Azura heads to the hot and sunny Mediterranean

Hello from Azura!

We’ve just left Southampton and are on our way to the Mediterranean.

The Southampton turnaround seemed to all go very smoothly, and the last few days of the Baltic cruise were nice and relaxed.

As well as being perfect for couples, Azura also caters brilliantly for families, as I saw for myself when I went to judge the kids’ fancy dress competition on Monday. What a lovely afternoon. For obvious reasons, those of us who are not involved with the running of the Youth Department don’t ever have anything to do with the events run for children onboard.

However, Hazel (Assistant Shore Excursion Manager) and I were asked to appear as special guests in a big, kids' party and fancy dress parade - and we loved it!

The costumes that the children (and the mums and dads) had made were fantastic and included a Queen of Hearts (winner of the 1-4 year old category), naughty gnomes, a car, a ship, a fairy, 3 Russian Dolls (winners of the 5-8 year old category), Spiderman, a sunburnt P&O Cruises’ passenger (winner of the 9-12 year old category), and lots more too.

The winners were awarded plaques to take home with them and all participants were presented with a gift from Noddy (who was the surprise guest).

Then we ended up being dragged up onto the dance floor to celebrate all of the winners. We were totally shown up by all of the children who knew the ‘moves’ to every song – and made us look (and feel) very old and out of touch! Still, we had a good go.

I have to say, having never really been involved with any of the childrens’ events before, I’ve never really known a lot about the jobs that are done by the members of the Youth Department. I was totally blown away. They were fantastic! Every child in that room was captivated by the energy and attention that the team portrayed (they made me feel shattered just watching them! Haha). Don’t get me wrong, there’s always some kind of singing or dancing going on in the Excursions department, but an afternoon in the youth department made me feel absolutely exhausted!

Have a look at a couple of photos...















My parents joined Azura today and are sailing with me until we reach Venice. It’s lovely to have family onboard with me. They’re very excited to be sailing with us (they’ve sailed with P&O Cruises a few times, but obviously never on Azura), and I’m very excited to show them the ship and introduce them to all of the fabulous venues and the new ports of call that they’ve never visited.

Anyway, it’s been a long, busy and eventful turnaround day. I had the pleasure of seeing my favourite person, embarked my parents and showed them the ship, have written my next blog post, have booked a few Excursions, have been to the safety drills, have prepared my next live presentation, have had a bite to eat, and now I’m off for an early night (live port talk tomorrow in the Playhouse theatre so I need my beauty sleep).


I’ll update you again soon,


Have a fabulous day!


Jo