Azura cruise to Venice

First time on Azura, but have cruised with P & O for 20 years. We had requested and paid for a cabin on the mid lower decks, P & O gave us an “upgrade” to an inside cabin at the front of A deck. We did not want an upgrade and had no choice but to accept, certainly didn’t think this was an upgrade especially to someone like me who suffers from seasickness, it was the worst position a cabin could be. The cabin was a good size because of the walk in wardrobe and thankfully the weather was good. The entertainment was good and Neil Oliver, Cruise Director, was fantastic. We especially liked the theatre company and the two singers, both from Wigan. We think the entertainment in the bars was good, but in Malabar some of the seating made it impossible to see the performers. The menu wasn’t as good as previous cruises, on those if you didn’t like what was on the menu, you could have a grilled steak, chicken breast or salmon, but only chicken or salmon was available. Only serving either semi-skimmed or skimmed milk was available this was especially disappointing for my husband at breakfast, sugar is added to semi and skimmed milk and whole milk is only 4% fat not added sugar, so didn’t understand this. The other problem we found with Azura, the chairs aren’t comfortable, we are used to nice deep armchairs especially in places like the Crow’s Nest, but although we tried everywhere and some looked comfortable, we never found a comfortable chair on Azura.

Our visit to Venice was the main reason for booking this cruise. We paid for the transfer from the ship to St. Mark’s Square, just like we have done in previous years. We got off the ship and after a walk, which was difficult as my husband is disabled, we were taken to a stop and had to wait for a bus, we couldn’t understand what was going on as previously we just went to the front of the ship and the little boats went back and forth all day. When the bus arrived we had a short walk and arrived were the small boat was moored. We had intended to go into Venice, return to the ship, then back to Venice, this we were unable to do because of the time taken to get to the boat. This was repeated on return to the ship, boat from St. Marks square, then walk to and wait for bus (in the open heat) then onto the bus, then a walk to the ship. It was never explained to us why we had to travel this way and it was very bad as we were queuing in the heat. My husband found the films on deck during the morning a distraction and the film couldn’t be viewed by anyone as the sun prevented this. We still enjoyed Venice, although in the past the ship has always stayed overnight and we missed spending the evening in Venice. Although we were priority embarkation, we had to queue for a long time without any explanations, never have we had to queue for so long, even before we had priority embarkation. Disembarkation was good. We would look at other ships before Azura, but having said that it would be good for our grandchildren.