Port Intensive Cruise to the Middle East

We sailed on the Azamara Journey 18 months ago and really enjoyed it so we decided to book this cruise from Athens to Dubai. We arrived after 2:30 pm so embarkation was a breeze. The ship came out of dry dock just prior to our cruise 18 months ago and the refurb is showing it’s age especially in the staterooms. The bathroom shower is wallpapered and starting to peel and the floor of the bathroom is a vinyl tile. This is not what I would expect from an upper Premium cruise line.

The menus in the main dining room have meant less choices that our last cruise, especially the lunch menu. Very few choices and a buffet station every day. I find it difficult to understand why one would choose to go to the main dining room at lunch to stand in line for a stir fry or pasta.

Some evenings the food was excellent others very poor. We ordered salmon and seared scallops and they were both raw. Considering that we were under a code 3 for norovirus, I would have expected more care to be taken with food preparation.

The buffet restaurant was for the most part good, although they now serve frozen strawberries and blackberries for breakfast. This is the first cruise in 30 plus years that I have encountered frozen berries.

We really enjoyed the shows, especially anything with Eric. He is fantastic. We particularly enjoyed the Halloween show. It was great!

We did not participate in many activities as we had booked a number of Shore excursions and enjoyed the pool on Sea days.

Service was excellent everywhere on board.

We are having difficulty deciding whether to return to Azamara. We compare to Oceania and think that O may come out ahead.