MY REVIEW OF AZURA TO THE BLACK SEA - A322N

[arrbee]

It was interesting to read Gill's report and although mine is about the same cruise it will perhaps give a different perspective as we DIY in most ports and we chose second sitting. We've been on Azura before so were looking forward to being on her again and also to having the same aft cabin as we had last time. It was C753 and is positioned at the starboard corner so we had a huge balcony and it was great to see the wake and have a view on both sides as we sailed through the Straits of Gibraltar and the Bosphorus . Amazing!

EMBARKATION
We live in Scotland so travelled down the day before by train then stayed overnight at the Premier Inn West Quay. The hotel is perfectly acceptable for an overnight stay and if you book well in advance you can get a reasonable deal. It's also very convenient for Boots, Asda, John Lewis and M&S for any last minute items. We left the hotel at 11:45 and had the easiest and quickest embarkation ever at Ocean Terminal. We quickly found our cabin, dropped off our small bag, said hello to our fantastic (best ever?) cabin steward Josephine (who was very efficient and never too busy to stop for a chat) and by 12:15 were sitting in the Verona Buffet. We'd used the Baggage Handling Company for most of our luggage wand we'll definitely be using them again in February for Oceana.

ONBOARD AZURA
We chose traditional second sitting and were in the Peninsular dining room on a table of 8, with 3 other couples of similar age and interest to ourselves so we met regularly for drinks etc pre and post dinner. We ate in the MDR most nights, and overall the food was enjoyable. Our assistant waiter was helpful and friendly, but the other waiter never stopped for a moment and sometimes we felt rushed by him. I didn't like it when he almost interrogated me if I left anything and needed to know what was wrong with it. On a couple of occasions, the maitre d' even came across to ask as well. All a bit over the top!
We particularly enjoyed a great dinner / wine tasting hosted by Olly Smith in The Glass House and also had dinner in the Glass House on another evening. The food was pretty good but the Tempura Prawns were tiny compared to how big they were last time we were aboard. We also hoped to eat in the Verona and thought if we went after 8 we'd get a table but they'd closed the waiting list.
The Glass House was definitely our favourite bar but we also liked the Planet Bar with the view and the travel slide shows.
We went to some of the theatre shows, although we'd seen many of the acts before. My OH particularly liked the Kiwi tenor Ben Makisi but he wasn't really my taste and neither of us like the hyper-active Chapman Brothers. There was also a 'professional pickpocket' Bob Arno who got people up onto the stage to humiliate them. Pretty tasteless. Most nights we went either to Manhattan or Malabar for one of the cabarets and preferred that to the main theatre, although to be fair we never had any trouble getting seats at the second show in the theatre. There were usually 2 shows in the theatre, at 8:30 and 10:30 and various other times throughout the evening in the show lounges including one at 11:30 which was often a tribute act. Neil Oliver was CD and full marks to him and the rest of the Ents team. But was TV Azura meant to be a spoof?? The speakers were not to my taste at all and they were definitely more biased towards men's interests – as has been the case on our last two cruises on P&O

