Azamara’s fare covers your gratuities, house wine and spirits at every bar on the ship, bottled water and specialty coffee, self-service laundry, and a shuttle into town in ports where the pier is a long walk from anywhere useful. What it does not cover, in most cases: shore excursions, the good half of the wine list, the two specialty restaurants, spa treatments, and unlimited internet unless you’ve bought a package or booked a suite.
That split is the whole story of pricing an Azamara cruise. The line sits in the awkward, interesting middle ground between mainstream cruising and all-inclusive luxury lines like Regent or Silversea. Understanding exactly where the line falls saves you from two mistakes: assuming everything is covered and getting a folio surprise, or assuming nothing is covered and overpaying for a package you didn’t need.
The inclusion list, and where it stops
Azamara markets its base fare as including the following. Verify the current list on your specific sailing’s fare terms before you book, because inclusions get reshuffled more often than you’d think.
| Generally included | Generally extra |
|---|---|
| Gratuities for housekeeping, dining and bar staff | Spa and salon services |
| House selection of spirits, international beers and wines, poured at bars and with meals | Premium and reserve wines, top-shelf spirits, some cocktails |
| Bottled water, soft drinks, specialty coffees and teas | Specialty restaurants (Aqualina and Prime C) on non-suite categories |
| Main dining room, buffet, poolside grill, café | Shore excursions and private touring |
| Self-service laundry | Pressing and full-service laundry (non-suite) |
| Shuttle transport to town centers where offered | Internet beyond any included allowance |
| Onboard entertainment and enrichment talks | Pre- and post-cruise hotels and transfers |
Two of those inclusions are worth more than they look. Gratuities on a two-week voyage are real money for two people, and on lines that charge them separately they land as a per-day charge you can’t avoid. And the port shuttle matters more on Azamara than on a big ship, because Azamara’s ships are small enough to tie up in places where the alternative is a taxi negotiation in a language you don’t speak.
The drinks policy in practice
The included pour is a rotating house selection, not the whole bar. In practice that means a standard red, a standard white, a couple of beers, and a set of well spirits are free-flowing from the bars, the pool deck, and with lunch and dinner. Ask for a specific label off the reserve list and it goes on your folio.
This is the single most common misunderstanding among first-time Azamara guests, especially people arriving from Viking or Oceania, where the wine-with-meals arrangement works slightly differently. If you drink one particular Sancerre and nothing else, budget for it or buy whatever beverage upgrade package is being offered on your sailing. If you’re happy with the house Sauvignon Blanc, you will genuinely not spend a dollar on drinks all cruise.
Azamara has historically allowed guests to bring their own wine aboard, which is a real advantage on a Mediterranean or Douro-adjacent itinerary where you’ll walk past better bottles at a third of the price. Corkage rules and quantity limits change, so confirm the current policy in your cruise documents rather than relying on a forum post from three years ago.
Specialty dining: two rooms, and who eats free
Each ship carries two specialty restaurants: Aqualina, which leans Mediterranean and seafood, and Prime C, the steakhouse. Both carry a per-person surcharge for standard staterooms. Suite guests typically receive a set number of complimentary reservations depending on suite category and voyage length, along with butler service and other perks.
Because the ships carry only a few hundred guests, both venues are small and both book out. If specialty dining matters to you, reserve online the day your booking window opens rather than waiting until you’re onboard. The main dining room, Discoveries, is open-seating and perfectly good, which takes the pressure off — but a steakhouse table on an overnight in port is a hot ticket.
Internet: assume you’re paying, then check
Wi-Fi is the inclusion most likely to have changed since whatever article you read last. Suites generally include unlimited internet. Standard staterooms have historically had either a modest included allowance, a paid package, or an internet-inclusive fare bundle, depending on the promotion in market. Do not book on the assumption that you’ll be streaming from the balcony. Check the fare terms, and if you work remotely, treat satellite connectivity on a 700-guest ship as adequate for email and unreliable for video calls in remote regions.
AzAmazing Evenings and where the value hides
Azamara’s signature is destination immersion: late departures, overnight stays in port, and country-intensive itineraries that spend a full week in Croatia or Japan rather than sprinting through five countries. The line’s AzAmazing Evenings — a complimentary local cultural event ashore, often music or dance in a venue you couldn’t book yourself — has traditionally been included on voyages above a certain length. Whether your specific sailing has one, and whether it’s included or a paid Destination Celebration, varies. Ask before you book if it’s part of why you’re booking.
The White Night deck party is the other signature: everyone in white, dinner served outdoors, and a level of participation that would be excruciating on a 5,000-guest ship and is somehow charming on a small one.
Shore excursions are where the budget actually goes
On a port-intensive Azamara itinerary you may be ashore twelve days out of fourteen. Ship-run tours are not cheap, and the small-group and private options less so. Two things to know:
- Because the ships are small and often dock centrally, independent touring is genuinely practical in a way it isn’t when you’re tendering from an anchorage two miles out. Walking off and hiring a local guide is a legitimate strategy in much of the Mediterranean and Northern Europe.
- Overnights in port change the math completely. A ship that stays until midnight or overnight lets you do dinner ashore, which is often the best value meal of the trip and costs nothing extra beyond the restaurant bill.
Four ships, nearly identical — and why that’s useful
Azamara Journey, Azamara Quest, Azamara Pursuit and Azamara Onward are all former Renaissance-era R-class ships, in the neighborhood of 30,000 gross tons and roughly 700 guests at double occupancy. Onward joined the fleet most recently. They share a layout, so once you’ve sailed one you know where everything is on all four, and cabin numbering logic carries across.
The practical consequence: choose your Azamara cruise by itinerary, not by ship. Refurbishment dates differ, so a ship that came out of dry dock recently will feel fresher, and it’s a fair question to ask your advisor. But there is no Azamara equivalent of choosing Icon over an older Royal Caribbean ship for the hardware. The hardware is the same. The itinerary is the product.
Who Azamara isn’t for
No children’s facilities, no kids’ club, no water slides, no casino floor the size of a supermarket. Families with young kids will be happier almost anywhere else. Anyone who wants a Broadway-scale production show or twelve dining venues will find the ships small. The onboard vibe is country-club casual — no required formal nights — which delights some people and disappoints others who wanted an excuse to pack the tuxedo.
These are also older, smaller ships. They move around in a swell more than a 180,000-ton hull does, and cabins in the base categories are compact by modern standards. That’s the trade for getting into ports the big ships physically cannot enter.
How to compare the fare honestly
Build the number yourself. Take the Azamara fare, then take the mainstream-line fare for a comparable itinerary and add: daily gratuities for two, a beverage package for two, bottled water and coffee, and the difference in excursion cost given how much more time Azamara spends in port. The gap usually narrows a lot, and on longer voyages it can invert. Then decide whether the smaller ship and longer port days are worth whatever’s left.
Because Azamara changed ownership when Royal Caribbean Group sold the brand in 2021, older articles describing loyalty reciprocity with Celebrity or Royal Caribbean may no longer apply. The line runs its own Azamara Circle program. If you’re carrying status elsewhere and expecting it to travel with you, confirm the current position before you count on it.
If you want the inclusion list, current beverage and internet arrangements, and the AzAmazing Evening status checked against the exact sailing you’re looking at, that’s a five-minute job for an advisor and a much longer one for you. Ask us to run it before you deposit.
