As I was finishing university and about to start full time work in the end of January I decided I wanted to go away on an extended trip before then. Thus the date was the main deciding factor for our cruise. In our research We looked at sights like Vacationstogo and we utilised our Cruise Weekly subscription. To me I wanted to try something more premium then princess, and that meant choosing a cruise line that was Holland America or better. Now our limitation for luxury was that we had a budget. Initially we were very much interested in Crystal Cruises as we had inspected the Crystal Symphony in Sydney last year. But we found them extremely expensive relative to other cruise lines.
But we turned to other companies, and we quickly found a boutique cruise line called Azamara Club Cruises. We found both of these cruises, and we were immediately interested. The reason why were interested is because it stopped everywhere. It takes 24 nights for Azamara to traverse a distance that takes other bigger ships 12 days. Thus we were very much interested in this cruise that didn't skip anywhere. Here I compare the same cruise on the Crystal Serenity vs Azamara.
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| 14 nights |
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| 12 Nights |
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| 10 nights |
From this we were pretty much sold on the Azamara cruise. The more we researched about Azamara and their style of cruising we became convinced to book. One observation I have to make about Azamara is the terrible quality of their call centre. It has been outsourced to Guatemala and they're pretty much like robots. They are definitely not on your side and obviously Royal Caribbean is trying to save a buck. To me it's a big let down for an apparent luxury cruise line. If this exact same itinerary were offered at this time of year on a carnival owned company i would choose that. Upon reflecting on this, is to me a cruise depends on dates, price, destination and the ship. Make sure you balance all of these for your cruise. Also don't be afraid to change your mind or try a cruise line that you wouldn't normally cruise on.
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