ITINERARY
We mainly DIY in ports and with a bit of research beforehand, it is relatively easy and certainly cheaper.
Our first port of call was Lisbon and we were lucky enough to be docked at the new terminal close to the city centre close to Oriana and Ventura. We walked from there to the food and flower market then back to the Placa Comercio where we took the seven hills guided tram tour.
Although I'm more a night owl than an early bird, it was well worth getting up early for the sail-in to our next port Malta. Stunning! We took the hoho bus on the blue route to Mdina for 10 Euros. The stop was just 100 yards to the right of the port gates, although we had to wait about 30 minutes. Medina was beautiful and we'd particularly recommend the Fontanella tea-garden with amazing views over the countryside and very very reasonable prices.
From Kusadasi we decided to visit Ephesus again and it didn't disappoint although as usual there were thousands of tourists there. We took the P&O tour which included the Terraced Houses and these are a definite must-see. We manage to avoid the carpet shop but as a shopaholic, I couldn't miss the bazaar and we had a lovely lunch in a really traditional Turkish restaurant and found the most amazing deli which made it's own Turkish Delight and other delicacies.
The sail through the Bosphorus was during the day but sadly we never saw the Dardanelles in daylight. However it was amazing to see the Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia and Topokapi Palace from the ship as we sailed north towards the Black Sea to Yalta. We booked a private tour with a couple we'd met on a cruise forum and our guide was Sergey Sorokin who was a young well-educated man with fluent English. We chose our own itinerary and so we headed first of all towards Balaclava where we saw the monument on the site of the Charge of the Light Brigade, then the secret Russian submarine base at Balaclava which is a whole lot interesting than it sounds before seeing the Panorama Museum in Sevastopol. A series of enormous paintings and 3-D props reflect the story of one of the main battles of the Crimean War and this was one of the highlights of our whole cruise. Go and see this if you're ever in the Crimea. FANTASTIC. We had an interesting local Crimean Tartar lunch chosen by Sergey before the unimaginable happened!! The rain had been falling steadily and we'd seen thunderstorms around so we found our route back to Yalta to the Livadia Palace blocked by a mud-slide with the mud reaching over the wheel arches of the cars stuck in it. Whatever happened Sergey was going to get us back to the ship and after a few failed attempts on some of the mountain roads, he called one of his friends, who met us on the other side of the land-slip. The ship was delayed leaving that day because some of the P&O coaches we'd seen en-route had been severely delayed by the road closures / broken down.
We arrived a little later than planned in Odessa next day but we were having a quiet day walking round enjoying the shops and lovely buildings. The P&O shore guide for this port is sadly out of date and the map useless so we met lots of fellow passengers wandering round totally lost!
What can I say about Istanbul other than make it a priority to go and whatever you do DON'T BOOK A TOUR but enjoy the fantastic atmosphere in this amazing city by exploring on your own. The tram which leaves from just outside the port is cool and clean and only costs 3TL and takes you straight to the main sites with a plan of the route in English to help you. We loved having an overnight stay and organised a trip out with 12 fellow cruisers to a night-club - great fun but we also especially liked seeing how vibrant the city was, the famous Taksim Square (which was full of young people socialising, having a good time) and having a tour of the Sultanahmet area by night. I could go on forever about this port and what we saw but maybe that will have to wait for my book “Howto have a great time on a cruise without going on an excursion”!!
Sadly Mytilene was cancelled as it was too windy to use the tenders so Athens was our next port. Here we took the metro into the city – so easy and so cheap - and spent time at the Acropolis (again) and in the Plaka on the “Happy Train” before enjoying a leisurely lunch in the sunshine. We saw a HUGE demonstration inSyntagma Square although it was very peaceful vbut noisy. We asked some Greek people about it and they said it was another demo about the economy.
Our sail across the Mediterranean was smooth, sunny and uneventful, although many people felt that a stop at one of the ports in Southern Spain would have been better than the perpetual Vigo. We took the 'Santiago On Your Own' tour and were really disappointed that we were left with only 2 hours of the 5 hour duration to explore on our own and enjoy the food in a fab tapas bar. An hour of our stay in Santiago was wasted by the guide getting everybody to queue for the toilets and then making us get back to the bus station 30 minutes before the bus was due to leave. Now I remember why we don't do ship's tours

DISEMBARKATION
We were lucky enough to get off the ship very early and also to find our luggage without any difficulty- thank to our 'markers' which made the cases stand out. There were lots of taxis waiting but unfortunately we were dropped off at the wrong side for our journey. It's worth pointing out that is you're heading to Birmingham or beyond you should ask your driver to drop you off at the Blechynden terrace entrance.

OVERALL
We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and would highly recommend our aft cabin C753 for which we paid full price. Yes there's been some cutting of corners on P&O but that's inevitable in the current economic climate and it didn't affect our enjoyment. Azura is a large ship but there were always sun-beds available even near the pools which we've heard as a regular complaint and we never had to queue for anything. It will be interesting to compare our experience when we sail on Ruby Princess, Azura's sister ship, next year. On the down side, we met a lot of professional moaners on board and we got a bit cheeses off by them. The ones we met complained constantly about P&O but only ever sailed with them. Why if P&O is that bad?? Don't these people realise that life is too short and we all need to get out there and enjoy life? Our next cruise (before Oceana in February) is on Independence of the Seas and it will be very interesting to compare the attitudes of people on that.

