Azamara Pursuit Customer Reviews

We joined Azamara in Maritius and then travelled to Malfives, Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia and finished in Singapore. It was the first time we had been on an Azamara ship although I have done over 20+ cruises. We could not fault anything about the ship, the staff and amazing cruise director Eric Grey. We enjoyed ourselves so much we booked whilst onboard a back to back cruise to South America.

From check in at Athens to leaving the vessel at Citiavechia the cruise was really enjoyable and the staff so very helpful and willing to give a hand. Some ports were only accessible by Tender, but there was little delay getting off the ship, thanks to the small number of passengers! It would be difficult to pick out individuals for commendation because they were all so good. Looking forward to our future cruises with AZAMARA.

This was our 4th Azamara cruise and we were not disappointed. From start to finish you are made to feel special. Their ships maybe of the older style and definitely no flumes or such like and really not ideal for children as there is nothing for them to do. If you enjoy good food and attentive service on a well run ship where you can do as little or as much as you want this cruise line is for you. They have lectures on the ports of call and their cruises are reknown for their port intensive experience, staying in port longer than some of its larger competitors. The icing on the cake for Azamara are the Azamazing evening where they will take you by bus to a venue which could be an opera, or local dancing of the country or to a typical village of the country you are visiting with food and drink. Also the other feature they do so well is the White night where tables are set around the pool and a buffet, served by the officers and music and dancing goes on into the night. All in all a cruise full of experience where you are treated as a person not a number.

From start to finish great service from friendly efficient crew and staff. Great variety of entertainment on board and really special Azamasing evening of operatic singers in Rhodes castle, an inclusive trip for all passengers . As always wonderful choices of food in variety of venues. Azamara is smaller ship cruising at it's best.

Azamara was the most horrible experience we ever had our bathroom didn't work 6 days out of 12 day cruise Customer service from guest relation manager and from Hotel manager to maintenance Manager just useless with bunch of lies the working crew was good but when you need to go to bathroom we had to go to public bathroom on deck above that is unexpectable. We were promised that when we get home to USA the customer service will be able to provide some kind compensation and that was promise from Guest relation Manager that was lie plus their customer service is the worst we ever experience they will lied to you till you will give up. Highly don't recommend Azamara as cruise line their is the reason the company was sold by Royal Caribbean because the ships are our dated need to to be in scrapyard because it's been in service 20+ years and numerous owners. The main company Sycamore Group with business rating big F and that the way they are running Azamara cruises with big F

First time with Azamara . The staterooms were snug and the bathroom tiny but the cruise was one of the best we have been on. The food was the best, and with only having 670 people on board there was never a queue. The itenerary suited us as you could walk to most cities and towns. Cant wait to book with this cruise line again

Superb cruise. Lovely ship , clean and even thought full was always room. Great crew, excellent entertainment and food . Crossing and ports called were all excellent.

This cruise from Cape Town was roughly to the standard expected from Azamara and was quite enjoyable overall. However there are three points I would like to make which detracted somewhat from the experience. Firstly our stop in Durban was cancelled, through no fault of Azamara, but we received very little notice and no additional stop was substituted. Secondly the excursions, other that those in Cape Town were below the standard I have come to expect. Thirdly one of the ports we stopped in was an industrial port which was extremely noisy ALL night with clouds of dust billowing around the ship - NOT the standard of past cruises.

Our first cruise with Azamara History of over 30 cruises with various cruise lines at all levels It started very badly with the worst organised check in ever which was an awful experience. It ended very badly with an overcrowded dirty under-supplied restaurant for breakfast on the last morning. Between were some goods : Better food than expected. Did our special dietary stuff well. Our waiters were excellent and we had the same table each evening and lunch for that reason. Apparently others did not receive such good service. The glassware in the main dining room was awful. When we commented we were told that customers would break decent stuff. Enough of a insult. Our cabin was nice and clean and the room steward excellent. Shower curtains were a disappointment at this level of cruising and when the first one was replaced with one that was 6 inches too short and then with one that would not stay in place both were quickly replaced. Does the above explain why we aren’t sailing with Azamara again. No but the following does : No cruise line is perfect and the front line staff are brilliant. But the on board management and administration are some of the worst ever. We booked to see a future cruise advisor. They asked where I wanted to go. Antarctica I said. Here’s a good one he said. Starts in Rio and goes right up the Amazon to Maneus. Oh dear. How about the Indian Ocean. Here’s a nice Trans Oceanic across the Atlantic. Oh dear. Gave up on destinations. So how does the future cruise deal work. Pointed me to a leaflet but obviously was not clear himself. How about a brochure. Sorry but no. Absolutely useless and others thought the same. So I booked with the other one. He didn’t turn up. I left him a note He didn’t follow up. How rude. One of the management team asked how things were going so I went over the above. How awful they said. I will look into it they said. Didn’t hear a thing. Kept hearing sorry from management to us and others but nothing ever got done. We won't chance this cruise line again as there are better out there.

Our cruise was amazing, it was the first cruise that they did post Covid and the staff were so attentive, smiley, Nothing was too much for any of them. The White night was incredible, the Flamenco was a joy. We enjoyed ourselves so much that when our cruise concierge contacted us today to say that there was a cruise going at a reasonable rate at the end of October we jumped at the chance to cruise with them again. Highly recommend them as a cruise line.

