can be a hit or a miss, varying between good enough and very good. Food temperatures have varied between warmish and hot enough. We find the specialties to range between very good mostly, sometimes excellent, and always mix it equally between MDR and specialties.....we do not use suites (specialties included in cruise fare), so have to pay for the specialties which works well for us.

 

Having sailed across 18 different cruiselines, we have a good understanding of the difference between each cruise category.

 

To the author, we consider X to be at the higher end of mass cruising but don't find the MDR on Az to be any better than X. Having said that you will have a much better restaurant for Sky suite, I'd suggest more akin to Az specialties, than you would have with the Az MDR. Some have reported the menus do not change but, for us at least, there is enough variety to sustain interest across a 7-10 days, perhaps not so much on a 15 day cruise. Some who book suites do report they still use the MDR some nights.

 

We enjoy Az, and it is firmly on our current preferred lines list, alongside Oceania, Windstar and MSC Yacht Club. Mostly, Az offers best value across all of those particular lines which are weak for entertainment (except MSC)....so that may be another consideration for the thread author.

Edited February 16 by hamrag

[excitedofharpenden]

11 hours ago, KC Cruiser 54 said:

Wife and I are long time Elite+ Celebrity cruisers. Always wanted to try Azamara when it was part of the RCCL family, but never got around to it. We're now considering 15 day Baltic cruise on Journey, but hoping to get a little input on the relative experience of Azamara vs Celebrity. On Celebrity we typically would book a Skysuite, and on Azamara Journey, thinking of the Club Continent Suite. Has the Azamara experience declined at all since being sold off from RCCL? Thanks in advance for any input!

I've done quite a few Celebrity cruises, but prefer the ambience and relaxed atmosphere on Azamara having discovered them 12 years ago. I haven't sailed Celebrity since the pandemic.

 

I think the elephant in the room is where the Azamara ships will take you. To ports that the larger ships can't go to or being docked much closer to town so you can walk off.  From this perspective Azamara are quite different. And less crowds too. 

 

Phil 

Edited February 16 by excitedofharpenden

[Dr H]

Hamrag, if you have room in your suitcase, please pack me up and take me. Quoting my own pithy self, "Make your own decisions for your own reasons. And ask yourselves, just what is it about .... that  makes it special to you? " You answered your own question, and came up with a very reasonable answer. I've heard poor things about your lines, but whether they were legitimate complaints or envy I have no idea. Perish the thought Azamara goes belly up or destroys their brand, Oceania and Windstar will probably get my business. Albeit not as often. I think your reply was certainly on par with the one EEC gave our new friends.

[Dr65]

After 20 Celebrity cruises we have graduated to Azamara. Celebrity has lost their Mojo for us…totally inferior product since we started on the Zenith in 1994. Our last cruise to Japan on the Millennium was so poor we will never go back. MDR was overcrowded,rushed and food was cafeteria quality. The buffet, on excursion mornings, had almost no seating and tables were very slow to be cleaned. Quality of the buffet was college dorm like. Ship was poorly refurbished and looked like Ikea  had a sale. We did notice the Edge class ships had MUCH BETTER food and entertainment..it seems like Celebrity is putting all their $ and effort into the Edge ships and neglecting their older ships. We like Azamara because attention to detail was superb..food very good,staff was extremely attentive and accommodating,ship(even though 25 YO) was impeccably clean. Yes, the bathrooms are TINY but the peaceful and relaxing vibe make up for some of the small ship shortcomings. Celebrity has changed so much and made so many cuts to their original product it felt like a bargain basement cruise.

[molemaui]

Azamara experience is far superior in my opinion to Celebrity. 

 

I thought the food in the Retreat on Edge class ships was slightly better than Azamara (Lumnine) but overall Azamara's ships are so "right sized" and their service excels. 

 

Booked on 2 AZ cruises for March and April  (Oceania in June and September). Have no plans for any future Celebrity cruises. 

[Host Jazzbeau]

My experience on Celebrity Retreat was that Luminae food was very good, but the choices were very limited.  On M- and S-class ships the Luminae kitchen is within the MDR galley, so you can also order off the MDR menu – that saved us several times when no Luminae dish appealed.  But on E-class ships you're stuck with the Luminae menu.

