uktog

Good question it seems to vary from host to host even on the same sailing and room category

You do not need to make any reservations for the Azamazing evening

Can I echo what Phil says. For us, facing an extreme storm barrelling down on you is unimaginable. Stay safe, stay strong and remember everything is replaceable except you and your loved ones

She’s such a bundle of energy and so lovely and unassuming.

0800 was the early walk off.

No joy in getting a working survey from them. They are having IT issues (sounds familiar). I now have to email my feedback (it will be positive and less positive) but doubt it will do anything but go down that black hole. Both destinations experience team and the Cellar Master onboard asked we feed back on our surveys to reinforce the issues they are facing. How frustrating we cannot help them as clearly they were frustrated and did not appear to feel listened to. Crazy thing I was asked to email my answers to the questions- doh- if I could see the questions I would be completing the survey online. Oh well they’ll just get an email covering what I want to talk about!

Last year embarkation started at 0800. There was no immigration as I recall so it was about 10 minutes from gangway to pavement outside. The airport is a good hour out of town

You do not need a reservation for Med Yacht or Fils Rouge, you are allowed at least on reservation for each of Sakura (evening) and Marble. I would give the Marketplace a try as it is all served to you and many of the dishes are pre composed eg beautiful salad combinations, cerviche and small desserts. (There’s also the option for them to prepare salads, cerviche etc to your preferred combination but I found the lovely pre-made salads in bowls very innovative combinations. This is an example of one based on bulgur wheat. Pasta dishes are made to order so you can portion control. It’s certainly not a pile it high buffet. I shared your thinking before the cruise but became a fan of the Emporium so included a couple of nights in there over the 14 days.

In relation to the champagne yes you should be able to swap it but make sure you chase your state room attendant for the list of included spirits that you are entitled to and you can also swap and choose them so you could have more wine if you prefer to do that. There were no port speakers or pre-dinner destination talks on the 14 nights round-trip from Athens this was a big miss not least because in these ports many of them had no tourist information readily available either. in addition to trivia there was also a half hour quiz type session every night at 9 o’clock in the Astern lounge - when we were there it was a very funny name that tune that was used however they are planning to mix around the types of trivia they additionally offer there

The level of choice all depends on how restricted a diet you have. If you eat any protein or fish you will have a great choice from the restaurant menus, if not you would find it limiting. Bear in mind, catch of the day has never been caught in Med Yacht since the day it opened! There are very rarely daily specials for mains (as I recall over 14 nights we were offered them twice). If you are a dessert eater after a while the choice is very limited as there only seemed to be a rotation of 4 tarts of the day.

You could not make this up. I was travelling yesterday so could not complete the survey until later last night only to find the link I have given does not work. (I had not clicked on it previously or copied it over here as I know that can cause issues with some surveys) Grrrrr

Actually the emails haven’t been sent to everyone - they’ve a system problem as explained below in the email I received today having followed up with Customer Services Having talked to other people, we were not the only ones who have not received the survey so if you are missing a survey contact customer services as I think the link I have will only work for me Thank you very much for your email. Please see below the link to your Survey. The system shows that your survey was completed, but I can imagine this is an error which maybe explains why you have not received it. I apologise for the inconvenience. Please do not hesitate to let me know should you have any issue in opening the link and filling in the survey.

I’m not complaining but I’m not home yet 🥲 We had a beautiful three days down at Cape Sounio (about an hour from Piraeus) thoroughly recommend for some chill down time. Beautiful sunbeds on the beach, view of the temple which is about 20 minutes walk away and is stunning day and night renowned sunsets and an excellent restaurant The hotel organised all our taxis. On the way to the airport we had a wonderful driver who had studied in the UK spoke perfect English and was a history buff so we learned a lot about the silver mining which was the original source of Grecian wealth. And then a 90 minute flight delay (so we knew we’d have problems aa we only had 2.5 hours at Heathrow) became the least of our issues! A faulty plane could not be fixed so the flight was cancelled with no assistance given other than find your own hotel and we pay you back. I’m not sure what was happening in Athens but finding a hotel wasn’t easy. Luckily as a BA gold travelling in business we got rescued and put up by BA in the Marriott Now we have to hope today’s flight is ok. They’ve rebooked us on an even tighter connection but we will take each step at a time. For now we are speeding back to the airport- speed not needed or our choice - in a taxi being driven by the drivers knees as he chats on his phone and enjoys his breakfast. Yes I’m complaining about Greek taxi drivers sorry! 😂

