Am I Really Doing This?

We stayed at the Absalon in Copenhagen after our Norway cruise in July. We really liked it. NIce room, fun funky lobby and bar, great breakfast. We were walking distance to a lot of things, including Tivoli and the train station. Actually I'm sure you could walk to most of the sites, we just used the Hop on Hop Off bus in combo with walking. I can see where staying closer to Nyhavn would be great, but I would assume it may be more expensive too. We found the Absalon to be reasonable. There was AC and elevators as well.

Does Azamara beta test and overall test their systems before going live? The types of errors that people are reporting should have been caught before ever going live. It's so perplexing how poor the systems are!

Bailey's is part of the Ultimate Package, not Premium. And yes, it's $5.95/drink on its own. We didn't want to think about what we were ordering so we did the Ultimate.

We know that shore excursion prices tend to be higher on board than when booking online, but do the beverage package and wifi package prices go up or down from what we can book online/phone ahead of time?

I was just able to make my reservation to it looks like the problem is fixed.

Thanks, we'll try again tonight.

We just went to book our shore excursions for our June 23th cruise and all options for all dates have this message:

At this time, all online inventory is not available for sale on the Azamara Cruises website. You may, however, book this item once onboard your cruise.

Obviously not everything is sold out and surely you can still book excursions online a month before sailing.

Does anyone have any idea what is going on? Does anyone else get the same message?

Thank you.

We are on this cruise this year and just went through the brochure last night and picked which excursions we would book if we did all stops through Azamara. It came out to $2600 for the two of us, I think.

Just remember that Azamara has only two ships, so overall has a lot fewer passengers than any other of the well known cruise lines. That means it's likely to have fewer reviews, therefore very unlikely to win any awards on Cruise Critic.

 

 

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Viking Star only has one not very big ship and won a ton.

Thank you for all the pictures!

Although some of the upgrades are very nice (not to my particular taste but they most certainly are not required to do that!), I have to say taste aside, some of the carpet choices are very questionable. Don't a lot of them look muddy and dirty? The colors and patterns.

The weight of the people sleeping on those relatively new mattresses is a big factor. A morbidly obese person takes quite a toll on the mattress.

Oh please. Each individual person is only sleeping on that mattress in 1-2 week intervals. What one person weighs in any given trip is not going to make or break the mattress. What's the point of making your comment?

Can anyone else get to it right now? When I select US nothing happens. It stays on the world/globe view. When I hard replace the "int" in the url with "us" it switches to the US flag but it gives an error page not found message on the page itself.

This has been the case for at least a week for me.

Anyone else?

Agreed. I am only seeing the Caribbean so far; nothing for Europe yet.

Iceland also has whaling, if that affects where you travel.

I'm very interested to read people's responses to this. I've never sailed on either. We've booked a 2017 Azamara cruise which we'd be really happy with, but will be looking at Silversea's itineraries and prices when they come out later this month to make a final decision.

Thank you.

Do you know approximately when Silverseas puts out the next batch of itineraries?

Also, do they tend to vary greatly from year to year? If there is one we like in 2016 but need to travel in 2017 is there a good chance something similar will be going in 2017?

Thanks!

Had this problem awhile ago and actually talked to an IT person in Miami who worked with me to solve the problem. You have to make sure there is a US Flag in the upper right of the Azamara home screen for this to work. Often times the website changes when you go back and showing the exact cabin numbers available only works from the US website.

 

Hope this helps,

Perfect!! That was exactly it. You're the best!

We are in the process of booking a 2017 Azamara cruise. As we've been looking and trying to determine which to book I have, until the past few days, been able to see exactly which cabins are available in each category for each cruise.

Starting late last week I no longer seem to be able to do this. When you click on book this cruise and then select stateroom it just gives the categories and then "select this stateroom" (by category not actual cabin) without the option of seeing which are available. When you click select this stateroom it takes you to the page where you enter your passenger info.

Did Azamara change their website or am I suddenly doing something wrong? Is there still a way to see which cabins are available on the website before booking?

Thanks!

Wait, so this just happened again two days ago? I'm sorry, but this is obviously more than a fluke.

Viking Ocean really has a lot of problems going on, don't they?

I wonder why, in the incident from two days ago, the couple flew home if he only had minor injuries? Sounds like we'll find out.

No cruise line actually charges brochure prices 95% of the time. They all claim some amazing sale or savings deal, whether it's 2/1 or "50% off brochure prices!" (Which is the same deal said two different ways). So I don't think saying that VO is offering some amazing deal that other cruise lines don't offer is a fair assessment. All cruise lines offer something on par AND don't have the ridiculous payment schedule.

I don't have it in front of me to check at the moment but I think VO (and other lines) even have some fine print statement that says something like "We don't claim that the original prices have ever been the price" or something like that because the U.S. (Or it could be state laws in most states) has consumer protection laws in place about when and how you can claim something is on sale.

We've thought about it and have decided that in light of the recent events with the Star, delays in one of the ships until 2017, and the ridiculous policy to pay in full 18 months before the trip that we aren't willing to book at this time. I want to give the company 6 months or so to see if they continue to have problems or fix some of the things people seem unhappy about before considering such a financial layout. If the mid-2017 sailings we are interested in are still available 6-8 months from now (and we haven't fallen in love with something else) we will consider it.

Thank you all for your responses.

Thank you, comcox, that was super helpful.

Why does Viking make you do full payment so far in advance of the trip??

Thank you for you responses.

Austinetc, are you saying that they will require a deposit larger than $500 pp? We will not be booking airfare through Viking, but will probably want to add trip insurance.

We are thinking of booking a 2017 trip shortly (yes despite the current ridiculousness) and I have a few questions. I think I read on the website that you have to put a $500/pp deposit of which $100 is not refundable (I know this changes when you get close to sail date but I'm talking about this far out). Is this accurate? I don't find this info on the Viking website that clear.

Also, I thought it was a bit odd you can't book through the website but instead have to call them. How many of you booked directly through calling Viking Ocean vs having a 3rd party TA? I know on some cruise lines it's preferable to book direct with the company because it's easier to make changes etc that way. What are people's experiences so far with Viking Ocean?

Thank you in advance.

We went towards the end of last October. The weather on the ship the first day and the last day is chilly...not a lot of pool type weather, but once we were in Bermuda it was gorgeous. Mid 80's temps, sunny. The water was bearable temps...a bit warmer than the warmest it gets in the peak of summer in New England. I'd say...68? 70? Cold for some, warm for Massachusetts people.

It is hurricane season though. The island got hit by a hurricane the week before we got there. Stuff was still pretty messy and some things were closed.