Just back from the Azura and have lots of feedback for you as well as some pictures, so you can decide for yourselves if she will be the ship for you in 2010!
I wasn’t too sure what to expect from the Azura, as I had heard very mixed views of the Ventura, the sister ship, as some felt she was proving far too popular with families with young children, so wasn’t to everyone’s taste! I had also heard that P&O were going to try to keep the Azura more traditional and a little less family focused, so it would be interesting to see how they had done this.
So lets start with the cabins; I was allocated one of the JF grade balcony cabins, A602, I liked the layout of the cabin, quite often you find the bathrooms are situated almost within the doorway, but in our cabin it was almost in a separate area, along with the wardrobe space. The size of the cabin was good, and we had tea and coffee making facilties (as well as biscuits which went down well!) The balcony was a little smaller in comparison to other balcony cabins I had stayed i
n, but still, it had space for 2 chairs and a small table too.
A really important observation I made was that up on A deck, we could see the balcony cabins on the C and D decks below us, I wouldn’t really want to be overlooked from people above if I was using my balcony so I would definitely recommend choosing a balcony on either A or B decks on this ship.
Next on to the dining; I was very impressed with the standard of the food served onboard. We fist ate in the buffet style restaurant “Venezia” for lunch and there was a really good variety of both hot and cold food, as well as a good selection of desserts. It was the evening meal that really impressed me, the food was delicious.
Quite often you hear the term “fine dining” but as you can imagine, when catering for 1000’s it must be pretty hard to achieve this, P&O seemed to pull this off effortlessly! I went for the steak
(whenever I cruise, I will always opt for the steak as to this day I have never had a better steak than onboard a cruise ship), my colleagues sampled the lobster and another went for the sea bass. Everyone was really happy with the food and it was of a higher standard than I had expected. We finished with dessert and then a cheese board and coffees.
Unfortunately I didn’t get to dine in Atul Kochhars Indian restaurant “Sindhu” but I thought it looked fantastic with lots of dark wood and beautiful crystal, I would love to try that out in the future! A definite must if you are perhaps celebrating a special occasion onboard as it is a very intimate restaurant.
The Oasis Spa area was large and did have some really nice features, like the treatment rooms, I was impressed at how advanced they were, for example, they have a specialist o
nboard who gives skin consultations and can even provide botox!
The Retreat, an open air spa terrace, is one of the areas that P&O have introduced that really gives the ship a more adult feel as no kids are allowed in this area! It is an open area with a very relaxed feel, with cozy outdoor seating areas, and private cabanas that can be booked for outdoor massage treatments. It will be interesting to see how serene this area is when they are operating at full capacity.. although, they do charge to use the area so I guess this will limit numbers.
After our meal we headed to check out the bars and theatre, theatre was a good size, and ther
e were lots of different areas for spending the evenings in. We headed to “Manhattans” which seemed to be the place to be, we saw an excellent live performer and then tested out the
dance floor for a few hours afterw
ards!
My overall thoughts on the Azura are very positive, I think they have done an excellent job of creating a balance between both adult and kids facilties, they have still provided great kids clubs for all ages, games rooms and outdoor games courts. I also think this would be a great choice for younger couples who are new to cruising too.
I wasn’t too sure what to expect from the Azura, as I had heard very mixed views of the Ventura, the sister ship, as some felt she was proving far too popular with families with young children, so wasn’t to everyone’s taste! I had also heard that P&O were going to try to keep the Azura more traditional and a little less family focused, so it would be interesting to see how they had done this.
So lets start with the cabins; I was allocated one of the JF grade balcony cabins, A602, I liked the layout of the cabin, quite often you find the bathrooms are situated almost within the doorway, but in our cabin it was almost in a separate area, along with the wardrobe space. The size of the cabin was good, and we had tea and coffee making facilties (as well as biscuits which went down well!) The balcony was a little smaller in comparison to other balcony cabins I had stayed i
n, but still, it had space for 2 chairs and a small table too.A really important observation I made was that up on A deck, we could see the balcony cabins on the C and D decks below us, I wouldn’t really want to be overlooked from people above if I was using my balcony so I would definitely recommend choosing a balcony on either A or B decks on this ship.
Next on to the dining; I was very impressed with the standard of the food served onboard. We fist ate in the buffet style restaurant “Venezia” for lunch and there was a really good variety of both hot and cold food, as well as a good selection of desserts. It was the evening meal that really impressed me, the food was delicious.
Quite often you hear the term “fine dining” but as you can imagine, when catering for 1000’s it must be pretty hard to achieve this, P&O seemed to pull this off effortlessly! I went for the steak
(whenever I cruise, I will always opt for the steak as to this day I have never had a better steak than onboard a cruise ship), my colleagues sampled the lobster and another went for the sea bass. Everyone was really happy with the food and it was of a higher standard than I had expected. We finished with dessert and then a cheese board and coffees.Unfortunately I didn’t get to dine in Atul Kochhars Indian restaurant “Sindhu” but I thought it looked fantastic with lots of dark wood and beautiful crystal, I would love to try that out in the future! A definite must if you are perhaps celebrating a special occasion onboard as it is a very intimate restaurant.
The Oasis Spa area was large and did have some really nice features, like the treatment rooms, I was impressed at how advanced they were, for example, they have a specialist o
nboard who gives skin consultations and can even provide botox!The Retreat, an open air spa terrace, is one of the areas that P&O have introduced that really gives the ship a more adult feel as no kids are allowed in this area! It is an open area with a very relaxed feel, with cozy outdoor seating areas, and private cabanas that can be booked for outdoor massage treatments. It will be interesting to see how serene this area is when they are operating at full capacity.. although, they do charge to use the area so I guess this will limit numbers.
After our meal we headed to check out the bars and theatre, theatre was a good size, and ther
e were lots of different areas for spending the evenings in. We headed to “Manhattans” which seemed to be the place to be, we saw an excellent live performer and then tested out the
dance floor for a few hours afterw
ards!My overall thoughts on the Azura are very positive, I think they have done an excellent job of creating a balance between both adult and kids facilties, they have still provided great kids clubs for all ages, games rooms and outdoor games courts. I also think this would be a great choice for younger couples who are new to cruising too.
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