Peter Lanky

I feel particularly let down by Azamara, because I need an accessible cabin, and most ships have so few that it's impossible to secure one late on in the day. By hanging on, the chances of finding a replacement cruise in May are dwindling, when almost everything is Mediterranean based. Oceania may well be getting quite a few new customers as a result of these delaying tactics.

I am sot seeing the Huthis as being choosy at who they attack. The last 'hit' may have been registered in the UK, but was Lebanese owned. I wonder how well that went down (pun intended)? As far as they are concerned, all of 'The West' is the enemy. I can't see any ship wanting to play against those odds.

I guess that if there is a significant number of people prepared to pay the price, then cruise lines will charge it. We have taken the view that in most cases other than using up OBC, a complimentary visit to the local town on the shuttle bus meets our needs. Lets face it, one is unlikely to visit the town again in many instances, so to go on a 3 hour coach trip to see a few hot spots for a rip off price seems unnecessary. I've even seen 'walking tours' for £50 plus, so a local takes 20 people round the town, Azamara pockets £1000, and the local guide get how much? Nice profit margin there.

Had the discount not applied to certain elements of the fare, then these should have been listed in the small print of the promotion, otherwise Azamara would be guilty of false advertising. Knowing how poor the Administration of Azamara is, the person calculating the discount most likely made an error. They did this to me when pre booking excursions on my previous cruise to be taken on my next cruise. You need to keep persisting that Azamara has made an error and should rectify it. The problem I have encountered is trying to explain this to somebody whose first language is not English. This will be my approach when I take my next cruise. I will find the most senior crew member whose first language is English and as them to take the problem forward. I wish you luck, but you must persist.

We don't get a choice. We get a final payment date when booking and that's set in stone. However, I won't be cancelling anything. If there's any cancellations to be done, Azamara will have to do it.

I have not seen the 5% promotion, but I did clock the badly worded one about 100% single supplement. I feel I am being bombarded by emails from Azamara all saying pretty much the same thing re discount and OBC, but seeing as I have 2 cruises booked in March and May, both paid for, these emails annoy me intensely, seeing as Azamara will not honour a lower fare without cancelling the original booking. At the moment, I'm more interested in the potential fate of our cruise in May that is scheduled to pass through the Red Sea, for which Azamara is sitting squarely on the fence. At least I can amuse myself daily by trying to guess which of my THREE Azamara Circle membership levels will appear at the top of the page. 🤔

We cruised from Gran Canaria to Cape Town with Azamara in Nov/Dec which involved many sea days. We had as many as 7 quiz sessions in the day and there was certainly plenty of Bridge being played as well as morning and afternoon lectures and plenty of music sessions. The only weak links were games like table tennis which were not particularly well organised, but you can't have evrything.

The latest I can find on Oceania is that 2 ships are still planning to traverse the Red Sea but with no stops, which means 9 days from Dubai to Athens without a call in port. Though this would afford some protection from trouble on land, I'm not sure how this is supposed to help with potential missile attacks. If things remain as they are, I don't fancy this option myself if Azamara plans something similar, but there is no indication of how Oceania has made arrangements with booked passengers.

https://www.google.com

I keep chewing over what may happen, and the bottom line is that the ship has to get to the Mediterranean somehow, so if the troubles continue, will almost be compelled to circumvent Africa or lose the entire summer season of Mediterranean cruises. Will they do the same thing as happened to you is another question. I would be quite happy with an extended trip at no additional cost, as long as I can persuade KLM to give me credit for our one way flight from Athens to Manchester. Really I don't want to be in Athens at all, seeing as I have to take 2 flights to get home, so I'm quite happy to miss out on that. I'm not sure if this 'wait and see' approach is the best option, unless of course there are contingency plans being made in the background.

Does that mean that Azamara has some sort of 'all inclusive' visa access for passengers, or that Azamara sorts out the paperwork and then bills you for the visa?

One of my main issues is not the ports but the visas. This cruise needs quite a few visas (aka money for old rope) and I don't want to be buying visas and then find that we're not going to that country, because they're not in the habit of refunding. SL, India, Egypt, Saudi and Jordan all need visas, but hopefully the latter ones retain a visa on arrival.

My disability would make self drive difficult. It's hard enough in a car that I'm familiar with. One of those things I have to live with while trying to get myself the best experience.

Our plan is to fly into South Island and then make our way to Auckland by train, spending maybe 7-10 days overland, and then embark on a cruise, hence we don't want to waste days sailing to/from Australia, as we have to keep the total trip to under 30 days (complicated). We are already visiting the East coast of Australia in March and then again in September, travelling entirely by train around the country, so any further visits there would be duplication. As I need an accessible cabin, we are forced to book early as there are so few of them on the ships. Leaving it too late risks not getting a berth.

