Well, the day has finally come when

......I get back on Azamara Journey. Super excited, it does not matter how many times you cruise every embarkation morning is special and seeing this view from my room was a great start!

I hopefully have unlimited internet so will try and post as our journey on journey unfolds and happy to answer questions

Ann

Hope you both have a lovely time Ann. Shame I will miss you by a day....we could have helped with the "bubbles feedback".....however I know you will do your best! :D

Where is your Azamazing Evening this time?

Have a wonderful cruise. Is the photo from the hotel roof?

Ann, I look forward to meeting you in a couple of hours!

Thanks for the picture.

Our Azamazing Evening is in Barcelona. It's a flamenco show.

Enjoy!:cool:

Phil

Looking forward to your review and any photo's you post. Have a wonderful time. Triona

Wow, great itinerary, great cruise ship and wonderful cruise buddies!

(Although, at least one that I know has a minor problem with a commitment to shopping [emoji3])

Hope everyone has a marvellous time, that friendship flows and looking forward to the reports.

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For the ladies! The prices I know someone was asking for them.

Yes the pic was from the Hotel Traghetto where we lucked on getting a balcony.

We are happily onboard so glad to be back with old friends. The additional wines and bubbles are much appreciated is the sparkling water.

Lots of children on board, many seem to be Italian so it will be interesting - there is a note card in the room asking parents to "control" children in the pool area especially.

Only glitch, tried to sort out land discoveries before midday as we have OBC plus land discoveries credit. Not good news at all, some booked out and more annoyingly the two we really wanted cancelled already by Miami due to lack of demand. I've pointed out the folly of this given how many folks have like packages and OBC but it appears to be out of the ships hands. Hopefully Bonnie can pick this one up for future cruisers. We had wanted the Florence and Pisa on our own so I could move around at my own pace. We've now booked the more expensive :rolleyes: organised trip and hope I can keep up! We had also wanted Cassis enchanted there will now be no LD in Marseille and we will DIY as nothing else appeals.

A disappointment but not a disaster and we are so enjoying the pampering already.

Ugh! The situation with using the Like package credit is the one thing that has me anxious about my upcoming cruise.

Enjoy the cruise. I am interesting in learning more about the ports you are stopping at.

Keep that ship in good shape for September! Thanks for the spa prices--the mani/pedi prices don't look too bad for a cruise ship.

 

Only glitch, tried to sort out land discoveries before midday as we have OBC plus land discoveries credit. Not good news at all, some booked out and more annoyingly the two we really wanted cancelled already by Miami due to lack of demand.

It's totally ridiculous really, I have tried to point this out from the get go with the Like packages but obviously no joined up thinking!

Only 13 days until we are on Journey and possibly faced with the same dilemma, won't ruin our cruise as we are not that keen on organised trips. But because of the package we have picked out a couple of trips to do but if we can't do those we will just waste the $400.

Hope you have a fantastic cruise and look after Journey for us, please leave plenty of bubbles for us[emoji898][emoji898]

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what about taking the train to Pisa- 15 minutes each way. there is a bus for a Euro or two from there to the area of town you want. several shared a taxi back to ship from the train.. also you can get the trains times from Florina. trains run likje every 30 minutes or so.

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For the ladies! The prices I know someone was asking for them.

 

Yes the pic was from the Hotel Traghetto where we lucked on getting a balcony.

 

We are happily onboard so glad to be back with old friends. The additional wines and bubbles are much appreciated is the sparkling water.

Lots of children on board, many seem to be Italian so it will be interesting - there is a note card in the room asking parents to "control" children in the pool area especially.

 

Only glitch, tried to sort out land discoveries before midday as we have OBC plus land discoveries credit. Not good news at all, some booked out and more annoyingly the two we really wanted cancelled already by Miami due to lack of demand. I've pointed out the folly of this given how many folks have like packages and OBC but it appears to be out of the ships hands. Hopefully Bonnie can pick this one up for future cruisers. We had wanted the Florence and Pisa on our own so I could move around at my own pace. We've now booked the more expensive :rolleyes: organised trip and hope I can keep up! We had also wanted Cassis enchanted there will now be no LD in Marseille and we will DIY as nothing else appeals.

 

A disappointment but not a disaster and we are so enjoying the pampering already.

What a ridiculous situation. Bonnie, I hope you are taking this back to HQ to help them to see how stupid this is. There is no point in giving people OBC to be spent on excursions, then saying there's no demand beforehand.

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It's totally ridiculous really, I have tried to point this out from the get go with the Like packages but obviously no joined up thinking!

Only 13 days until we are on Journey and possibly faced with the same dilemma, won't ruin our cruise as we are not that keen on organised trips. But because of the package we have picked out a couple of trips to do but if we can't do those we will just waste the $400.

