You would possibly suppose our Atlantic Coast voyage on the Azamara Quest was all brie, tapas and good wine. In the course of the voyage I used to be additionally in a position to sit down with Captain Jonas Lyddby, the Grasp of the Azamara Quest. I’ve by no means sat down with a Captain earlier than! There have been loads of questions I wished to ask. When the chance offered itself, I put aside the brie, tapas and good wine and picked up my pad and pen.
How is the ship’s firm organized? There are a number of departments together with these involved with the operation of the vessel just like the Deck and Engine departments. There are vital ones we don’t see, like Safety. The first ones we passengers work together with match throughout the Lodge Division, which additionally contains Meals & Beverage. The Captain sits on high of the organizational construction, bearing general accountability.
Stability at sea. There are professionals and cons to all the things. Our 10 day cruise included just one sea day, we had been in ports on the opposite days. That could be a professional for stability. Once we weren’t in port we had been within the Bay of Biscay, not identified for its calm seas. That’s a con for my part. The Azamara Quest is a 30,000 ton vessel. It has stabilizers that may be deployed in tough seas, functioning like a horizontal rudder. I requested Captain Lyddby in regards to the stability of the bigger megaships carrying 6,000 passengers, about ten occasions the Quest’s present passenger praise. He defined, from firsthand expertise the bigger ships may be fairly secure as a result of they’re wider. He defined the scale of the vessel isn’t the determinant of stability at sea. Stability is set by the design of the ship, the engineering and naval structure concerned. (I felt the movement at occasions, however our ahead, going through cabin was positioned beneath the command bridge.)
The place are the passengers from? The vast majority of passengers on this cruise are from the US and the UK. Spain and different international locations are additionally represented. (FYI: The passenger going through crew are primarily from Indonesia, the Philippines and India, which I realized from the Meals & Beverage Supervisor throughout his interview. Fluency in English is a main qualification.)
What differentiates Azamara from the competitors? The voyages are port intensive. The target is to ship immersion into the tradition. You spend extra time in port, have a wide array of excursions aligned with what makes the port particular, onboard native leisure introduced from ashore, eating that includes the choice of native delicacies and onboard port lectures. Passengers can select the diploma of immersion that’s proper for them.
Crusing smaller ships permits Azamara to get into ports bigger ships can not. This implies shorter driving distances to get to sights and extra docking and fewer tendering. Smaller ships contain a tradeoff regarding facilities, however that isn’t a giant problem. The grownup viewers selecting to journey on Azamara isn’t in search of a go cart observe onboard.
Do Azamara ships actually sail world wide? It feels just like the ship is all the time going someplace new. In contrast to Caribbean voyages repeating the identical out and again itineraries, Azamara organizes its voyages in segments. Our voyage left Southampton, crusing to Lisbon. After we disembarked, the ship sailed from Lisbon to Barcelona over eight nights. From Barcelona, it headed to Athens. You get the thought. Captain Lyddby talked about there is likely to be a world cruise in 2023 or 2024.
After my interview, I realized extra in regards to the Captain and officers from informal conversations with passengers. Captains have followings! Repeat clients will generally select their Azamara ship and segments primarily based on who’s Captain on their voyage. (Captains get trip time too.) The officers and crew are held in excessive regard, typically serving alongside crew members at stay cooking stations within the eating room, for instance. As I discussed earlier, after we disembarked in Lisbon a day early, we carried our personal baggage, as per the rules for early departure. I used to be amazed a crew member and the officer answerable for housekeeping insisted on taking our baggage from us and carrying it to the taxi stand, discovering us a taxi and loading our baggage into the trunk.
Captain Jonas Lyddby and his crew gave me an excellent understanding of what units Azamara aside.
Cowl photograph courtesy Azamara
Many due to Azamara and its very succesful staff in working with me on arranging and serving to us with our great Azamara Quest cruise. Due to the All Issues Cruise staff as properly for introducing me to Azamara!
See sailings right here: Azamara Quest (cruisecompete.com), Azamara all ships
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Additionally see Total Overview: Our Azamara Quest Atlantic Coast Cruise – All Issues Cruise
