Cruise News: Amazara
January 2021 saw some notable ocean cruise news: Royal Caribbean sold the Azamara brand. Let's see...
We were talking to our Scenic Luxury Cruises business development representative today and they told us about something new - a yacht! This is being offered by their Emerald brand and is very intriguing so we thought we share some information.
Who is Emerald?
Emerald is part of the Scenic Group. Scenic is a high end luxury river cruise and ocean cruise company. Scenic offers an extremely all inclusive product including transfers, tips, special excursions, butler service for all cabins, and top notch food. Emerald is their lower priced product. Not budget priced by any means but there's less inclusions on Emerald than Scenic.
Artist representation of Azzurra Yacht. Photo courtesy of Emerald yacht Cruises
Why a Yacht?
We think this is a perfect fit for our river cruise customers. Why? It's of similar size - only 50 cabins / 100 passengers. And it is expected to have a crew of 64. It's comparatively priced as well - at least so far. And it's just neat to say you're sailing on a yacht - right? Plus it can go into lots of ports that the big ships can't. It doesn't need a huge pier to dock into so the docking should be closer to the main part of town.
Inclusions: all meals on board, airport transfers, wine, beer and soft drinks with lunch and dinner, local guides, WIFI and all gratuities. Many excursions are included but there's also additional optional excursions as well. We think this will be very comparable with a typical river cruise experience.
The Azzurra
The Emerald Azzurra is currently being built with an expected completion date of January 2022. It has 7 decks and includes a Spa Pool (infinity style pool), fitness area, guest laundry, sauna, spa, and a marina platform to launch small craft like a Zodiac or to snorkel from.
Just like on a river cruise, there's no inside cabins. The smallest cabins are about 180 sq ft - slightly larger than the entry level river cruise cabins. Balcony staterooms range from 285 sq ft to 400 sq ft - very comfortable indeed. And of course there's larger suites available as well.
Itineraries
For now, the ship will do one of four itineraries:
- Eastern Mediterranean : Feb, march Jun, July Nov Dec 2022: Kusadasi Turkey, Santorini, Greece, Istanbul and Paphos Cyprus.
- Western Mediterranean July Aug Oct Nov 2022; Nice Sorrento, Rome Italy
- Adriatic Coast : April, May, Jun, July, Aug and Sept 2022: Dubrovnik, Venice, Hvar & Korcula, Croatia and Sarande, Albania
- The Red Sea: Jan, Feb and Dec 2022: Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt, Haifa Israel,
Photo of Paphos courtesy of Emerald
Need to know more?
As this ship is brand new, Emerald is offering some very good deals to try to get the word out. There's some other options with respect to itineraries than we had space for here. And, Scenic has a similar sized ship already sailing if you want more options. Let me know if you're interested and we can be more specific in terms of pricing, cabin selection and options.