We arrived at the Lisbon Santa Apolonia cruise terminal at 1.00pm on Monday, 3 June 2013 in preparation for boarding the Azamara Quest.  Crystal’s Symphony was moored back-to-back.  We were the only people registering at that time and so were ‘processed’ immediately and went to our cabin, 8022, in order to deposit our hand cases.

 Cabin 8022 is a standard balcony and Azamara had replaced the soft furnishings since our last cruise in 2011.  Unfortunately, the interior designer who chose the colour palette needs to look for a new job, because the colours in the curtains do no match and tone with the carpet, a wasted opportunity.  We were told that the mattresses had also been replaced and we found this too hard for our preference, a common occurrence.  We are used to an expensive bed at home that is sprung properly and does not need to be soft to be comfortable.  Further, our bed at home was chosen based on our weight because heavier people need harder mattresses (we are told) so it is no surprise that all cruise ship beds feel like one is lying on a board after a few hours.  Valentina (our cabin steward) and Russel (her assistant) provided a mattress topper which resolved matters slightly.  However the main problem with shipboard beds is that they are all on a rigid base, so regardless of the depth of the mattress, it is still sitting on an inflexible foundation, unlike expensive beds which not only have a sprung mattress but also a sprung base.

 We know these ex-Renaissance ships well and thus their strengths and weaknesses.  The cabin wardrobes are a weakness.  The right hand side door of the main wardrobe opens just in front of the first cabin ceiling light and this means that the wardrobe interior is dark unless the door is held right open.  This means one hand is required just to keep the door open or you scrabble around in semi-darkness.  One would have thought that this would have been addressed when refitting the cabins and maybe an interior light fitted to the inside of the wardrobe, if the cabin ceiling light could not have been repositioned. The drawers in the second wardrobe are also quite narrow.  By way of compensation, there is a good amount of equally narrow drawer space under the dressing table.  Whilst the bathroom is ‘compact’ it is satisfactory for our needs, but sailing on a long cruise could present problems with the amount of drawer space. Read more