The Journey Begins-- Hong Kong

Azamara Quest Arriving HKG

We are underway today on AZAMARA QUEST on a voyage that will take us through the South China Sea from Hong Kong down to Singapore with stops in Vietnam and Thailand. That sounds pretty straightforward, right?  It is but maybe I am assuming that the reader knows about QUEST and AZAMARA and what a treat this assignment is.

QUEST and its sister ship, AZAMARA JOURNEY are the two ships that make up Azamara Club Cruises.  Azamara Club Cruises is a part of the Royal Caribbean Lines Group which includes the well known Celebrity Lines among other operating units.  It has been around since 2007, first as Azamara Lines.  More recently it has changed its name to Azamara Club Cruises to correspond with the overall place that the company occupies in the Cruising Community.  That niche is providing a premium experience to seasoned passengers who want the time to enjoy both the days they spend onboard and ashore in the ports of call.

Shopping the Streets

Aboard, in addition to excellent cuisine, passengers are treated to select boutique vintages at lunch and dinner.  By treated, I am being literal; the wines, soft drinks and speciality coffees and teas are complementary. Concierge service and a full pallet of shipboard and shoreside activities make sure that the passengers enjoy their time on board.  I am glad to say that they still have an array of speakers to enhance the time on the ship and acquaint their clients with the culture and give insights into the countries visited. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have the opportunity to enjoy the Azamara Club Cruise experience.

Ashore, the size of the Azamara Club Cruises vessels allow them to go alongside at ports the array of ever larger ships can not enter.  By tying up in the middle of the action and stretching many of the scheduled  stays to overnights or two nights increases the opportunities to see much more not only of the ports visited but attractions farther away or even in adjacent countries.

I had the good fortune to speak on the 2nd voyage of JOURNEY in 2007 when she was making the voyage from the NYC area to both of  Bermuda’s major ports.  I was asked back later to travel with her on a repositioning trip to the Caribbean and a quick nip into the Panama Canal.  Those two voyages were Grace and my first experience cruising on the well known “R” ships, a group of eight ships that have made a name for themselves as moderately sized ships that have all of the amenities and services that any discriminating passenger could want.

The eight R ships were operated as a fleet by a well known Norwegian firm that had to change their focus and put their ships on the market.  They now deliver luxury and full service cruising experiences to a maximum of 650 to 700 passengers on select itineraries.  OCEANIA has three R ships that are now named Insignia, Regatta and Nautica.  PRINCESS Lines also operates  three, named Pacific Princess, Ocean Princess (formerly Tahitian Princess) and Royal Princess on which Grace and I spent a great 24 day back to back Florida, Canal, South America assignment.  AZAMARA is proud to have two R vessels, QUEST  and JOURNEY to serve its demanding clientele.

Hong Kong is a hard port for me to leave.  We lived there for years and it has been part of my life for decades, first as a Naval Officer on tin cans and later as a Yankee Peddlar working up and down the China coast.  One of our sons lived there twice as a child and has just moved back again as a business manager for his fifth time to live there.  We had a few days to check out his house out in Stanley Village before boarding QUEST.

As much as we would like to stay a while longer in Hong Kong the allure of Vietnam, Thailand and Singapore, all places where we lived or worked for years beckon.  There is nothing like steaming through and visiting the countries of the South China Sea. I plan to share some of the trip in future blog postings.  Stay tuned.

Just Before Casting Off for Points South