Excellent Cruise

Positives

Friendliness and service from the crew especially Dave at Discoveries for breakfast and Julius in Spirits Bar and other locations.

Visibility of the captain and other senior crew members. I am sure the captain was wishing passengers a good day as we left the ship at every port we docked at.

Food was generally very good, especially the speciality restaurants and the chef’s table, but we had no complaints about the food in Discoveries.

Booked the dining package and speciality dining as soon as we boarded with no issues.

Entertainment provided by Eric de Gray who was excellent and the other entertainment staff was very good. We attended most late shows and enjoyed them all. The exchanges between Eric and captain Johannes were amusing as were Eric’s grandad stories.

AzAmazing Evening with Incanto Quartet in Livorno was excellent and very well organised.

Size of the ship was great, nothing felt too far away compared to the other larger ships we have sailed on.

Enjoyed the included coffee and snacks available at Mosaic Cafe.

Generally bar service was very good and we had no issues with getting cocktails or drinks using the included spirits.

We tendered at 3 ports and very rarely had to wait a long time for a tender boat in either direction.

Closeness to the city at several ports of call, especially Porto Ferraio and Trapani.

Oceanview room was adequate and Paulo our room steward was very friendly and efficient.

Embarkation and debarkation were efficient both at start and end of cruise and at ports of call.

Friendliness and courtesy of fellow passengers with very few exceptions.

Living Room was very nice and the food which was served (especially the tapas) was a nice touch.

Negatives

Missed not having a balcony (our choice) but it was only one floor up to deck 5.

Not being able to walk a full circuit of the ship on deck 5 and it was often closed off in the middle at both sides.

Apart from the Windows cafe, unable to get a sea view from the back of the ship which I had enjoyed on other cruises.

Other comments

We are in our early 50s and whilst not the youngest on the cruise we were definitely at the lower end of the age range.

White Night was very busy and queues to get food were quite long and slightly chaotic at times but the local Sorrento Mozzarella and tomatoes was a nice touch.

Some of the included white wines were not to our taste, we stuck with included red wines which were generally good.

We only had 1 sea day, so it was a very port intensive cruise, not sure how I would have felt if we had more sea days.

Regretted missing the Indian night at the buffet because we booked Aqualina on that night because the smell was amazing.

For speciality dining only times which seemed to be available for us to book were 18:00, 18:30, 20:00 and 20:30.

We only booked private excursions so had no experience of Azamara excursions.

I would have no hesitation to sail again on Azamara for the right price and itinerary.

Nice location close to guest services and only one floor up to Discoveries and other public rooms on deck 5. Disembarking was always on deck 3 so handy for those stairs.
The cabin was adequate for 2 people and had plenty of storage. Shower could be bigger but that is my only complaint.