When Azamara Journey and Azamara Quest (both 2000/30,277gt) go for their next refits, they will emerge with dark blue hulls, largely reminiscent of the appearance with which they started when delivered to Renaissance Cruises as R Six and R Seven. After the collapse of Renaissance, Cruiseinvest, an offshoot of their builder, which still had a significant financial interest in the vessels, acquired the ships.
Both were chartered, and eventually acquired, by Spain’s Pullmantur, becoming Blue Dream and Blue Moon. When Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines acquired the cruise operations of Pullmantur in 2006, these ships were considered to be out of place in the Spanish market and were taken to form the new Azamara Cruises as a division of Celebrity Cruises.
Azamara Journey will be refurbished at the Navanti Shipyard in Cadiz between 7 and 16 November, while Azamara Quest will go to Sembawang in Singapore for a seven-night stay on 6 January 2013. A major fabric replacement programme will be carried out on both ships. Azamara Journey will then complete a North Africa cruise before repositioning to South America for her winter season, while Azamara Quest will continue with her South East Asia programme.
