wjfan417

11 hours ago, aliaschief said:

We stayed at the historic Cotton House which is one of Marriotts Autograph Collection Hotels. A fantastic experience.

It looked fantastic. We stayed at El Palace, right by it.

At least on the Quest last month, you could just show up and dine together. In fact, they allowed us to do shared tables.

Diana

We were on the April 5 cruise from Lisbon to Barcelona and the PLF’s were not required.

Diana

We were on Azamara in 2012 with our 2 adult children. I booked an oceanview cabin for us and an inside cabin for them. If you walked into the inside cabin at night without having left a light on, it was pitch black. If we ever take them on another cruise, I will book an oceanview for them too.

Diana

4 hours ago, excitedofharpenden said:

What do you mean "at better times and with officer attendance"?

 

Phil 

On our April 5 Quest cruises, the Meet and Mingle was scheduled at 5 p.m.-2 hours after boarding and at the same time as sail away. There was no notice of the event other than the daily newsletter. If someone on this message board hadn’t given us a heads up that it’s been happening on the first night, we wouldn’t have checked. Out of 80 people registered, only about a dozen showed up.  Other cruises, it’s been held in the Cabaret Lounge with officers present.

Why aren’t Meet and Mingles being scheduled at better times and with officer attendance.

33 minutes ago, travelberlin said:

Why were they tested? Were they with symptoms or is regular testing taken place onboard?

Wishing those affected a good recovery.

Ivi

We were not tested on our April 5 cruise, except at embarkation. I’m pretty sure the officers and crew are tested regularly.

Diana

10 hours ago, Grandma Cruising said:

Very strange that CD knew nothing about the CC meeting. On all the cruises I’ve been on it’s the CD that has hosted the meeting, introducing themselves and a couple of senior officers.

Our CC get together said it was unhosted and did not have anyone from Azamara other than the servers passing drinks. It had seemed to me that we’ve had officers there in the past.

35 minutes ago, Mrs Miggins said:

Cruise critic meetings not working for me. First week only me and one other couple in the Drawing Room. This week daily list showed it as in Discoveries bar at 6. We sat with one other couple but the room was full and many were waiting to go in restaurant.  
in the past we received a written invitation in the room but no longer.

 

On our April 5 Quest cruise, it was held in the Drawing Room at 5 p.m. on embarkation day-same time as sail-a-way! There were about a dozen people there, but the only way we knew about it was because someone had given a heads up on this board to check the schedule. 

5 hours ago, oddjob16 said:

No Whispering Angel on Journey in january. They were empty of many other wines in the package as well. 

They had it on the Quest earlier this month. Of course, we may have drunk all of it!

We spent a few hours on the last day trying to take our Binax Now COVID tests and flight checkin before finally giving up. Fortunately, we had taken advantage of Azamara’s tests in the morning, but wanted to check in for our flights before the 7 p.m. time that we were told we would receive our results by.

We stayed at Hotel Giorgione in Venice a few times-old style small hotel centrally located.

On 4/13/2022 at 2:52 PM, uktog said:

I see a lot more mask wearing in the last hour on Quest. We used to be very much the minority (our choice). However we’ve just been told by the captain we’ve a case onboard. I really applaud the openness sharing this information as soon as it was known so people can make choices. 

I noticed the increase in mask wearing once the captain made the announcement too. We had continued wearing our masks while walking through the corridors and during shows.

We made our own flight arrangements and paid $29.95 each for the Azamara transfer to the airport. Everyone booked at the same time boarded the bus pretty quickly, and we left the port in Barcelona a few minutes early. There were only a few taxis at the port when we left.

My husband and I actually enjoyed our 4/5 Quest cruise with a couple exceptions. We had a premium drink package included in the special when we booked. It didn’t include any additional wines which is what we primarily drink, and we thought the included wines were pretty low quality. After 5 days, we upgraded to the ultimate package based on the wines they said were included, only to find that most of those had been replaced with something else. They were only slightly better than the included wines. We also were not happy with the white-coated guy asking how we were doing and offering us acupuncture. Our transfer from Tarragona to Barcelona the last day was cancelled because there weren’t enough bookings, so we lost money for our La Sagrada Familia tour and Picasso Museum tickets. 

