Originally Posted by
747FC
The larger Seabourn ships can transport 600 passengers, marginally greater than the smaller Seabourn ships, but much less than the 1200 passenger Oceania...
Sorry - my misunderstanding! I remembered "double the passenger load" from some conversation I was having, and that clearly was the Little Sisters (around 220?) up to the Sojourn size of 450. 1200 is just so many people. My in-laws really don't understand how much we don't like that many people! Sure, it's fewer than 3000 or 5000 but just kill me before I'll go on a ship with that many people.....I would never leave my balcony and I am being dead serious. I'm a misanthropic introvert ;-)
Randy - Azamara in the past year has sort of rebranded itself for in depth location based cruises. Whatever that means. More time in port, more & longer excursions? Not what I'm really interested in (we typically cruise to get an overview of some place we haven't been before - to see where we want to spend more time on land - or to do things better seen by water, like Alaska -which we've done by car too). Will be interesting to see if they can remain in that market with the R ships. I love them - but MANY think the cabins and especially bathrooms are too small (they're small) and you can't fix that with the best dry dock, unless you start inserting sections to lengthen and ugh....AZ does include alcohol, Oceania doesn't, Seabourn & Silversea do AND I think they're nicer. So would decide based on itinerary and per diem there, really.
Anyway, we cruise by itinerary and then ship and fare, BUT I'm not going to take an itinerary I'd love on a ship I wouldn't be caught dead on. So, we're limited. Which is ok. Lots of other kinds of travel out there while we're mobile.....