 

Hope you have a fantastic cruise and look after Journey for us, please leave plenty of bubbles for us[emoji898][emoji898]

 

 

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I agree. Just seems crazy and NOT what a destination immersion cruise should be about. I've a few cruises booked with the Land Discovery OBC attached and won't be too pleased if there is limited chance to use it. Bonnie, hopefully you can offer some words of encouragement.

Phil

Uktog did raise the point in the Q&A session with Larry (http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2373481) and he did say that booking tours with LD OBC in advance was being worked on. However at the moment the cart is firmly in front of the horse.

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Uktog/Ann, I hope you have a wonderful voyage!

I'll pass along your comments about the tours you wanted being fully booked or outright cancelled by the time you reached the LD desk. I feel bad about that, as will management, I'm sure.

We are always interested in how to improve the experience and to please our loyal guests, e.g. Our now having Sparkling wines and bubbly water inclusive can probably be traced back to multiple conversations on Cruise Critic I've shared with Mgmt over the past 2.5 years.

Thanks Bonnie

I know whatever it will be a wonderful time onboard.

Hopefully for October using Rioccas analogy the horse will have moved to its correct position!

Off now to indulge at The Patio

Ann,

Hope you have a fantastic cruise. It's a lovely itinerary.

Am fully expecting you to do your duty and up that consumption of sparkling wine!

We're on the next short cruise, giving my 87 yo dad his first taste of cruising ;) , and suspect it will be full of many local families, so will be interested to hear your views on whether this effects you or not.

Looking forward to your report on the reimaged Journey :)

Enjoy! I hope I left enough booze on board for you! [emoji898]. Yes, there were lots of children on our cruise too but they were all, without exception, impeccably behaved!

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Looking forward to your review.

An update on the Land Discoveries situation. The hotel director has confirmed it is a shoreside requirement that there are 35 bookings for a tour pre cruise (other than insider access) or it is cancelled. At that high level (5% of guests per tour) I am now seriously worried for some future cruises.

Another piece of info, as we will now have some OBC non refundable left over I had hoped to use it for extra gratuities however the note I have just received about the OBC states it cannot be used for the casino, any visas obtained by the ship or any gratuities to the crew. I'm talking here about the kind of onboard credit issued as a perk by Azamara not credits your agent buys for you as rewards.

Time to visit the shop? They had some nice pearls last week...!

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With Azamara's propensity for giving OBC as rewards and incentives, such as the Like Package promotion and early booking promotion both with LD credits only, also OBC for booking b2b, instead of the previous discount, plus onboard booking OBC etc. We have, I assume, like many others accumulated large amounts of OBC, one thing we are being encouraged to spend those credits on are LD tours, as destination immersion is the name of the game! At the same time the ability to pre-book then cancel and rebook using OBC was removed, the situation could get worse there could be cruises where passengers have so much OBC no tours are pre-booked so all of them are cancelled then passengers embark intending to book to be told sorry there are no longer any tours you can spend your LD Credit on - embarrassing or what?

On another note I am a little confused, does the Like Package LD Credit show on invoices? For our next cruise on the 22nd August we have the Like package and this is noted on the booking confirmation, but the $400 does not show any where else, we also have $200 onboard booking OBC and $300 b2b OBC and they are clearly shown, my TA says this is correct, however for our 2018 bookings the early booking OBC which is also for LD only is showing on the confirmation, has anyone else experienced this?

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With Azamara's propensity for giving OBC as rewards and incentives, such as the Like Package promotion and early booking promotion both with LD credits only, also OBC for booking b2b, instead of the previous discount, plus onboard booking OBC etc. We have, I assume, like many others accumulated large amounts of OBC, one thing we are being encouraged to spend those credits on are LD tours, as destination immersion is the name of the game! At the same time the ability to pre-book then cancel and rebook using OBC was removed, the situation could get worse there could be cruises where passengers have so much OBC no tours are pre-booked so all of them are cancelled then passengers embark intending to book to be told sorry there are no longer any tours you can spend your LD Credit on - embarrassing or what?

 

On another note I am a little confused, does the Like Package LD Credit show on invoices? For our next cruise on the 22nd August we have the Like package and this is noted on the booking confirmation, but the $400 does not show any where else, we also have $200 onboard booking OBC and $300 b2b OBC and they are clearly shown, my TA says this is correct, however for our 2018 bookings the early booking OBC which is also for LD only is showing on the confirmation, has anyone else experienced this?

 

 

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I think that is how ours showed up as well but all was ok when we boarded- your first clue will be does your keycard have the PV sticker on it if it does all is well!