This was our ninth cruise and the first on Azamara. The weather was not great, it rained almost every day at some point. Even when not raining, we had to wear jackets to keep warm.

There were very few kids on board and very few ancient decrepits. (Just in case you are wondering, I do hope I can still cruise when I am ancient and decrepit.) We met some nice folks, more so than on our previous cruises. The crew seemed eager to please and two of them went 'above and beyond' for us. We got the impression that they worked as hard as on other lines but were not so stressed. The ubiquitous Philip Herbert, Hotel Director, was friendly and approachable. If you had a comment to make, out came the little black book and he took a genuine interest.

The highlight was, of course, St. Petersburg where we had three days and took a private tour with 4 other couples with Alla Tours. That was well worth it. Our guide was great and we had the flexibility of changing the plan in response to the weather or people's wishes. She also could get a small group like ours into the major sights without waiting. The sail into Stockholm was very pretty, we spent a day on our own taking the Molli train, we wandered around old Tallinn, Lubeck and Helsinki. Read more