azamara cruises, azamara journey, bermuda

Prime C, specialty restaurant

Our first appointment on this day at sea is with the group.  We have a brief introduction session, followed by short talks by some of the ship's senior personnel.  We meet the loyalty program ambassador, the cruise director Becky, the Food and Beverage manager, the Revenue manger who manages the boutiques and shops and the staff captain, Captain Carl.  This is Becky's first week "on-duty", she was onboard for the first time last week observing with the previous director.  She hails from the Infinity, a "big-ship" in the Celebrity fleet.  The staff captain moves into full master duties in 5 weeks when the current captain takes his vacation leave.  The Food and Beverage manager is also on is way out for vacation.  It's obvious that Azamara Journey is still very much in transition, with staff and personal that originally "introduced" the ship moving off for a vacation/break period or getting ready for the introduction of the second Azamara ship, the Quest, in the next few weeks. 

After the group meeting, we're on our own to further explore and enjoy the day at sea.  Sea days are always very relaxing, and it's prefect to have one this early in the itinerary since it provides a great opportunity to become acquainted with your new home-away-from-home.   We have dinner reservations in Prime C, one of the two specialty restaurants onboard Journey this evening, so we opt for a light lunch in the buffet cafe.  The buffet, Windows Cafe, is located on deck 9 at the rear of the ship, and includes the outdoor "fantail" deck running the full width of the ship.  Azamara has reduced the seating area of this outdoor space by adding a large cocktail bar in the center.  However, there is no seating at the bar, a bit of a disappointment since this is such a great, relaxing area.  In addition to the outdoor seating, there are inside table areas on both sides, wrapped around the buffet areas.  We're told that these buffets will change daily, unlike some of the bigger ships that seem to have the exact same choices every day.  We’ll keep an eye on the choices here during the week.

Some of the afternoon is spent relaxing around the pool.  The Azamara Journey has a single pool with two hot tubs in the central area.  There's a pool bar on one end of the area and an outdoor stage on the other.  There's a small thalasso therapy pool located at the front of the ship, accessed through the spa.  Some ships have decided to require a spa fee to access this therapy pool, however on the Journey it's available to anyone at no additional cost.

We have dinner reservations at one of the specialty dining venues tonight.  Besides the Windows Cafe buffet and Discoveries, the main dining room, there are two specialty restaurants on board that require reservations and have a small service surcharge of $20-$25  The goal for Aqualina, the Mediterranean influenced restaurant, and Prime C, the stylish steak house, is to provide a distinctive dining experience worthy of any fine land based restaurant.  Located at the rear of the ship on deck 10, both specialty restaurants offer beautiful views from the ship. Our groups' rating of this first specialty dinner experiences was excellent.  The menu had plenty of choices both for seafood and steak lovers. In addition there are selections of chicken, lamb and pork. We enjoyed the very attentive services of a waiter, an assistant waiter and the restaurant maitre d.   The entire dinner experience lasted almost 2 hours for us, allowing us just enough time to see the first production show of the week.

The show entitled "That's Hollywood" includes a very talented cast of 5 (2 men and 3 women) who provided a quite enjoyable evening performance.  Currently with only two production shows, the line will be adding a 3rd show when they begin the longer sailings after the Bermuda season.  The 2nd show will be presented on Thursday evening after we depart from Bermuda.  In between, the entertainment selection offers a slight-of-hand performance, a comedian as well as one evening with a special performance of a local folklore band from Bermuda.