IS AZAMARA STILL PREMIUM? 5 Things We Loved & 5 Things We Didn't On Azamara Cruises

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  • Опубліковано 4 лис 2024

КОМЕНТАРІ • 45

  • @gregneil612
    @gregneil612 9 місяців тому +3

    Our embarkation out of Hong Kong was incredible. We showed our cruise ticket and walked straight on. Passport control was done on the ship in the bar. The customs officials left the ship on the pilot boat.

    • @BethandDavidCruise
      @BethandDavidCruise  9 місяців тому

      Oh wow! Maybe it's to do with the port (and some luck) then.. I've heard lots of mixed views on embarkation with Azamara but thats the dream scenario! Would love to do Asia with them, we're hoping to do Japan next year maybe 😍

    • @gregneil612
      @gregneil612 9 місяців тому +1

      @@BethandDavidCruise the whole process was very easy. Our taxi pulled up on the dock in front of the ship, where porters collected our cases from us and guided us to the ship. Of course, we had done pre checkin for the cruise online.

    • @BethandDavidCruise
      @BethandDavidCruise  9 місяців тому

      @@gregneil612 ideal! We got to the port early so had to wait a few hours anyway before boarding started, but it meant we were early in the ticketing times to board. We then had to wait another 3-4 hours once they let us in the terminal.. hardly any movement for boarding and everyone was getting really hungry. People were really not happy once we boarded and were complaining about having to do the safety stuff straight away instead of getting food or going to the bathroom etc. .. sounds like we had a particularly bad experience. Hopefully it was a one off!

    • @gregneil612
      @gregneil612 9 місяців тому

      @@BethandDavidCruise sounds like a real one off. We were given champagne as we boarded. 🤷🏻‍♂️

  • @Henriette368
    @Henriette368 8 місяців тому +1

    The embarkation was most likely Athens police. We disembarked there and they held us up with checking passports for about an hour and a half! Our embarkation in Ravenna was super efficient and quick.

    • @BethandDavidCruise
      @BethandDavidCruise  8 місяців тому

      😱 Yeah I think that was it for our case, but many other guests noted they had slow embarkation other times.. I guess it’s just luck though and you only remember the bad boarding experiences! Good to hear of quick embarkation at other times though. I doubt it would’ve been so slow if it was elsewhere as you said!

  • @richardaustwick4400
    @richardaustwick4400 2 місяці тому +1

    Good video again Beth thanks. Agree completely with your likes. Regarding the dislikes agree on the buffet and the average age thing, I've found the other passengers to be great though. I'm six cruises in with Azamara now, while you were right about the shower curtain, it's now been fixed. My embarkation experience has been so impressive, at odds with your experience. They've done away with ticketing, just turn up, show your passport and your onboard straight away. Must have been bad luck for you guys in Athens.

    • @BethandDavidCruise
      @BethandDavidCruise  2 місяці тому

      @@richardaustwick4400 hi Richard, thank you! We recently went on Azamara on Journey, and yes - so glad to have seen the weighted show curtains! We also thought the buffet was better this time round, can’t complain about the buffet for the size of the ship really when the food is so great throughout. We had a very easy check in this time, much smoother! Would love to go back with Azamara again 😍

  • @PhyllisGoldstein
    @PhyllisGoldstein 6 місяців тому +1

    Did you go to Petra in Jordan? If so, which excursion? Very good video!

    • @BethandDavidCruise
      @BethandDavidCruise  6 місяців тому

      Thanks for watching!! Unfortunately not. I was so stuck between cruises, one of the sticking points was Petra but we chose the other one. Bucket list place!! If you’re looking for a cruise to Petra though david can help you out at Panache for advice and best prices - david.wilburn@panachecruises.com . If already booked - hope you have any amazing time!

  • @lost_ashore
    @lost_ashore 3 місяці тому +1

    I agree about those bathrooms! Smallest shower I have ever had and consequentially clingiest shower curtain 🙈

    • @BethandDavidCruise
      @BethandDavidCruise  3 місяці тому

      @@lost_ashore hahah yep very small! We just got off the Journey and I was thinking it was okay how small it was until I went to shave my legs 😂😂 happy to say on Journey they’ve been trialling some new things, and i noticed the shower curtains were different, much thicker and heavier meaning they stayed in place and didn’t cling or drift inward to the shower☺️

