This is a first-person vlog-style YouTube video ("A ROCKY START | Azura Ship Tour") by Nate and Kara Buchanan documenting the start of a 15-day repositioning cruise from England to Barbados. Early delays and a storm made the first at-sea day rough; the hosts describe heavy winds, rocking pools, and waiting in port over 24 hours. They then give a tour of the P&O Cruises Azura ship: four top-deck pools (including an adults-only Oasis pool), indoor entertainment (movies, library), fitness and sports facilities, multiple free and paid dining options (four free restaurants: two buffets—Venezia and Verona—and two sit-downs—Peninsular and Meridian), shopping, a casino, many bars, and a large activity schedule. They also note a black-tie dinner requirement they weren't prepared for and that the ship is about 15 decks tall.
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After we set sail yesterday, we noticed a lot of these motion discomfort bags everywhere. Hopefully we won't be using any of them.
Today is our third day of our 15 day repositioning cruise from England to Barbados. But it's actually just our first day at sea.
So we got on the boat. So we got on the boat the first day around 5pm we had this big like sailing away from the port party.
Everybody was upstairs dancing and singing.
We were like, woo, we're sailing away.
And then the boat moved 800 meters.
Like we could still see the spot that our boat started.
Apparently there was a hurricane coming through the Atlantic and so we ended up having to sit in the port and wait out the weather for over 24 hours.
So last night we finally left and as soon as we started moving you could tell that there was a storm because the sea was really rough, everything was rocking, it was hard not to walk and run into a wall.
So I ran up on the top deck to see what it looked like up there and all the pools were swashing back and forth. It was like the pools on the top deck had turned into wave pools and. And the wind was blowing so hard that I felt like it was going to knock me. No complaints. It's a bit windy on the boat.
Tonight, but thankfully neither one of us really gets seasick. Nate took some medicine that's working and I'm just hoping for the best. But hopefully when you watch this video you don't feel seasick because we might be doing a little bit of.
The boat's still moving quite a bit today.
It's gotten a little bit better though.
Today is our first day of many at sea so we thought this would be as good as day of any to show you around the entire ship.
So this is going to be a full tour of Pinot Cruises Azura, starting with the pools.
There are four pools on this boat. All four of them are on the top deck which makes them not exactly ideal for the weather that we're experiencing right now. But I think as we sail south and get closer to the Caribbean, it'll be a lot more enjoyable to be up here on the deck. This is ah, the Terrace pool.
Aqua pool, Coral.
And the Oasis pool. This one's only for adults.
Since we won't be hanging out up here for a while. There's plenty of indoor entertainment.
There are two movie screens, one outside.
Or you can entertain yourself the old fashioned way and come to the library.
And read a book.
If you prefer something more active. There's also a Gym, do some girls and a treadmill of the view. They also have shuffleboard, which I don't know how to play. Also basketball, golf and some game you play with ropes upstairs. But today it's closed due to high winds. The great thing about doing active stuff and burning more calories means that you can eat more. Which brings us to the restaurant.
There are four free restaurants. Two of them are all you can eat buffets. This one is the Venezia and the Verona. This is where we come to get free popcorn all day long. And the other two are sit down restaurants. Super fancy. Four course meals, very delicious. This one is the Peninsular. And the last free restaurant is the Meridian, which is a lot like the Peninsular except for they do a free tea time in the afternoon. Also super fancy.
If you want to pay for your food, there's tons of other restaurants to choose from. You have the Epicurean, the beep. We won't be doing that. But if you're really itching to spend money, there's also shopping.
There's a liquor store, purses, jewelry, clothing, tons of fancy artwork. You can even buy a picture of yourself. But if you really want to spend.
Some money, there's a casino behind me that we're definitely not supposed to fill inside. And if you lose all your money at the casino, there's plenty of bars where you can drink your sorrow. Like this one and this one and this one and this one and this one. There's actually a bar by every single pool and I'm sure there's several on the boat that we haven't even found yet.
And that about wraps up our ship tour. We've definitely missed a few things because like you've seen, this ship is massive and there's tons to do.
I'm pretty sure we've walked over over 100 flight of stairs doing this tour. We made this terrible agreement with each other this week. Since we're eating so much, we should only take the steps. The problem is this ship is 15 floors tall.
The waves are mesmerizing, I can't stop staring at.
And it's time for dinner.
So we got dressed, we headed down to dinner and as we were going down the stairs, we realized everyone was dressed much nicer than we were. Everybody had on a suit, a tie, and everyone was looking really nice. We felt very out of place. And we quickly learned that tonight is black tie dress in the fancy restaurant downstairs. So unfortunately we don't travel with a sport coat or Cara doesn't travel with heels. So we did not have the proper attire to go to the fancy restaurant tonight. So we're upstairs at the buffet. But it is American night, which apparently means Mexican food and fry. Everything on the buffet could be worse.
So every night when we get home from dinner, there's one of these itineraries. I called our room home and it has all the things to do for the next day. There are like 50 to 60 things that you can do every single day here on the cruise. Morning, snowball, jackpot, bingo. Adult deck, quits competition, an origami craft class. We've got a little bit of something for everybody. And it also has the shows for the night. So this is the one for tomorrow. So we actually don't need this. But there's a show tonight in the big auditorium called the playhouse, starting at 8:30 and we're about to head there now.
Hey guys, Just wanted to tell you about a new Travel Hustle interview that we have over on the blog. I'm really excited about this. It's with somebody that you may know from here on YouTube, Jordan Simons from Life of Jord. He tells you how he's been able to afford to travel for the last three years full time and visit 56 countries in the process. It's a great interview, so go check it out. I'll link it down below.
