islandwoman

Onboard Azamara Quest day 5: Today the refund from the shore excursion that Azamara cancelled appeared in our onboard account. This was an excursion that we booked before the change in Azamara's website. We paid for it with $4 of OBC and $194 credit card. The refund is showing as non-refundable OBC. DH called Guest Relations who picked up on the first ring, They told him that they can't access account information with shoreside, so they had to make it a non-refundable OBC and that it will be converted to refundable at the end of the cruise. 🙄 My worst fears have not come to pass. I worried that since Azamara's customer facing accounts were messed up, that perhaps other parts of their accounts were also a mess and that maybe that would result in bills not being paid. That doesn't appear to have happened. So far the ship has not been impounded for failure to pay port fees, there is food and marine fuel, and the crew seem happy!

From onboard Azamara Quest day two: financial issues - We spoke with the Future Cruise consultant to whom we were referred for these issues. When we inquired about our phantom amount owed, she pretty much laughed and said something like "don't worry about it". The refunds for cancelled excursions is another thing, Azamara's vendor cancelled one of our excursions for the current cruise. This excursion was booked with a credit card. She told us credit would appear in our account within 48 hours. The second was for the second of these two B2B cruises. We cancelled it online (stupid, stupid) and instead of refunding the OBC that we had used to pay for it, the site applied the refund toward payment of our fictitious amount owed. She told us that had we paid for that one with a credit card, shoreside would have to refund the money and it would take up to 8 weeks. But since we paid for it with OBC, she could put the OBC back in our account, but the OBC would have to be approved by shoreside. We haven't seen any credit in any form for either of the two cancelled excursions yet.

From onboard the Azamara Quest: DH and I boarded yesterday (May 5) in Singapore. Our assigned boarding time was 1:30 PM. We arrived at the port to discover that bags had been accepted since 10:30 AM. We were able to check our bags without problem just by showing our boarding passes that we received by email from Azamara through our TA some time ago. The baggage checkers wrote our cabin numbers on Azamara Quest airline-style luggage tags and fastened those to our bags. The bags arrived in our cabin several hours later. The only information we received from Azamara about what would be needed to check-in was an email, one day ahead of boarding, that we would need a Sri Lanka visa. There was no further information at the pier. What we actually needed to show at check-in was: boarding pass Passport COVID vaccination certificate Sri Lanka visa India visa I couldn't find my India visa documentation, but we were allowed to board anyway, with instructions to go to Guest Relations and show it there. We were given cruise cards that showed no status." - we are actually Discoverer. After a welcome bubbly and safety video we headed for Guest Relations. The wait was only 5-10 minutes. The Guest Relations crew gave us directions to email my India visa documentation to whomever needed to see it; examined our Discoverer documentation (from the Celebrity website) gave us new cruise cards; and set us up for wi-fi. All of this took about 10 minutes. Our cabin is perfect. The food is great. The captain gives us the weather and seas report once a day. Today, tomorrow and the next day are sea days. Sometime soon, we'll have to try to straighten out our "amount owed", OBC and shore excursions.

I would like to warn everyone, who has a fictitious "amount due" in their online account, not to cancel any Azamara shore excursions at this time. Here is what happened to us: My account is showing "No future cruises", but my husband's account has both of our cruises listed. We didn't want a shore excursion that was scheduled for less than 48 hours after boarding, so we thought we'd better cancel it now. It had been booked with OBC. DH was able to cancel it, but instead of refunding our OBC, the website subtracted $318 from his fictitious "amount due". I doubt that we'll ever see that $318 OBC again. .

How do you like World cruising on a large ship?

It was easier to get my India visa than it has been to deal with Azamara 🤣

Will do. That is, if I can get my Loyalty status restored so that I can get the Wi-Fi discount.

"In the next couple of weeks" won't work for me. I'm sailing (I hope) in less than a week. They claim that "Our immediate focus is to prioritize guests with upcoming sailings in the next 45 days so that your questions and concerns are answered prior to boarding" but after 5 forms and multiple emails, the only answers I get are boiler plates that don't even come close to addressing my issues. After I explained that I was due to sail on May 5, they repeated that the system should be operational by the end of May and that they were concentrating on sailings within 45 days.

Thank you for posting about your experience on an Azamara cruise this month. We are booked on the Quest departing Singapore May 5 and I needed to know what to expect.

Is your opinion based on your experience with Azamara before or after Azamara was bought by a private equity firm?

I wish my final payment wasn't due for 30 days. I would cancel the cruise. As it is, they have way too much of my money already and they're asking for more - that I don't owe.

No, and I sent in 5 forms.

I am one of the others. But in my case, I didn't have any cruises yesterday and no loyalty points either. DH had two yesterday and now they're gone too. I am leaving on Sunday to board the Quest in Singapore. President Cabazsa says, "We appreciate your patience". I ran out of patience a long time ago. Now I'm just worried about what I will find when I arrive at the embarkation port.

If I send out a bag of laundry, can I specify "cold wash, low dry" and will those directions be followed? How long does it take for the laundry to be returned?

Can anyone see their Azamara Captains Club points? They promised us that if we had at least one Azamara cruise by February, 2023 that all of our Celebrity points would carry over. I hope that includes PUPs. I can't see ANY Azamara Captains Club points or a status tier in my azamara.com account. Can you?

Where were you sailing at the time that you made your purchase in the onboard shop?

What is "Euro atmosphere"?

If I understand correctly, passengers in Continent Suites receive one "free" bag of laundry service per suite per seven days. Discoverers receive one "free" bag of laundry service per stateroom per seven night voyage. If I am Discoverer and traveling in a Continent Suite on a 23 night voyage, followed by a 12 night voyage, how many "free" bags of laundry service does my suite get? Sorry, I know this sounds like an elementary school math problem 🤣

This was my experience on Princess also. But from the other side. DH and I wanted to sail Ft. Lauderdale to Alaska. The cruise that we found from FLL was the last segment of a world cruise.The World Cruise ended in California, but the ship continued on to Alaska. In the MDR, we were seated with two women who were on the entire world cruse. Wonderful, I thought! This is my chance to learn about a world cruise! Wrong 🙁 Almost every dinner time was spent hearing about how unfair it was that the segment cruisers had received a "World Cruise" backpack and had been allowed into the World Cruise photo. We weren't in the photo, but we did receive a backpack (probably left over). It was not a pleasant cruise for us.

Will you please tell us which mainstream mega ship and premium line you sailed on your two world cruises?

After reading your post, I went to my account on Azamara and guess what? I couldn't find ANY points. Before the website "upgrade" I had enough (including one Azamara cruise) to be Discoverer - barely. In my case, every PUP counts. Also, one of my upcoming cruises is missing. I leave home for that Azamara cruise on April 30. I certainly hope that they get their act together well before that 😒

Sorry to hear that the conditioner isn't great (I have long hair). It will be a long flight to Singapore with liquids spilling in my checked baggage. 🙁 I wonder whether I can buy good conditioner in Singapore? How would I even know whether the brands they sell there would be to my liking ?

Does Azamara provide both shampoo and conditioner, or are they combined into one liquid?

That seems really weird to me. I wouldn't be surprised if a waiter pushed certain foods (I have seen signs on restaurant kitchen doors "push" this or that) and assumed that the kitchen had prepared a large amount of these items. But to try to talk you out of ordering something?! Why do you think? Could it be that the kitchen was running low on that item? Do you have a late dining hour?

And passengers are already paying a surcharge to eat in these restaurants? How much?