Amazing Azamara – Day 18 – Heading for Iceland

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Day 18 — Tuesday, 19th August
Heading for Iceland

6.05am: Morning all! It’s Tuesday and a grey and foggy one out there, where the radar puts us about halfway between Greenland and Iceland. We’re doing a comfortable 15 knots, but there’s a bit of a swell on! 🤢🤢.

This final part of our Cruise has just 350 miles (ish) to cover before we reach Reykjavik Skarfabakki Cruise Terminal – and then our Cruise is over! (boo!) but the holiday isn’t (yay!). We then jump on a plane and head north to Akureyri.

So, today is another sea day! 🤔. Ang guess what? We’re told there’s a high chance we’ll see Whales! 👍. In fact, we had to wait until our visit to the Italian Restaurant – Aqualina, tonight – before we spotted a Humpback off the stern! (that’s my third sighting, this holiday) 👍😁

All at Sea (for the last time!)

We’ve got a plan to keep us busy on this final day… First it’s the Presentations…

Forensic DNA – The Search for Jack the Ripper

10.00am: The whole ship had been looking forward to this one! Because of the extra sea days, this part had been postponed, so the anticipation was high for Dr. Hal Tinberg’s final presentation. We left with lots of information we didn’t already know about this infamous series of crimes from 1888. Current thinking is that Jack the Ripper was a WOMAN! 🤔

Animals in Iceland

11.00am: Dr Ron Orenstein returned for his final session. As usual, it was packed with information. Today’s ‘top tip’? Don’t call an Icelandic Pony – a Pony! It’s an Icelandic HORSE.

Now the necessary, but boring bit….

12.10pm: The final piece of paperwork to get us to where we’re going was checking in for tomorrow. It was completely pain-free and completed in minutes.

The Final Booze

5.00pm: Our last visit to the ‘Land of the Piña Coladas‘ aka the Piano Bar aka the Atlas Bar.

The Final Posh

6.05pm: Posh Restaurant time! 👍. This was our fifth visit here during the Cruise, and it didn’t disappoint (again!)

Wow! What a meal!! 👏😁

We’ve got any early start tomorrow! Breakfast at 6.30am with Ralph & Karen before saying goodbye to the Azamara Quest. An early night was called for! 👋

Azamara – Was it Amazing??

Phew! We’ve seen a lot, eaten a lot, drunk even more – and we can feel we have! The diet begins next Monday!

So, what did we think of Azamara as a cruise experience? We can only base it on this one, our most recent trip, but in short: ‘excellent’.

Those of you who know us well know that we’ve seen quite a few cruises in our 40+ years together – and Ann, who was cruising before we met, has even more ‘deck plans under her belt’.

It’s easy to get cynical about the whole ‘cruise thing’ – captive audience, food quantity v quality, expensive excursions etc, but in many ways, Azamara Quest has broken the mould for us. Pretty much everything they did was a few notches above our expectations. Specifically, the food, the overall quality of entertainment, the enrichment lectures and most importantly, the all-you-can-slurp, ‘Mr Whippy’ ice-cream machine 😉. More seriously and more broadly, communication – the big and small stuff – was delivered clearly and in a timely fashion. Above all of that, and most satisfying of all, was the whole staff attitude thing – executed, in our eyes, genuinely and consistently! The result? The ship felt more like a large family with the ship’s officers, the staff, the entertainers, and the singers all genuinely looking like they were the best of friends – and we were included. A really nice touch!

Some things don’t change though. For one, the internet speed at sea! In spite of Azamara Quest using the latest ‘Starlink’ satellites to provide the service, it was as intermittent as ever. OK, it’s not a massive issue if you’re in true ‘holiday mode’ and just posting the occasional Facebook pic or checking emails, but for sad buggers like me, a better quality and more consistent coverage was anticipated. Sadly, it was all a bit hit-and-miss. There’s an option to pay even more to provide a higher speed – but 10 times ‘very poor’ is still, err, ‘poor’! Consequently, we remained on the lower-tier package throughout the trip, where at best we saw 10Mb/sec down and at worst, slightly less than 1 up. Really? This is 2025, not 1995! At the time of writing, only a single device can be connected at any one time, which presented its own set of challenges for this Blogger (getting the photographs from the phone to the laptop was always an interesting and time-consuming past-time). The good news is that future bookings will allow TWO devices on the same connection, and I also hear they might be making the basic Wi-Fi package FREE. Oh joy! That’ll make things even more congested 😕.

Elsewhere, putting technology to one side, the cost of this-and-that is much more straightforward with Azamara Cruises! Their business model is that pretty much everything is included in the price you’ve paid. It’s therefore perfectly possible to eat and/or drink yourself into oblivion and not spend a bean over and above the cost of the initial booking and the basic Wi-Fi. Yes, that was us!!

The destinations for this Cruise were what really attracted us. We’ve now learned that Greenland is a fragile location with regard to the weather – and our three cancelled ‘stops’ were testament to that, where we also learned that previous visits had been similarly affected. Given that Mother Nature will always win, we can’t help but ask whether Greenland is a viable destination, long-term. No traveller wants their itinerary chopped and changed, and it’s not good business sense for Azamara to have to keep refunding guests for those missed opportunities. No doubt, it’s a discussion for Azamara and other Cruise Operators at a future time.

So that’s it, warts ‘n’ all. Overall, I think we’ll look back very fondly on this one for a suitcase full of reasons. We wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Azamara for your next Cruise experience. Thanks Azamara – you are amazing! 👍😁👍😁

Tomorrow…

9.05pm: And for the last time aboard the Azamara Quest, it’s goodnight from Stateroom 6005 – we disembark early tomorrow morning (around 7.30am!). Next stop? Akureyri, Iceland! 👍😁