We went through $1000 OBC very quickly on this cruise. We did end up purchasing a lot of Azamara tours which we wouldn’t normally do since we weren’t sure we’d be able to leave the ship on our own. Also upgraded our drinks and wi-fi plans, and purchased a laundry package.

On 4/5/2022 at 3:34 PM, DS said:

Yes, these wines are in place of the "two reds of the day and two whites of the day"  We had them all last cruise, but I only say the placard/listing the last night in the Discoveries menu--so I took it!   I did not find them an improvement in quality, and perhaps even a bit less diversity...  since they are Azamara private brand/boutique wines, you will have the same choices every day, cruise after cruise after cruise -- at least with the "two wines of the day" they changed between cruises.  For example before, there were usually several different Cab's ( for example) along the cruise on different nights.   Now there is only 1 - and in my opinion, not that great.

 

As to other wines for purchase, there is an extensive list but I don't have a copy available

After 4 days of the included wines, we upgraded our beverage package to have more options-which we’ve never found necessary to do before.

3 hours ago, kaymoz said:

We are impressed with Azamara's Cuise With Confidence program but are wondering about activating the Best Price Guarantee. 

Are we required to bother our travel agent about this or can we simply phone Azamara to accomplish it?  If we do this, does it affect her commission negatively (which I do NOT want to happen!)?  Is the transaction basically cancelling and rebooking? 

Can we keep the same cabin number in the original booking or must we switch to one that is available at the time of the transaction?  Or something else?!

The commission will be adjusted as it’s based on your total fare. 

19 hours ago, ksederholm said:

Has anyone else having trouble logging into Azamara.  I have tried all day and it comes up access denied.  If you have a work around would appreciate any help

You’re not from Euclid, Ohio originally, are you?

6 hours ago, Tuscany4 said:

We’re also reasonably content. We’ve done Venice a few times and have managed to change our flights with BA. They have 4 flights a day to Bologna, and it’s somewhere we haven’t been before. Our return flight is at 11.40am so will need to leave the ship by about 0830 at the latest. Our last day has an overnight in Ravenna so we will visit then.

i will miss the sailing away past St marks square but alas that is a thing of the past with the new restrictions. For those that have never done it I strongly recommend trying it just once with someone like Windstar, or Ponant etc who have the really small ships that are still allowed to.

Our picture is from a Venice sail away. Great experience!

4 hours ago, lizee1979 said:

Could you please tell me who this came from ? I’m going round in circles wanting the exact confirmation! 

Azamara Reservations Department.

I called Azamara a couple weeks ago to see how early we could depart because I’m not crazy about getting home at midnight and I wanted to change our flight. They said that we could depart any time after 1 a.m. since the ship docks the previous night.

Diana

I booked it on a 2020 cruise that ended up being cancelled because it was less expensive than what I could find on my own.  However, I just noticed that my invoice for a cruise this year says "the booking is currently subject to USD $2213.00 cancellation penalties" even though it's still more than 121 days prior to sailing and I've only paid $550 (deposit for on board booking).  I called and questioned Azamara, and the invoice is incorrect, but it was because of the air that was booked and not paid for yet on a cruise cancelled because of Covid. For this year's cruises, I've been able to find much less expensive air on my own.

Diana

2 hours ago, KirkNC said:

Are you asking about medical or trip insurance?  We use an annual medical policy from GeoBlue for trips up to 70 days.  It provides $1,000,000 in coverage.  For trips over 70 days we buy a trip specific policy.  For trip insurance we just use the coverage from our credit card.

Thanks-I have been looking at GeoBlue. The insurance company I had been using no longer offers annual plans. My credit card seems to have good coverage too, but I’ve been over-thinking coverage (and over-purchasing) for our international trips this past year.

We have 3 B2B’s booked on Quest in August/September with a few days pre and post. What type of travel insurance do you purchase for trips over 30 days?
 

Diana