<p>For those of you who would not yet be aware, we are convinced cruisers&#8230; We love the fact that you combine relaxation and discovery as you please in what you could describe as a floating resort.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Our Azamara Journey (also the name of the ship&#8230;) 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.</p>
<p><strong>First impressions</strong> &#8211; 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.<br />
The food seems to be presented slightly better at Azamara but we rarely had bad meals on Celebrity. The wine selection is not better.</p>
<p>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), &#8230;. 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.</p>
<p>First days conclusion &#8211; 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&#8230;</p>
<p>Keep monitoring this space as we visit and post pictures.</p>