ozwatto

We are  booked on the Alaska Intensive cruise on 25th May, 2019 and we are feeling very disappointed with the itinerary changes which have taken place for this cruise. The order of the ports has also changed but this is not an issue but the quite drastic changes to the times in port is of concern. When we were notified about the changes the email stated "there will be no impact on your cruise experience" and also pats themselves on the back for being late in port in Haines but let me clarify this … the original itinerary we were in port from 6am to 6pm and now we are in port from 5pm to 10pm so I was wondering how that doesn't impact on our time! On the Azamara website for this cruise they had a feature cruise for this port, the Glacier Point Wilderness Safari, which looks amazing and goes for 6.5 hours, well of course now that has been removed from the site because we are unable to do this tour. 

Most of us only get the opportunity to go to Alaska once so naturally we want to make the most of our time there and see as much as possible, well this is certainly not going to happen on this occasion. 

We have cruised with Azamara previously and really enjoyed our time on board. The crew does an excellent job but we feel the cruise line is let down by the Administrative staff and are we are no longer interested in cruising with Azamara again after this cruise. This is not the first time we have experienced major itinerary changes. A few years ago we were booked on a BTB cruise in the Caribbean  and we received an email with changes to our itinerary. On this occasion, our entire 16 day cruise had been changed and we were no longer going to ANY of the advertised ports, instead the cruises were just going from Miama to Cuba and back, around and around so that was a ridiculous itinerary change. 

It is very disappointing for  all the passengers on the Azamara Quest who were misled into thinking they would be in the prime location in Sydney on NYE and yes it is true that no ships will actually be docked as the Overseas Passenger Terminal (the main vantage point) on NYE due to so much water traffic on the harbour that night. Unfortunately, it is very unlikely that Azamara or any similar sized ships will ever be docked at the Overseas Passenger Terminal due to the fact that there are just so many ships visiting Sydney each year that they can't possibly accommodate them all, hence all the smaller ships will always be docked at White Bay because all the large ships visiting Sydney do not fit under the Harbour Bridge which is what is required to go to White Bay. The Overseas Passenger Terminal always has all the very large ships, i.e. Ovation of the Seas etc. and the smaller ships, Azamara, Seabourn, etc. will go to White Bay no matter if it is NYE or not.