    • @lost_ashore
      @lost_ashore 3 місяці тому +1

      @@BethandDavidCruise Yes!! 🙌🏻 I understand fitting shower doors is impossible as they are older, so grateful for better shower curtains

  • @theapprentice2298
    @theapprentice2298 8 місяців тому

    Very well balanced review. Having sailed with Azamara 3times previuosly and about to sail again this year on Journey. I can concur with all your views. Well done Beth :)

    • @BethandDavidCruise
      @BethandDavidCruise  8 місяців тому +1

      Thanks for watching! Wish I was back on Azamara soon, have a lovely time and eat at the patio grill for me😍

  • @danaboatman954
    @danaboatman954 3 місяці тому +1

    I chatted with David today, have subscribed and am reviewing your Azamara content.

    • @BethandDavidCruise
      @BethandDavidCruise  2 місяці тому +1

      @@danaboatman954 hiya yes! Thank you, we just got off Journey so have lots more Azamara content on the way 🌞 hope he can help you craft the vacation you’re looking for!

  • @DuncanH-xo1mi
    @DuncanH-xo1mi 7 місяців тому +1

    Great vlog, really informative. Off on our first cruise on Azamara Pursuit in July so this was very interesting. Duncan & Sarah

    • @BethandDavidCruise
      @BethandDavidCruise  7 місяців тому +1

      Thank you for watching! Really hope you have a great time like we did. There can be a lot of critism around this stuff but we loved the Pursuit and would put Azamara as our top cruise line (joint with Celebrity Cruises). If you ever need any help in the future, David is a cruise connoisseur at Panache Cruises and would be happy to help you with anything!

    • @DuncanH-xo1mi
      @DuncanH-xo1mi 7 місяців тому

      @@BethandDavidCruise many thanks. We actually have booked our cruise through Panache and Emma has been extremely helpful.

    • @BethandDavidCruise
      @BethandDavidCruise  7 місяців тому +1

      @@DuncanH-xo1mi ah yes Emma’s great, you’re in the best hands!

  • @cedricnance8584
    @cedricnance8584 7 місяців тому +1

    Hi that cabin with that big canoe outside is no Deck 6 ,I know we had one but we were never told about it 🤔 either by our travel agent or Azamara so we moved luckily, We love Azamara at our age ,They might be putting out these big ships but when is it big enough it’s getting silly ,having to queue for everything ,paying for all the extras which soon mount up ,we have been doing cruises for 30 years,some good /some not so good ,As time goes on you we learn 🛳👍, we off soon on Azamara , love your video , Ced🤪

    • @BethandDavidCruise
      @BethandDavidCruise  7 місяців тому

      Hi Ced, thanks for watching! Yes we’d never book the guaranteed on Azamara again but can’t complain really, it was one of our favourite cruises we’ve ever been on and would love to cruise with them again. Especially since our recent trip on p&o (our latest vlog upload is rather grumpy!) you’re right about the bigger ships! You get what you pay for..

    • @cedricnance8584
      @cedricnance8584 7 місяців тому +1

      @@BethandDavidCruise Hi Ced here thank you for your message. The thing is an age thing 🤔we are in our 70s and Azamara suits us ,not get me wrong the ships out there are amazing,but you have to be aware they want your money 💰 for the extras ,We went on the Beyond (celebrity) the food was not a patch on Azamara but also ,why have that many extra restaurants,which are extra to pay for ,also drinks packages are a rip off , unless you are a alcoholic 🤔🥂, sorry if I sound like a old f-t ,please excuse my bad grammar ,it’s my wife’s birthday so it’s not long before the clothes rack is up in the spare room,it’s like a military operation 🤔, iam as bad ,we scub up well .by 🥂🥰

    • @BethandDavidCruise
      @BethandDavidCruise  7 місяців тому

      @@cedricnance8584 haha I think we are just old people in young bodies when it comes to our taste 🤣 happy birthday Mrs Ced!!🥳

  • @christiandiablo9499
    @christiandiablo9499 5 місяців тому +2

    Hi - I’ve sailed Azamara 3 times (4th time coming up in 2 weeks!). I so so agree with everything in this video. And you’re spot on about the pizza - worst pizza at sea. Yuck! Their buffet food at breakfast we found really good - best pork sausage at sea OR on land! The fresh berries at breakfast and green smoothies - FIRE. I’m also near your age and it’s a good cruise to take my mom and aunts. They love Azamara service and food. The lunch buffets are very small but we found the food very tasty for buffet food, but the variety was not really there at lunch. We did the Indian night at the buffet one night and it was best Indian food we’ve ever had at sea. We typically sail with Celebrity and HAL and AZ food was a notch up.

