Azamara Cruises: Small Ships With Celebrity Status
The current buzz at Celebrity Cruises is for its new brand, Azamara Cruises. Launched this past spring, Azamara will have two 710-passenger ships in operation beginning late fall. Azamara Journey is already sailing a series of Bermuda itineraries, even as the product is being developed and refined. It will be joined by Azamara Quest late this fall.
Azamara’s ships are ex-Renaissance Cruises’ vessels, highly
acclaimed for their intimacy and functionality. To bring them up to Celebrity’s standards, Azamara Journey underwent major renovations this past summer that, among other things, introduced two alternative dining venues: Prime C, for steak and seafood, and Aqualina, for “contemporary American cuisine with a Mediterranean flair.” Each guest gets one dinner in one of the two alternative restaurants as part of the cruise fare (suite guests get two). Otherwise, it’s $25 per person for Prime C (tip included) and $20 per person for Aqualina.
In positioning itself, Azamara coined a new category, “deluxe,”
which the company says falls between “premium” (think Holland America Line, Celebrity Cruises and Princess Cruises) and “luxury” (Regent Seven Seas Cruises, Seabourn Cruise Line, Silversea Cruises and Crystal Cruises).
Though Azamara will boast many of the luxury cruise trappings,
such as butler service and fine dining, staterooms aren’t particularly large,
with ocean-view staterooms measuring up to 175 square feet, about what you’d
expect to find on premium category ships and thus the positioning in the “deluxe” category.
Azamara reminds us of another cruise line operating ex-Renaissance ships: Oceania Cruises. And while Celebrity is still ramping up its small-ship brand, we suspect the company’s imprint on its two small ships will give them “Celebrity” status.
Following Journey’s Bermuda season, she heads to South America and Antarctica before heading to Europe next April. Itineraries will run from ten nights to 18. Azamara Quest will operate in Asia, beginning with a 24-night voyage from Greece to Malaysia.