It’s one of Explora’s big faults and they only listen to feedback from them at head office not the views from paying guests

Did you ask them to adjust the AC? On our cruise it was warm but threatening showers the pool was shut but they came and changed the ac and also showed us how to lower the window at our chairs which gave us a “balcony”

Yes dear guests we want your feedback but only if you are saying we are absolutely wonderful 😂😂😂

We have again not got a form. I will follow up with the call centre I doubt they will respond to feedback though

Question to @CruiseCrew123 have you received an electronic survey yet? They have our email addresses but neither DH or I have anything (we have checked our spam as well).

I love the Perry Golf cruises and I’m a non golfer. They have the nicest mix of guests you can have onboard

We have done many cruises on Azamara and two on Viking and one more booked. As regards the ships I can understand why Viking cruisers might talk negatively about Azamara ships especially if they are not travelling in a suite. The biggest difference is the size and layout of the Azamara bathrooms. In comparison the shower on Azamara is about a quarter of the size of a Viking shower, has a curtain rather than a door and no heated floor. Whether all that matters is a personal preference. Around the ship on Azamara you have much less public “relaxation” space both indoors and outdoors and with no roof for the pool deck you can be weather dependent. On Azamara the main dining room is one big room not lots of small sections so it can be noisy. However instead of section teams each table has a dedicated waiter and assistant so we found the service more seamless. However we found the presentation of food and menu selection in the main dining room on Viking more to our liking but that was because we are not big on Asian style food. But to offset that, Vikings evening buffets are nowhere as good or innovative as Azamara. On Azamara you have to pay for the special restaurants unless you are in a suite. For us we found Manfredi as good as Aqualina on Azamara so would not pay for it however they are revamping the Azamara menus so maybe hold fire on that judgement Entertainment particularly guest lecturers were better on Viking. We saw no difference in bar service between the two. However, here is the big difference on both Viking trips we had several ports cancelled and the captains did not seem able to switch into alternatives where as on Azamara captains have a great degree of flexibility to make the cruise really happen. Azamara officers are much more visible and ready to take comments and fully engage with guests and that does make a big difference.

As we are creatures of habit, good attendants often tell us how easy it is to time servicing our rooms. We like the invisible ones too - we are not looking for a new best friend! Yes this boy reorganised our toiletries in the bathroom to our annoyance - true our toiletry types were not “grouped together” but split so we knew the “started bottles” vs the still to start. I wish he’d spend time cleaning the smears off the magnifying mirror from the previous guest. I had to eventually ask that he did that! For DH rearranging hanged clothes would have tipped him over the edge 😂

Blacklane are certainly thought of as a very reliable company in the UK in relation to the services they provide at UK airports. As with Welcome Pickups whom we also use, they are only as good as the in-house franchise in that country but they do have pretty high standards overall.

Yes unlike Seabourn you are on your own until you cross the threshold and then when you cross it when you leave. However a good travel agent and arrange the missing elements of door to door experiences. I noted a couple of solo events advertised but am not aware of nightly hosted experiences. I did see several people dining solo but that might have been out of choice. Given the multinational guest list it will be easier to connect with others if you also speak a language in addition to English. Even as a couple we found we did not have the same interaction with other guests as we’ve had on other ships over dinner or in the bars We also find excursions good places to connect with others but unfortunately our excursions never happened. Hope you have a good opportunity to interact with others onboard

I have fully searched these boards and I do not see any posts calling named staff (or named roles) arrogant. I do see a few posts from a number of posters expressing that there is an overall arrogance towards feedback and frustration that there is no sense that individual feedback is valued. I get that - and feedback can feel valued in the way it is listened to even if it is not going to be acted on. I look forward to seeing the views of others or if they see posts I have missed.

A description of behaviour is perfectly valid so long as the individual isn’t personally named. A job title is acceptable - this is the approach applied elsewhere in this community so I do not see why the explora board should be any different