islandwoman

I have the website of a major US cruise travel agency up right now. I searched for Azamara from May 2023 until May 2024. More cruises than I care to count came up. Many of them are showing deep discounts.

I'm glad I brought my own conditioner. My long hair became a tangled mess after I used Azamara's conditioner.

From onboard Azamara Quest, day 21: I don't know whether the ship is full, but there seem to be as many passengers as usual. But keep in mind that this cruise, that embarked from Singapore on May 5, required a final payment with no refund well before the website mess happened. So for many passengers, including me, it was either get on the pre-paid no refund flight and hope for the best, or lose a lot of money.

Onboard Azamara Quest day 20: My "nonrefundable" OBC that I received as a result of cancelling an excursion booked before boarding with a credit card, has now been converted to "refundable". For those of you who are concerned that Azamara could go under as a result of poor management of its website and the resulting cancellations and lack of bookings, I would like to tell you that I have seen no signs of cost-cutting onboard. Last night was "White Night". There was a huge amount of food and drink. The crew still seems happy, so apparently they are being paid and treated well.

I am on the Azamara Quest right now. This cruise requires all passengers and crew to be vaccinated against COVID, but masks are optional. Very few people are wearing them. Azamara's vaccination mandate will be lifted beginning with the next cruise.

How can you "keep an eye on things" ?

Another test is to see whether you can get the webinar to play using onboard Wi-Fi. My computer failed. DH's tablet took 4 hours to "play" it. It was impossible to watch, though.

From onboard Azamara Quest day 12: For those of you who are sailing soon and are unable to check-in online, DON'T PANIC ! Just be sure that you have all of your documentation with you when you arrive at the embarkation pier, including passport, proof of COVID vaccination, and proof of all the visas needed for your cruise. Don't rely on Azamara to tell you which visas you'll need. US citizens can find that information at travel.state.gov along with links to official sites where you can apply. I worried about the same things everyone is posting here to the point that I forgot to pack several items that I should have. Don't let that happen to you

From onboard Azamara Quest, day 9: This post is for those of you who have an upcoming Azamara cruise, but still can't check-in online. A while back I posted that I was unable to check-in online and that without any advance notice, pier-side check-in requested to see my COVID vaccination record and a copy of my Sri Lanka and India visas. At the time I couldn't find my India visa but was allowed to board anyway with instructions to turn it in to Guest Services. I did so and everything was OK, or so I thought. Several days later I was informed that the ship did not have a record of my India visa. I again gave it to them. This happened twice more. On the day before we arrived in India, we went to pick up out passports and India entry cards that were required to go ashore, only to be told that they couldn't give me mine because they had no record of my India visa. Eventually Guest Relations straightened it out and gave me a substitute entry card that the Indian officials readily accepted. Then there was the matter of the COVID vaccination cards. Azamara told us that we needed to take them ashore (although it was my impression that neither Azamara nor India required COVID vaccinations). We took our yellow W.H.O. vaccination records with us, but no one in India cared to see them. I guess that Azamara's shore-side IT mess does extend somewhat to the ships. I am another one who will not be booking another Azamara cruise until/unless it is straightened out.

Onboard the Azamara Quest day 7: The refund of my Azamara vendor's cancelled shore excursion is still showing as "nonrefundable" credit. Other than that everything is excellent. Two port calls and the excursions busses showed up and came back on time. The Azamara evening in Colombo was well organized. I love these little ships and sincerely hope that Azamara manages to get their IT straightened out soon.

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?