[Jacknian]

Thanks for your interesting report, sounds like you had a great time. I find it strange too that some people complain about things constantly but are still cruising with P&O , can't be that bad !

[barney]

A lovely report thank you Arrbee

It sounds like you had a wonderful time

ref. the serial moaners, I actually just take the pee a little now (much to mrs barney's reservations)

Some just can't help it. It seems that folk who moan on a cruise, moan about pretty much everything else in life as well.

Such a shame 'cos you're a long time dead

[Manoverboard]

Thanks for taking the time to write out a well thought out report ... my book, by the way, would be ' How to spend a fortnight in Istanbul without seeing the same thing twice '.

People who moan do so, I suspect, because they have lost the art of conversation else are boring by default

Bloody P&O, I just hated that sea screen in the driving rain else fog

[Gill W]

Hello there, thanks for posting your review, it's really interesting to find out other peoples experiences.

I agree, the Panorama at Sevastopol was fantastic. Our tour guide told us that, as it's illuminated by natural light, it looks different every day, depending on whether it's sunny, cloudy, raining etc. It certainly was an unexpected gem.

Regarding the day time speakers. As the weather was so good, generally all I needed for day time entertainment was a lounger or chair and my Kindle. However, if the weather had not been so favourable, I would probably have gone some of the talks. I'd have probably found some of the WW2 talks interesting, as my dad was in North Africa and Italy, but most of the talks do seem to be about war, battles and aviation. I do enjoy history, but would personally like to hear talks on the social history side, rather than war. Or alternatively, talks on the arts, such as books, theatre and film.

Another time, I think I'd go more often to the show lounges, rather than the main theatre. I love The Headliners, but even I've seen the current batch of shows too many times now.

On this cruise, it seemed many people wanted to do the same things at the same time. The key was to avoid the bottlenecks, which you were able to do on 2nd sitting, and I feel we were able to do this by being flexible on freedom dining.

I'm glad you enjoyed yourselves. It was a great cruise, and I think it has generally received the thumbs up. As for the moaners, give 'em a wide berth!

[Somergirl]

An interesting report Arrbee, It sounds like a lovely itinerary and one that is on my wish list, at the moment I can't take that long off work, roll on retirement!

I am not a fan of ships tours and even as a solo traveller prefer to do my own thing, I hate being organized in a group. But I do worry about not getting back to the ship on time, I would have been in a complete panic with the mud slide.

I really dont understand the need some people have to moan about everything, they are so luck to be able to cruise and visit such lovely desinations. I work with lots of people who are struggling to make ends meet let alone have a lovely holiday. As other have said if you dont like P&O try something else.
Somergirl

[Suekersh]

Really enjoyed your report. The Black Sea cruise is on my wish list. Doesn't look like it is on the itinerary for 2014 so maybe back for 2015.

Sue

[arrbee]

Thanks for all your comments. We had a great time but we love every cruise we go on: I always say my favourite cruise is always the one I'm on or the one I've just been on.
We're like you Somergirl and think we're just so lucky to be able to cruise and visit such interesting places. We don't cruise only with P&O but overall they seem to suit us best. We used the MDR dining room for breakfast more than ever before and that was certainly where moaners seemed to congregate- or at least we met one every morning.
And I agree with you too, manoverboard, that there's definitely a book there in that title. We just loved that, round every corner in Istanbul, there was something interesting or quirky. One of our favourite moments was visiting an art shop in a back street where the artist sold all his own work and must have been at least 80 - but what an amazing man. Needless to say we left with one of his paintings

And Gill I would have had no complaint if there had been only one speaker talking about the war / aviation etc but as you know that's pretty much all there was. It didn't bother me as the weather was [mainly] so good but I just thought I'd mention it in the review. I too would have loved to hear more of the social history.

[Marlin 48]

Sorry if this is a bit late but i have been off the forum for quite a while and i have very little to add to arrbee's post which is great, my one little bit of info is about tours which we also try to avoid is if you are in Istanbul on a Tuesday the palace and harem are closed to the public but ships tours are allowed in and it is sheer pleasure to get round without massive crowds and we even got to see the making of a historic film with dozens of historic uniforms.
We were on Azura for this cruise in 2012.