I had clocked that one previously, but it's expensive even by Silversea standards, and no accessible cabins at the entry level, and only 1 at the next price level. £30K or more realistically £33K where they have 3 cabins for a 3 week holiday is just a step too far.

Is anyone aware of any cruises in the early part of 2026 that covers New Zealand and maybe some islands around, but NOT Australia?

In general, if anyone wants to spend any time playing table tennis, I would recommend bringing your own bats and balls. The supplied bats are suitable for little more than swatting flies, and the balls are cheap. The tables themselves are decent enough though.

Having given this much thought, I can see only 2 viable solutions. One is for naval nations to escort shipping through the danger zone with warships. This may sound costly, but the ships are at sea anyway and are manned, so they may as well be doing something useful. The second is to sail around South Africa, and make some alterations to the schedules. The problem with this is that it would effectively cancel some existing Mediterranean cruises, but create a new cruise from Cape Town to the Mediterranean, if the original cruise was diverted to Cape town to start with which would make sense. This would be the safest, but would create a lot of logistic decisions reasonably soon. The other problem with this would be people in the wrong place for their flight home. I was purely speculating rather than expecting a definitive answer.

As somebody needing an accessible cabin, then an inside cabin is often the only choice we get. However I don't see it as a big deal. Typically we would leave the cabin for breakfast, and not return until 6pm for a shower before dinner and then not return again until bedtime. On our previous cruise, we heard people enquiring about upgrades at the guest relations desk, and they were typically being quoted prices similar to what we had paid for the entire cruise including the fights. The inside cabins are fine in my opinion, and the saving pays for another cruise. After all, we get the same food, same wine and same entertainment as people in balcony cabins.

We are booked on the Journey cruise named the Spice Route Voyage sailing on May 3rd 2024. This is a repositioning cruise that is scheduled to traverse the Red Sea towards the end of the cruise. The same issue would also apply to any other cruise ships passing through the Red Sea at a similar time. With a number of cargo ship lines starting to avoid the Red Sea due to attacks from Yemen, what would happen if the crisis is prolonged and also if shipping lines considered that there would also be a risk to cruise ships? The ship is scheduled to be in the Mediterranean for some time, so it can't simply not go there, but how would the cruise lines most likely address the problem? Azamara has already taken the step of removing the call at Israel from the schedule, so these decisions need to be taken well in advance of the cruise. Has anyone seen anything similar before and has some experience of it?

I think that many people will agree that Azamara does excellent cruises, and that the onboard experience is first class. I think there is also a school of thought that Azamara administration is mediocre at best and that navigating the website is little more than dreadful. With this in mind, I am totally baffled by my Azamara Circle status. At one stage or another I am aware of having 3 different membership numbers, but also I keep being shown different levels when trying to find my points and status, that is if I can find it at all. At one point yesterday I was showing as having 208 points and being an 'Explorer' but currently showing as being 'Preview' which suggests no points at all despite having been on 2 cruises. Is anyone else experiencing anything similar; if so has Azamara offered any solutions, or do they not have a clue either?

The original question was a fair one, and it is important to some people that the price advertised is the price paid, and I am one of them. The tax implications, how the staff is paid, and how the calculation of the price is arrived at is of no importance to many. If I am buying a car, that is what I am buying: a car, not paying extra to have it assembled, and the same applies to cruises: I am buying a cruise in full. Now I know there are people out there that like to hand over money, whether discretely of publicly, and that is their prerogative, but some people don't want to, and should not be hounded for thinking in any way. These are not tight, mean, cheap or any of the other terms often used, but simply realistic. So to answer the question, I know that the luxury cruises, Seabourn, Silversea and Regent, as well as Azamara advertise the correct price, and also Marella and P&O. I also believe Crystal and Saga do the same. I'm sure there are others, but I have not researched them.

An irritating development in my own personal case. As I said, my agent almost never returns calls, but in the rare times I had spoken, he had told me I could get a rebate if I didn't take the pre cruise hotel, and I could arrange my own accommodation, but didn't produce the new invoice 'later that day' as promised. Now it is time to pay, and he's on holiday, but the person who answered asked if I had anything in writing to confirm my story as they 'don't normally' rebate if the hotel is not taken. Now I have to wait until he returns and hope he doesn't deny having told me this if he wasn't supposed to offer me the option. It really is a mess.

It's almost 2 years since booking, so no chance of a change to a TA then. I don't consider myself particularly demanding, with updating errors on my itinerary probably my biggest issue, or agreed credits to my account being missing, or even my cabin being shown as GTY (guarantee) rather than being specified as it should be. Other consultants seem reluctant to action these themselves, so I wait for that call back promised in 10 minutes that has still not happened a week later.

How does one do that? I can't see Silversea letting go of a booking so easily.