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Azamara Journey 6-18-2009
By Milt Abel | July 17, 2009
| July 17, 2009Azamara Journey 6/18 – 6/25
Azamara is Celebrity Cruise line’s boutique spin-off; two smaller ships that, at least from my experience on the Journey, cater to the sophistication of Celebrity’s clientele but in a more informal environment. Literally more informal, the two week cruise, which I participated in the first half of, had no formal nights. The dress code was resort-casual for all 14 nights. Finally it would be easier to tell who was the maitre ‘d, the only one in a tuxedo.
I joined in Copenhagen and we were scheduled to head to Warnemunde, Germany, then Helsinki, then three days in St. Petersburg with a stop at Tallin, Estonia the day after. There was a sea day or two tossed in there to round out the seven days with a sea day or two in between to fill out the seven days on board. I don’t immediately recall if the sea day was before Helsinki or before or both. Frankly, my circadian clock was so screwed up I wasn’t sure if it was day or night, let alone whether we were at sea or not. By the time we got to Russia the ship’s time was 11 hours ahead of Oregon time, and when you throw in the fact that it was also the time of the summer solstice (it only got truly nighttime-dark between 1:30AM and 3:00AM, or around noon back in the Pacific Northwest) you get an idea why I was wearing my pajamas to the dinning room. Thank goodness the dress code was resort-casual, it wasn’t as egregious as it could have been.
Warnermunde, Germany was a delightful little coastal resort town. Located in former East Germany, I wasn’t prepared for the bright colors and lovely open-air cafes and restaurants that shouldered against each other along the waterways. It helped that the weather was sunny and pleasant, had it been grey and raining I would have subconsciously held the Communists responsible. I was brought up in all the 60’s and 70’s fear propagation against communism and all the grey and rain it causes, certainly it wasn’t as bad everywhere as they’d have us believe -some places may have been worse, but like any news story about a storm’s consequences, a lot depends on where you place the camera. For me, the most indicative story about how dire life was under communism came when the first McDonald’s opened in Moscow and how it caused lines for service to stretch for a mile, certainly that screamed they were destitute.
Our next stop was Helsinki, Finland which I wrote an incredibly stupid joke for that my wife almost talked me out of using in an email exchange. Almost talked me out of, I wish she had been more persuasive. I had a late night show the night of our Helsinki stay and the line was, “Helsinki? Sounds a little depressing. I’d be more comfortable if they called the town Heaven-raisey.” Luckily it was buried deep inside a pretty successful show so it didn’t cause the ship to sink.
I also saw something extraordinary while walking down the wide sidewalks that hemmed the port. A seagull hovered just over the shoulder of a little girl working on an ice cream cone and when the cone was raised a bit, and the girl’s face was turned to her mother, the gull dropped down two feet and forward, and carved some ice cream into its beak and flew off. The seagull snatched ice cream out of the hand of a walking girl, waiting for the optimum moment to steal. Scary. Crime may be low among the humans in Finland, but watch out for their seagulls.
St Petersburg, Russia looked like a nice place to visit, and hopefully someday I’ll be able to just that. For the three days we were docked deep inside the city limits I was forbidden to leave the ship because I didn’t have the right paperwork. I didn’t have a Seaman’s book, which would have allowed me to leave the ship as a crew, and I wasn’t on an organized tour which would have allowed me to leave as a passenger. The two nights and three days I spent in the city were occupied mostly with a dazed frustration of trying to get to sleep or trying to stay awake. I have several photos of the St Petersburg skyline taken at 4 in the morning.
During our last day in St. Petersburg a Russian navy ship docked just ahead of us and I opened my show with that night with this joke, “What a beautiful day. You just wanted to walk. I walked too far and board that ship next to ours instead of this one. Not nearly the same service. All that crew and just one passenger and I couldn’t even get arrested -well, actually they were willing to do that.”
Topics: comedy, cruise ship, humor, travel | No Comments »