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Review: Azamara Quest

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28 Dec 2010

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It’s been a long time since I took a cruise during such a high-anticipation time as the Christmas holidays, and I guess you could argue it was risky to embark attempt it on a ship and a new line. But up to the point of flying out to Singapore last Monday, all of the things I’d heard about Azamara Quest were good, and after a week on board those reports weren’t exaggerated.

This is a lovely ship, which in a former life was one of the R ships of the now defunct Renaissance cruises. She is boutique in size, carrying just 694 guests, and is beautifully appointed with all the bells and whistles of a much bigger ship; a great gym, a lovely pool deck and four dining options. I love the European country house decor, with lots of dark wood and royal blue; cruising on this ship is akin to being a guest in an elegant home, rather than at sea.

Azamara was a new concept for the cruising giant, Royal Caribbean International, introducing what’s been dubbed a “luxury lite” brand to the company. My take on what this new concept means is that most of the things which are included in the fare are similar to the luxury end of cruising – specialty coffees, soft drinks, bottled water, wine with dinner and so on. Charges for the great alternative restaurants is nominal – just $15 a head including gratuity and wine – and other alcohol is chargeable but at very favourable prices.

Top things to report so far including the crew who are faultless as well as friendly, and deliver the kind of on the ball service you get on five star plus ships. The baristas in the elegant Mosaic Cafe know their stuff and make a serious coffee for us caffeine addicts. And the food….well we’ve tried three of the four venues so far and both the quality and variety are top notch. Our stateroom is great – on deck 7 with a balcony – and the only complaint I have here is the bathroom, which is super small and very basic for a ship of this type….but I guess that’s how they built them in the old days. And Quest rides the waves very well, being put to the test in a two metre swell out of Singapore at the beginning of the cruise.

I will be reviewing the ship in more detail after I get home, but as of this point in time it’s proving hard to fault Quest. The crew worked hard to create the Christmas spirit on board, and we had two nights and three days in Bangkok to enjoy the festive season. Next blog I will report more on the destinations – the next is Sihanoukville, Cambodia – and if you have any questions to ask in the meantime, do so and I will do my best to answer them. Happy Christmas to all cruise fans and to anyone on the high seas, happy cruising!

Two weeks on board today, Christmas has come and go and we’ve seen in a New Year. To date the trip has been amazing on many levels, and while I do want to talk about the destinations we’ve visited, there are a few things from the last blog about the ship which I want to share with you.

Firstly, we’ve tried both alternative restaurants and they are both well worth the cover charge….in fact, we enjoyed the steakhouse, Prime C, so much we are spending our last evening on board there. Also, I forgot to mention before that there are no formal nights on Azamara, which will disappoint some cruise fans but for me it’s a blessing, affording me more room in my suitcase for other important clothes! However, as we did celebrate Christmas and NYE on board, everyone made an effort to dress up a bit.

Now to the destinations. A big part of Azamara‘s itineraries is spending more time in ports of call – the company schedules a lot of overnight stays, or late stays, which is not only more relaxing for guests but also affords us more time to explore ashore and enjoy a range of different experiences. On this cruise we’ve had overnight stops in Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City, and today in Halong Bay, with overnight stops also in our embarkation port, Singapore, and our final destination, Hong Kong.

Bangkok was a biggie as it was a two-night-three-day stopover, scheduled over Christmas. We also docked in Khlong Toey, which is in downtown on the Chao Phraya River, rather than the coastal port of Lam Chabang which is a two-hour drive away. The extended stay allowed for shopping, special Christmas Eve and Day dinners, for us a unique bicycle tour of undiscovered Bangkok, and an amazing sail out down the river.

Next we headed for Sihanoukville, Cambodia, for a long-day stay. This place was an eye-opener….very poor, but slowly developing after a bitter internal war which devastated the country and wiped out many of its people. The remnants are there to see….broken down buildings with gunshot holes in the walls, abandoned military equipment, and people missing limbs from land mines – very sad. That said, the country has great spirit, and our exploration of Serendipity Beach, the city market, one of the city’s most holy sites and a local fishing village more than proved that.

Our next sortie was Ho Chi Minh city, a metropolis constantly changing and far from dull. Here we opted to spend the last day of 2010 on a fascinating tour of the Mekong Delta, culminating in a champagne celebration and white night party on board to see in the new year. Hundreds of thousands of people packed the streets beyond us to see the fireworks, which were impressive, and the ship’s crew worked hard to make sure everyone had a good time, from the deck buffet and the festive hats, to the bubbly served at midnight.

Yesterday we were in Danang, Vietnam, where we headed into the old city of Hoi An for a long exploration. This is a fascinating place with an old quarter which forbids cars. We drank Saigon Coffee, which is a rich sweet caffeine fix chilled and served in a long glass with sugar and ice, ate Vietnamese rice pancakes with shrimp, and photograph more people and buildings than we can remember. The only near mishap was getting caught up in a big of a bingle….two teens lost control of a bike at high speed in a narrow, busy street, crashing into a moped, and causing another to swerve, hit another moped which hit us…no real damage sustained except for a bike handle poking me hard in the elbow, but it could have been so much worse!!

Today we are docked at a port in Halong Bay and it’s cold! The temperature dropped overnight and although the ship’s thermometer is reporting 18C I reckon its chillier than that by a long way – which is a shock after the heat and humidity of all our other destinations! We are here overnight, and tomorrow we head off for a long, 12-hour tour to the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi. Then we have a sea day and arrive in Hong Kong where this amazing cruise will be over. I am trying not to think about that yet….but that’s the reality. As the saying goes, all good things have to come to an end…next week’s blog will wrap up our last few days on board, and our thoughts overall. Happy Cruising!