Having cruised on Oceanea's Regatta a year ago, we were keen to compare Azamara with them. We first sailed on one of the former Renaissance ships when flagged as Swan Hellenic's Minerva II. This ship is now with Princess lines and will shortly move to P&O I believe, as the Adonia. We love the size and layout of these ships.
Booking was easy through an online agency based in Texas. Their service was magnificent. I had praised their agent to her boss and, unexpectedly, was thanked with a bottle of wine in our cabin as a gift from the agency. We also managed to bring on, declared, the remains of a wine-box which we had bought in Heathrow's duty-free shop. We have few complaints about the cruise but the astonishing price of wine on board, especially after an additional 18% service charge, meant that we drank much less than we would have done. I suspect that the ship's profits would have increased if the price was lower.
Embarkation was a doddle, by far the best we have ever experienced. We arrived at Terminal J and strolled straight on at about 1.30 p.m. Azamara's paperwork says to get there for 2 p.m. but this is wrong. People were able to board from about 11 a.m. Lunch was available, as were all public facilities. We wish we had known this. Our luggage arrived reasonably quickly, too. Our Oceania embarkation, in the very same terminal a year before, had been long-winded in the extreme.