Azamara Journey Adriatic Cruise – Part 1

Well I was delighted to be asked to join the Azamara Journey for a 1 weeks cruise departing out from Venice. I started out by flying out from Stansted to Venice Treviso with a low cost airline and would certainly recommend flying into Venice Marco Polo as Treviso is such a small airport and if I’m honest the airport is badly run. However after arriving into Venice my taxi driver was awaiting in arrivals and was taxied in a 7 seater people carrier all to myself with lovely air conditioning as you can imagine this time of year it is very hot.

So when arriving at the port of Venice it was a quick process of checking in with immigration and the Azamara staff were very helpful and informative. Once I boarded the ship I head to deck 4 to my outside cabin. The cabin itself was spacious and would certainly recommend booking a grade cabin rather than a guarantee as when speaking to other passengers (Liz and Joe this is you) they had booked a guarantee outside cabin and were past passengers only to be given an outside obstructed view cabin. the obstruction itself was not the issue but the lack of space and the tiny bathroom, so paying a little more for a graded cabin would certainly be more beneficial.

The cabin itself was great and had plenty of wardrobe space including plenty of hangers which makes a change. Once I had unpacked it was time for a beverage so I headed to the pool bar on the lido deck and there was a lot of choice for the complimentary beverages. Once that went down I then decided it was time for lunch at the patio which is the pool grill and had some fantastic food and plenty of choice.

After lunch myself and my colleague Sean decided to explore the ship and with it being a more intimate ship (size of 30,000 tonnes) it didn’t take us long to get round and take plenty of pictures and video’s. Obviously we wanted to take as many pictures and video’s to pass on to other staff and customers.

On exploring the ship we ventured into the premium restaurants Aqualina and Prime C which can be booked at a cost of $30pp but I would certainly recommend booking them early to save disappointment. The first evening we decided to do the buffet which had a lot of food choice for all nationalities and there was a good mix of customers from USA, Australia, UK and European. We met some fantastic people on-board and we spent a a lot of time with these customers because we wanted to see it from their point of view and the feedback has been so valuable, so Thank you to all of you then helped and made our Azamara cruise experience so wonderful.

On my next blog I will go into more detail of the itinerary along with the entertainment and the Azamazing evening tour, so keep your eyes peeled.