[Kiwifruit]

Having sailed on both Celebrity and Azamara in recent months we were very happy with both cruise lines and would happily sail with both again. The main determining factor for us in choosing which cruise line to sail with is the itinerary and value for money and when applying the latter criteria I’m not convinced that Azamara justifies the price differential it usually charges over Celebrity.

 

Azamara is rightly described as a premium brand fitting nicely between mainstream cruise lines and those that are truly luxury such Seabourn, Silversea and Regent. To best answer the OP’s original question I will break down my critique under different headings.

 

PORT ACCESS

There is no doubt Azamara wins out here as having smaller ships they can often dock closer to the places of interest that you want to visit. To illustrate this point, on our recent Celebrity cruise visiting Vietnam we stopped in HCMC but were docked in an industrial port almost a two hour drive away whereas had we been on Azamara we would have docked up the river in the centre of town.

 

STATEROOMS

Our greatest disappointment with Azamara are the cabins themselves which we found to be dated and cramped when compared with Celebrity. We were on the newly “refreshed” Azamara Onward but the cabin still looked very tired with chipped furnishings, touched up paint work, the smallest bathroom I have ever experienced at sea and a truly awful shower curtain. Certainly not of the standard you would expect of a “premium” cruise line but that’s just the nature of these R class ships.

 

SERVICE & INCLUSIONS

Despite reading some negative reviews prior to boarding we found service on both cruises to be generally very good but it was certainly a little more personalised on Azamara as you would expect being a smaller ship with a higher staff to passenger ratio.

 

We did enjoy that on Azamara most alcoholic drinks, speciality coffees and gratuities are included in the fare. Admittedly this was less of a factor for us personally as we don’t drink much and our loyalty status with Celebrity affords us free speciality coffees and some free alcoholic drinks of an evening. We didn’t however appreciate that despite being a “premium” line Azamara charges extra for it’s speciality restaurants.

 

FOOD

We had read recent criticisms that both cruise lines had implemented cut backs when it came to dining but we saw little evidence of this and found the food to be generally good on both. In our opinion Azamara had a slight edge in the food served in the Main Dining Room (although we were pleasantly surprised by our most recent experience on Celebrity which seems to be making an effort to up it’s game).

 

The buffet however on Celebrity had a lot more options and were of better quality than the offerings we found on Azamara. Also we found on our Azamara cruise that the buffet restaurant was too small for the number of passengers and it was difficult to find a seat, particularly at lunch time.

 

ENTERTAINMENT

Not surprisingly given the larger size of their ships Celebrity wins out in this area with the sheer number of activities that they can offer. We found both the guest entertainers and production shows to be very good and the theatre itself provides a great venue to showcase its entertainment. That having been said we were also pleasantly surprised by the standard of entertainment on Azamara and given the inherent restrictions of a smaller ship we thought that they did a great job too.

 

In summary, we really enjoyed both cruises, and while neither was perfect we would happily sail both cruise lines again. Ultimately your own personal preferences and priorities will likely dictate which is the best fit for you but never loose sight of the fact we are all extremely privileged to have the ability to make such a choice.

 

Happy Sailing !!!

 

Edited February 22 by Kiwifruit

[LTC]

Hi Kiwifruit,

Thanks for your wonderful critique, I found it very helpful. Have cruised with Celebrity before and we're thinking of trying an Azamara cruise but don't really know what to expect on one. This has helped a great deal!

[barneyboy]

I would agree with Kiwifruit. We sail with both lines and choose depending on itinerary and cost. We find the food to be slightly better on Azamara and the entertainment better on Celebrity. I would agree about the small cabins and showers on Azamara unless you move up to a suite, but we just get used to it. 

[81Zoomie]

Celebrity is now trying to be all things to all people.  Love their cabins and suites, but the level of service is slipping.  Azamara is so much more relaxed and intimate.  Azamara just feels more authentic to us.  No pushy sales, not crowded, and everyone on the ship experiences the same great service.  And, the smaller ships can sail into smaller ports like Bordeaux!  That said, the cabins are on the small side with TINY bathrooms (except for the upper suites).  However, there are so many inviting spaces on the ships that you spend less time in your cabin. If everything was equal between a Celebrity and Azamara cruise, we would select Azamara hands down.  The only exception would be transoceanic sailings where we would prefer a larger ship.