We are a couple in our early 40s and this was our 11th cruise. Our past cruises have been with Royal Carribean and Celebrity. This was our first time on Azamara Quest. Our cruise left September 24th 2009 from Barcelona and ports of call included Monte Carlo, Portofino, Florence, Rome, Sorrento, Split, Ravenna, Koper and overnight in Venice.
The Quest is a beautiful ship - she is small but that made it nice with regards to meeting others. Because it was such a port-intensive cruise, we didn't care if there was much entertainment on board. If you are the type that wants a mega ship with lots of onboard activities, this is not the ship for you. The advantage of a small ship was that she could get into smaller ports and when we did have to tender, the line-ups were minimal.
We had a Sunset Veranda balcony - if I were to do it over, I would have gotten a regular balcony. The Sunset Veranda was an in-hull balcony with only one lounge chair and one chair. If you were sitting you couldn't see the ocean. Not worth the extra money in my opinion. The cabin was of average size but had plenty of room to unpack and store our luggage. The food was spectacular on this cruise - among the best we've experienced. We had heard excellent reports of the food at the specialty restaurant Prime C and thus we went there twice - we were not disappointed.