Eastern Med back to backs

We did two back to back Eastern Med cruises on the Quest to fulfil an ambition to sail in and out of Venice. Both our departures from Venice were spectacular with glorious evening sunshine bathing the old buildings alongside the Grand Canal. Just what we planned and hoped for.
The ports of call on both cruises were generally excellent and mainly new to us. Croatia was a revelation and somewhere we have earmarked for a return (non cruise) visit. Our only real destination disappointment was Brindisi both because the town was a non event, and the surrounding area scruffy, but also because the Trulli houses we had looked forward to seeing were a bit of a let down. Are we pleased that we hadn’t done a land based holiday in this part of Southern Italy . A week or two down there would have been a week or two too long !!
The ship was just the right size for us at around 670 passengers. We aren’t big cruisers but the thought of a ship carrying 5 or 6 thousand passengers is a step too far for us. The Quest was small enough to berth in most ports (not all) so we weren’t faced with daily tender boats to get ashore. The crew were attentive, friendly and fantastic with 50 different crew nationalities on board it was like sailing with the United Nations. The cabins (staterooms) we had were a bit smaller than we expected but we made good use of our balcony to watch the world go by.
The food was excellent and we ate in the serviced restaurant most evenings with only an occasional visit to the self service buffet dinner which had a theme on most evenings (French, Italian etc). We didn’t feel the need to pay extra to visit one of the two “special” restaurants even though the American guests on board all seemed to want to brag that they had !! The wine and drinks included in the package were generally excellent and they certainly didn’t scrimp on quantity if you felt like having a good session. We could see no reason to pay an expensive upgrade to allow access to what Azamara called their Premium packages unless , of course , you wanted bragging rights over your dinner partner or other guests!!
The entertainment, for a small ship, was very, very, good. The Cruise Director was an extrovert with a lot of talent plus the supporting singers, dancers and musicians were very talented and hard working.
Our only gripe with Azamara was the cost of their excursions which were astronomically expensive. Virtually all could be done locally at about 25% of the cost on board. I would recommend anyone to avoid Azamara’s excursions. I don’t think we found one we could describe as value for money.
Our only other gripe was with Bolsover Cruise Club who, having taken our booking , over 12 months ago, left us to sort out too many things on our own . On the occasions we asked for help, or guidance , they put the ball back in our court every time. We were left to interrogate the Azamara web site, which took an enormous amount of time and frustration, to find out about excursions, flight arrangements, bag labels, etc and as non regular cruisers we were expecting more help from the “experts”.