    • @BethandDavidCruise
      @BethandDavidCruise  5 місяців тому

      Your experience sounds very similar to ours - I agree with the Indian night!!😍 if only they could do better pizza I’m not sure I could complain about anything… we’re on celebrity next week and it’s been a few years since we’ve sailed with them but the food is one of things we’re looking forward to most onboard, best big ship food at sea we think! Not sure anything can beat the patio grill on Azamara for lunch though 🤣 do you find there’s not many young people onboard Azamara? We became famous on the ship for being so young (everyone was a good 60+!) but not sure if this is a rare occurrence.. we want to sail again with them soon, we loved it!

    • @christiandiablo9499
      @christiandiablo9499 5 місяців тому +1

      @@BethandDavidCruise no, not many young. I’m in my 40’S and i feel sometimes like the youngest onboard. But we met a couple from England on our second sailing, who are in their mid-70’s. And we fast became besties. We were with them every day and every night for dinner, we were so entranced by them! And i think they were fairly fond of us too. We urged them to go on our next Azamara cruise but the husband had a play to perform in. They are both former professional actors but he still acts some locally. So they couldn’t come.
      Cut to the embarkation day. I turn to my mom and said, “wouldn’t it be phenomenal if somehow they showed up and surprised us.” We walk outside of the buffet 1 minute later and there they were!!! I jumped up and down!! My buddy (who was part of the duo who originally met them) was still waiting to board. So, I asked the wife if she had a good Scottish brogue. She said, “pretty good.” So, I came up with a back story and said her character would be Barbara. And her back story was she was with her animal husbandry association group onboard (no husband attending). Then when my buddy boarded I told him i met a lady named Barbara from near Edinburgh who was onboard and I thought she looked JUST like our friend from England!” I arranged via WhatsApp to have just the wife (no husband or that would give it away) come into a bar in which i told my buddy to meet me and my mom. I “casually” saw “Barbara” enter and said, “Hey, man, there’s that lady, Barbara, who looks like our friend, K.” He turned and was like “Holy tish! She looks AMAZINGLY like Katherine.” So i called her over to “meet” my friend. Haha. He kept saying, “you look so much like our friend, K! “. Then he said, so what do you do for a living, Barbara?” At that point her husband came in (as we had planned) and soon as my buddy saw him he KNEW he had been PUNK’D!! Hahahaha. Love tellin’ that Azamara story.

    • @christiandiablo9499
      @christiandiablo9499 5 місяців тому +1

      @@BethandDavidCruise Also, have fun on Celebrity. I hope you’re on E-class. Celebrity has taken their best employees (especially chefs) and put on the Eclass ships. We sailed on Summit back in October and it was miserable. Horrible service and worst food in BLU ever. No lobster or filet served in BLU all week. We mentioned it and they said their bar staff was cut by 30% and of the 30%, half were let go and the the other half transferred to E-class ships. The guy we talked to, anonymously, said the new CEO was cutting heads to save money and he had received a lot of complaints on poor service. The room attendant said she was now given 16 cabins a day (used to be 10 before COVID) and she said they had to cut back to 1.5 room cleanings a day. The 2nd cleaning is now just s turn-down service and fresh towel delivery if needed. No more full cleaning at night. She said they weren’t even supposed to bring us ice, on request, any longer. And we were in AquaClass. Sad. But i heard they have tried to pool service and food quality into E-Class ships. Makes me think they’re going to sell off the M-class ships soon. Had some friends on S-class recently who also said the food and service were way below the usual Celebrity standards. I doubt they’ll sell off S-class ships but they do seem to be putting all their ducks in the E-class ships.

    • @BethandDavidCruise
      @BethandDavidCruise  5 місяців тому

      @@christiandiablo9499 hahahha funny story in your other comment - we’ve had similar where our friends surprise us onboard, always such a delight! And yes we’re on an edge class ship soon, we had a wonderful experience a few years ago on Beyond so we’re expecting the same. Shame to hear the changes on the older ships have been quite negative, especially in aqua class. I’ll be intrigued to see if Celebrity is as good as it was when I previously sailed (lots of videos to come about it I’m sure!). FYI David is a cruise connoisseur with Panache Cruises, a luxury cruise travel agent who cater to US and UK customers, so if you’re looking for any future cruises, feel free to enquire with him and he can often get the best deals out there! His emails david.wilburn@panachecruises.com if of interest ☺️

    • @christiandiablo9499
      @christiandiablo9499 5 місяців тому +1

      @@BethandDavidCruise thanks. I’ve saved his email and look forward to your Celebrity review video! Hope it’s gotten better since our cruise last year.

