Beamafar

Never thought we’d be considering Oceania (enjoyed several MSC Yacht Club cruises. Now trying Azamara and giving X another chance with the Retreat experience after a disappointing cruise in an SS on Millie at the time Luminae had just been introduced). If neither live up to our expectations, we will definitely be prepared to pay the extra for the experience we’re looking for.

Sorry, they tested negative 2 days before the cruise (in Celebrity’s case). Who’s to say they didn’t contract it between taking the test and embarkation.

Our experience was that, onboard, MSC treated our cruise as a B2B, despite us having only one booking number. We received 2 lots of Diamond level perks.

Seems that it applies across all the lines, now. Methinks they’re trying to recoup the losses made during the pandemic. IMHO they’re going to hit those who spend more the hardest in the belief that they’re the ones with the most disposable income.

I concur.

So, only the “urban” part is in question. 🙄

Seems like you’re saying that “well-educated, rich, urban elites” can’t be defined as classless bumpkins. There’s a whole different world between ‘schooled’ and ‘educated’.

PUNCTUATION An English professor wrote the words: “A woman without her man is nothing” on the chalkboard and asked his students to punctuate it correctly. All of the males in the class wrote: “A woman, without her man, is nothing.” All the females in the class wrote: “A woman, without her, man is nothing.” Punctuation is powerful

Same here. We’re booked in an SS and have the menus for Luminae and Blu available.

If the Patio is open for lunch then it’s not a Covid issue that it’s not open in the evenings. Perhaps it’s a staffing issue?

I had a problem this morning until I realised that I was uploading the latest Cert which included the booster. It accepted the original Cert and then I uploaded the one with the booster shot (though that one is optional).

TBH, hoping to be pragmatic should our own luggage not travel with us.

At least you wouldn’t spend time waiting at the carousel for luggage that was never going to show. 🤣

Waiting to see if Celebrity will now drop their requirements for our cruise in September.

Fantastic report on Naples. Will be visiting in September on the Edge and this has given me lots of ideas for our day there.

Our check-in date is showing as today on the app. Still not available, yet. (We’re on GMT+1)

Oceania’s a bit too rich for our blood, G. 😆 We had Seashore booked for last March out of Miami, but, unfortunately, I got a bad attack of vertigo and had to cancel. Was soooo looking forward to it as we’d been on her in the Med last October and were looking forward to seeing some of the fantastic crew who would still be onboard. Plus, there were lots of CCers doing that one, some we’d met before and others I’d been hoping to meet.

It was the shorts and t-shirt brigade, in our experience, that had the ‘problem’ with us dressing up for dinner on, what were named, ‘Gala’ nights. I don’t comment on what you wear, but please extend me the same courtesy.

Hi G. We’re trying Az for the first time in a little over 2 weeks’ time, then giving X another chance 2 weeks later (did an SS on Millie in 2016 and thought we’d never sail X again!). For us, the YC experience has been seriously downgraded; food on our 23 night NY-Canada-NY-Miami in Oct-Nov 2019 sailing was atrocious (and I’m happy once there’s something on the menu I can eat). In fact, we’ve really turned off MSC after all the problems we had with them last year. We have the Abu Dhabi-Genoa repo on Europa booked for next March; for some reason we couldn’t book YC, but we did book Aurea before that Experience got downgraded. We’re very keen to find out how Az (and the Retreat on X) compares.

Azamara has also dropped the requirements for pre-embarkation testing from July 25th.

We’ve bought a couple for our upcoming trip and would love to hear from anyone who’s used them.

OMG - thank you so much for sharing this here. There was a rumour that there would be an announcement around Aug 1st. Here’s hoping we won’t need it for our cruise.

Bit disappointed to hear that the Patio is only open for lunch. We’ll be on Journey in a little over 2 weeks’ time and were hoping it would be open in the evenings for dinner. Enjoy your cruise 😊

My check-in for a September 3rd cruise is showing for tomorrow.

They haven’t yet ‘uncoupled’. We booked our first Az cruise recently and were assigned our X points when we signed up for the loyalty club. Plus, I’ve received points on my Azamara account from these Power-up points. I’ve read that it’ll be at least November before Az finally breaks from the RCCL set-up. They’re still using their booking system.