Live From Azamara Quest: A Tender Topic

Tendering. A word which strikes fear in the hearts of most cruisers, evoking visions of early mornings, long lines, crowded, hot life boats, and trying to finagle priority passes. But on Azamara and other small ships in the Deluxe and Luxury categories, like the rest of life onboard, it's no problem at all.



We have 4 tender ports this cruise - Sorrento, Taormina, Dubrovnik and La Spezia, for a total of 5 days out of 14. On a large ship, that would be a pain in the neck unless you were entitled to priority passes through elite repeat passenger benefits or being in a suite. But here, there are no passes, no lines, and I've not waited more than 10 minutes for a tender, either ashore or onboard. They don't even wait until the tender is full to send it. They run them continuously so no need to get every last passenger crammed aboard.



Making it even easier is due to the small size of the ship, even in ports where all ships must tender, they can anchor closer to shore than the larger ships, making for shorter (and often smoother) tender rides.



With less than 700 passengers onboard, short rides and constant tenders, not to mention chilled towels, water, lemonade and fruit juice waiting for you at the tender dock, there's just nothing to worry about with tendering anymore. It's virtually as easy as being docked. Tendering is no longer a sore, tender subject.





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