  • @shepardsmith3235
    @shepardsmith3235 9 місяців тому +1

    Azamara ships are old and all were built well over twenty years ago. Design has improved a lot in the last ten to fifteen years. So leave these old ones behind. The food was excellent though and the people you will meet on their cruises are nice. Hong Kong to Singapore is an itinerary you must try. You see so much.

    • @BethandDavidCruise
      @BethandDavidCruise  9 місяців тому

      Yeah I do think they did a fab job for how old the ship was but would be amazing to see them aquire a newly designed modernised ship. Asia is on our wish list for next year, looks amazing 😍😍

    • @shepardsmith3235
      @shepardsmith3235 9 місяців тому

      Remember you must go on a small ship that can go upriver to downtown Bangkok and Saigon. Do not go on a big ship as these dock far away and you will have a three or four hour bus ride, so I am told, to get to downtown. This is not worth it. The cruise line will be able to confirm where the ship docks. The little secret about the Far East is that its big on eating and shopping. In fact, when we left from Hong Kong on Azamara, the ship actually left from a shopping center. It had seven hundred stores and the cruise embarked from the second story of the shopping center. For real. There is an amazing sound and laser light show when you leave Hong Kong at Night and have your earphones ready. I could go on and on. One of the absolute best cruises we have gone on and no worry about terrorists. Thank God. @@BethandDavidCruise

  • @htschultz
    @htschultz 7 місяців тому

    If your cruise was so far under capacity (approx 60%?) and you weren't happy with your cabin, you weren't able to request a move to an unobstructed view room?

    • @BethandDavidCruise
      @BethandDavidCruise  7 місяців тому +1

      We asked to move rooms the day we boarded (you can hear the full story on the room tour on our channel) and we were pretty angry they wanted us to pay to upgrade. Booking guaranteed doesn’t mean obstructed, just that it could be, so we were annoyed at this considering the ships capacity, as you say. In the end we complained so much to higher powers they gave us an unobstructed free of charge. It wasn’t the price we were annoyed at, but that we wouldn’t have booked that stateroom category if we knew we were definitely stuck in an obstructed. The new cabin was gorgeous though, I’d just avoid the guaranteed option!

    • @htschultz
      @htschultz 7 місяців тому

      @@BethandDavidCruise, I'm delighted to learn that Aza eventually acquiesced and did the right thing--good on you two!

    • @BethandDavidCruise
      @BethandDavidCruise  7 місяців тому +1

      @@htschultz thank you! If it weren’t our honeymoon we probably wouldn’t have bothered but we wanted it to be a perfect trip!

  • @Nick_Stock
    @Nick_Stock 9 місяців тому

    Was getting worried about sticking out as a young person on our cruise then remembered I'm 41 so I'll probably get away with it! Maybe we'll just be the youngest onboard by 4 years instead of 20....

    • @BethandDavidCruise
      @BethandDavidCruise  9 місяців тому +1

      Hahaha probably still would’ve stuck out on our Azamara cruise 🤣🤣 we got asked if we were onboard with our parents at one point… at least you won’t get that!!

    • @Bruce.G93
      @Bruce.G93 9 місяців тому +1

      @@BethandDavidCruise We cruised with them in July and as a married couple of 30 and 29 we were definitely one of the youngest couple on board. We've just cruised a Celebrity Cruise and while we did enjoy it. We can't wait to cruise Azamara again due to the ship size and the intimacy of it.
      Also just remember that the embarkation issues you incurred like Azamara mentioned are out of their control. They don't want you waiting 3 hours to get on the ship either.

    • @BethandDavidCruise
      @BethandDavidCruise  9 місяців тому +1

      @@Bruce.G93 we love Celebrity, have just booked to go again with them in May - they're definitely our favourite larger cruise line. We're set to go on P&O in a week.. I've never been with them and see they're huge ships but I wanted to experience the larger ones even if so just to appreciate why the smaller ships are priced as such 😆
      And yes, maybe Azamara are just struggling with the system change over since they changed over from Royal Caribbean.. I've heard lots of negative things about their admin and system sides (although never really experienced it myself).