For those of you who would not yet be aware, we are convinced cruisers… We love the fact that you combine relaxation and discovery as you please in what you could describe as a floating resort.

Azamara Club Cruises and Celebrity Cruises both belong to the same group with Royal Caribbean. Azamara is considered a notch above Celebrity. We chose Azamara because of the itinerary and the fact that they align our Frequent Traveler level we have gained at Celebrity.

Our Azamara Journey (also the name of the ship…) started on October 28 in Athens; yesterday we were in Crete (Agios Nikolaos) and today we’re en route for the Suez Canal. We’ll go to Egypt, Jordan, Oman and end in Dubai.

First impressions – the difference between Celebrity and Azamara is small apart from the size of the ship. Both have excellent service, cabins and amenities are similar, both try to up-sell you to specialty restaurants, additional drink packages, etc.
The food seems to be presented slightly better at Azamara but we rarely had bad meals on Celebrity. The wine selection is not better.

What is disappointing is that staff do not seem to be as organized: in the coffee shop, they do not know exactly what is on the card, we were told we were not both set up with an onboard account (while we were), …. Another down point is the maintenance of the ship that is not done to the same level: chipped paint and most inconvenient: certain parts of the ship smell of sewage although it is (luckily) not too overwhelming.

First days conclusion – unless you absolutely want to be on a smaller ship and pay substantially more for that, we’re not sure if Azamara will show us being worth that extra cost. Since we had a very good deal, we would not say we’re disappointed but it was definitely « oversold ». But who cares? We’re on holiday, celebrating 25 years together and visiting wonderful places…

Keep monitoring this space as we visit and post pictures.