NeilWM

Thanks for the advice. I am normally tempted to take a chance with weather but doing my homework because we would be travelling a long way to board 😎

This sounds great and we would love to cruise this area, Just a quick question from downunder, aren’t there hurricanes possible at this time of year?

We used shared transfer in small van with International Friends which was excellent 

We like the cabins up near reception such as 4051 as per LHT28’s suggestion 

A lot of the cruisers booking with TAs are from USA, where because of volume TAs can offer greater value. 

We have stayed at Apex Waterloo Place a couple of times and really enjoyed hotel and location 

But the HOHO bus does allow you to get to a variety of places you may want to visit rather than take trams. And yes bus stop right across from cruise terminal 

The Bruges shuttle doesn’t take you to town centre. All buses, shuttles, etc take you to a massive car park where there is a reasonable walk to Bruges

We are booked there next April on recommendation of a UK friend who stays there when in London and highly recommends 

Above theatre also noisy during rehearsals if you happen to be in your cabin 

We got on a tuk tuk just outside cruise terminal and got an amazing tour of local places 

Our fav too 

It will be interesting to see what options, if any, are available to countries like Australia where airfares to most cruise locations are high. 

Hotel staff offered to help us take bags to cruise terminal but we were ok even with my wife slight mobility issue. Our hotel wifi still worked on ship

Yes very easy

Absolutely agree, which is why after a lot of thought I booked a comparable cruise with Oceania in a cabin I could pick at a similar price for our next cruise while I continue to monitor Azamara over the coming months.

Thanks tigerfan, that makes sense. Almost certainly a coach transfer for any of their passengers in London.

This is possibly a dumb question but I am reviewing Oceania options for pre-cruise transfer from London to Southampton and cheapest option is “OCI Hotel to Ship Transfer”.

Can someone tell me what OCI is short for, something to do with coach?

As we are rapidly growing older we are moving towards being classified more as cruisers than travellers 

We love both Azamara and Oceania

And for what it is worth Oceania is very cost competitive with current sale, price was not a consideration, lack of hassles with booking, etc main driver 

After carefully considering options I have just booked a cruise on Oceania where I could look at options, pick my cabin and sort everything out in 5 minutes.

Hopefully I can review options with Azamara next time.

Excuse my ignorance as we have less specialist cruise travel agents in Australia, Do travel agents have a separate booking system that is possibly working ok, or do they need to book using the same system as us or by being patient on the phone?

Excuse my ignorance as we have less specialist cruise travel agents in Australia, Do travel agents have a separate booking system that is possibly working ok, or do they need to book using the same system as us or by being patient on the phone?

The fact that so many people either can’t or are not comfortable booking new cruises because of this fiasco must cause them some pain