Azamara Pursuit March/April 2022 - what’s changed since COVID and new owners Sycamore Partners EMBARKATION - covid testing/check-in took about an hour. When we got on board we were clapped on by lines of staff, not sure if this was because it was the first cruise since COVID or if it is a new thing. Once we were on the ship we were promptly escorted to a short safety briefing in very small groups and then escorted to the elevator to go to our cabin where our cases had already arrived. STATEROOM AFT PORT SIDE - Excellently presented by our attendant for our arrival, very clean and in good condition. The balcony table size is an improvement being narrower it’s more appropriate for the balcony and has good height for eating. The shower curtain looked new and shower room was spotless. I noticed our stateroom attendant was working alone without an assistant and whilst he did an excellent job I don’t know if this would be sustainable when the ship is full. The cabin was let down by the TV limitations, we could not see our bill, menus, no music selection and most of the channels were unstable most of the time. Also we had cabin noise/vibration whenever the engines were running, it was loud and more emphasised at night time it was also evident in the corridor. Definitely need a good night cap to fall asleep. PUBLIC AREAS - All clean and in good order, especially the restrooms all nicely presented with cotton hand towels. FOOD - The breakfast and lunch buffet provided a limited but adequate attractive selection. We were disappointed to see that the evening was scrapped and replaced by Al a carte, we see little point in this as the main dining room is Al a carte and this reduces guest choice. I guess it is a cost saving but suggest it will not be popular and may prove counterproductive if customers move to another brand. It may be good if they did some feature buffets some of the nights, maybe seafood or destination inspired which would be better than none. DRINKS- It was good to be a able to browse and select from a paper menu rather than having to carry a mobile phone use apps and scan QR codes as is currently the case on many larger ships. We upgraded to the Ultimate drinks package and would love to have enjoyed it more but it was curtailed due to illness and being reliant on room service. Generally we like to enjoy Martinis and cocktails and therefor the ultimate package suits us and also we get a loyalty discount. SERVICE - Staff throughout the ship provided excellent service as always. Due to illness we used room service extensively and found it to be mostly reliable. The orders were correct and the food was hot on arrival. The problem came if I tried to order a Martini at 17:25hrs when I was told room service could not offer alcohol outside of bar hours even though the Sprits bar was listed open 2pm to Close and the Living Room was listed Noon to Close and coupled with this my husband and I had the Ultimate drinks package so we got very little use out of it. The Room Service rules seemed inflexible and made no exception for isolation circumstances. Thankfully Maresh spoke with his manger and we were told to order drink’s anytime which was good news but this message did not flow to all shifts/staff and it was challenging which we could have done without. ENTERTAINMENT- Azamara singers and dancers were excellent with Devon being the anchor man and another lady singer. They had lots of colourful costume changes. We enjoyed listening to Lucky Charm in the Living Room a few times and Todd on the Keys in the Den. Still greatly miss the casino in the Sprits/Den. If Azamara still had the casino we would book more cruises with them as it would have everything we want but without it we book other companies too. Unfortunately due to illness we didn’t get to see the cruise directors show, guest entertainers, and missed most of the singers and dancers shows so it was disappointing. AzAMAZING - we have experienced many wonderful AzAmazing evenings off ship, they are now being done on ship, it was disappointing compared to previous but some people may prefer not getting on a coach and going to a venue. We were entertained by a group of Spanish dancers by the pool but unless you are sat in the front row you cannot see the dancers feet so couldn’t really enjoy it. Whatever your cultural event, I would suggest arriving early because visibility may be limited. Hopefully the AMAZING evenings will return and this is only a temporary COVID measure rather than a long term cost saving. EXCURSIONS - we had excursions booked throughout the cruise but we only got to do Seville and Whale watching in the rain on Gibraltar. They were well organised with decent transport unfortunately all the others had to be cancelled. Azamara offer a discount if you wish to book excursions for a future cruise whilst on board so we took advantage of that as we got 10% off and it was charged to the OBC of our future cruise. LOYALTY EVENTS - We only noticed one loyalty event which was all loyalty levels combined into one, for Cheese and Wine. They did have cocktail hours for loyalty but this is more of a social gathering really. It isn’t really a benefit when drinks are included and many upgrade their package to include cocktails. It would seem the lovely Cocktail parties with the wonderful canapés may be a thing of the past, hopefully not. AZAMARA T&C’s - Most cruise lines offer a pro rata refund or FCC for days you are ill if affected by COVID-19 on board. Ensure you know the Cruise lines policy before you book so that you are aware if you test positive for COVID-19 during your cruise whether you will or will not get a refund. Remember Azamara are now owned by Sycamore Partners and not Royal Caribbean so RC terms do not read across so if you think you are familiar with the T&Cs check them as they may have changed. We wore FFP2 masks continuously and frequently used the ships sanitiser as well as our own, but still we contracted it, it can happen to anyone so COVID T&Cs should and will form an important part of how we select who we cruise with. OVERALL ENJOYMENT - Initially excellent and all going well with probably the best entertainment we have seen on any Azamara cruise and we only had a few days to measure it on. The enjoyment soon ended when my husband was put in an isolation cabin COVID positive, I was also confined to our cabin COVID negative so quite lonely and boring all day everyday, like UK lockdown days quite dragged us down. I have based the review mainly on the days we could enjoy, as obviously there is no enjoyment when confined to your cabin.

Cruises on all 3 Azamara ships are excellent. Ratio of crew to passengers is one of the best. ALL staff speak to you in passing, and the Officers will stop and talk