Azamara Cruises’ President on the new brand.

Besides the marketing designation of being the industry's first "deluxe" line, what's distinct about Azamara Cruises, the industry's newest brand? In terms of per diems, the first cruise on Journey this week was free, as everyone was given a refund because the ship ran a day late. But looking ahead, management has said that Azamara rates will run 40% higher than Celebrity, and, clearly, a product needs to be different to attract such per diems. Azamara President Dan Hanrahan discusses three areas of differentiation: the ships, the itineraries, and the name.The Ships: Q) In terms of software, having butler service in every stateroom is distinctive, as is the fact that Azamara will have no taped music onboard--all live.

But what's distinctive about the hardware of the Azamara Journey and Azamara Quest?Hanrahan: The R-class is distinctive. People have demonstrated that they like the R-class hardware--you don't hear mixed reviews. What we try to do is make these former R-class ships even more distinctive with upgrades [$19 million spent in the past four weeks]. If you start at the top of the ship, in the front observation lounge which we call Looking Glass, it was a pretty dark lounge, so we opened it up and made it a spectacular place to see the views from wherever the ship is going. The other benefit is we turned this into a nightclub. As you continue back the ship, in the casual dining area called Window's Cafe we put a sunset bar. I don't think anywhere else there is a beautiful sunset bar on the aft of any other R-class ship. Again, we did this to make sure people can see the spectacular destinations we're going to while relaxing in a beautiful setting.There are numerous other changes, ranging from our completing redoing the lobby to adding a coffee bar in the atrium bar, recarpeting everything, and so on.Our effort is not to have this as one of the best, but the best dining experience at sea. What I've heard about the other brands with R-class ships is that these ships have fabulous dining in the main restaurant, but less so in the alternative restaurants. We have two specialty restaurants: Prime C, which will feature steak and seafood, and Aqualina, which will have multi-course Mediterranean-style cuisine. We have developed very distinctive menus in both and have set a very high standard for us in this alternative dining area.

Thanks to the relationship with Celebrity, we have a great art collection, as we took art from Zenith [the former Celebrity ship being moved to Pullmantur] and took that over to Azamara. That was the art collection put together by Christina Chandris back in the 1990s.

Excertped from an interview conducted by Cruise Week