beachseeker

Celebrity isn't doing Bonaire this upcoming season, bummer

 

 

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Not sure when "upcoming season" is for you but Eclipse in Feb 2015 is going to Bonaire.

We have only sailed on Quest and really enjoy listening to Max in the evening. We received FCC from our Dec 28th cruise that expires January 2015. With the FCC and Choices promotion we may force ourselves to add another vacation this year. We are looking at the Journey. Is there a piano player on the Journey similar to Max on the Quest? Hoping the answer is yes!

BTW, did anyone on the December 28, 2013 sailing get an apology about the Azamazing evening that was changed from St. Barts?

Ed, we did as well as Lynn and Jay.

Received a letter from Azamara yesterday with a FCC worth 10% of the cost of our cruise and an apology for the Azamazing Evening in St Maarten and missing St Barts due to rough seas. FCC expires January 2015. We are planners so we have our vacations planned for this year but had our eye on a cruise with Azamara in June 2015. Wish we had longer to use the credit. We are looking at the schedule but not sure we will be able to take advantage of the offer. Nice gesture and glad they are acknowledged the disappointing evening and missed port.

Economics 101:

A cruise line is a business. It's duty is to "beg" people to climb aboard through it's marketing program and by the ease of use of its web site and the information given by its phone reps.

 

The cruise line has a duty to convince reluctant future guests to become guests. How else do they fill a ship?

 

Unfortunately, Azamara seems to have taken your advice for their corporate culture. They are pushing people away with their pathetic web site and their clueless phone reps.

 

I'm a first time Azamara cruiser who has been cruising since the mid 1980's on ocean liners and river boats. I have never come across a situation as frustrating as Azamara's shore experience. It's because of the folks on CC who have promised me that the ship board experience will be worth all the land-side trials that kept me from cancelling this cruise.

 

It had better be something spectacular or I'll never be able to justify the pricing with the outlandishly poor shore-side service to cruise with them a second time.

 

Maybe some people, like yourself, don't care how badly the shore-side personnel screw things up, but as a first time sailor, until I board the ship, the screw ups are the only thing I see.

Well said.

All this has been discussed to boredom in other threads, hence the remark from Uktog about flogging the dead horse. It will not move. It is dead. Ceased to exist.:rolleyes:

I think Uktog was referring to the lack of no Azamazing Evening on the transatlantic voyages. I could be wrong. The OP's remarks concerned ordering from Prime C and Aqualina's menus for room service. The thread has drifted to not being able to get reservations in either of the restaurants on recent cruises. This appears to be a new concern and has not been discussed, much less to death. If it had been, we would have known to made our reservations as soon as we embarked. In 2012 we reserved within 24 hours, even at the end of the cruise and many of the tables were empty. In 2013, restaurants were booked after the first day. If an amenity of suites as published is "Complimentary seating throughout the voyage in specialty restaurants" and you cannot make a reservation on the first full day of the voyage for anytime during the cruise, this is an amenity they cannot deliver on. Maybe it was simply a factor of the large family groups on the Quest and being in the Caribbean during the holidays. Time will tell.

The "perq" isn't "unlimited access"to the specialty restaurants. It's that there is no charge for suite passengers. All passengers have equal access.

I know that all passengers have access but Azamara's website says "Complimentary seating throughout the voyage in specialty restaurants". That implies to me that a suite guest can eat in a speciality restaurant every night if they wanted to. My point is that we were not able to get reservations on this cruise except the first night. I don't know where the mixup occured on our Wednesday reservation, whether it was Prime C or our butler. They seated us because there was an Azamara excursion that was late returning and we were seated at their table. We had a totally different experience on our Mediterranean cruise in 2012. We asked for reservations 24 hours before and the specialty restaurants were usually empty. We ate in speciality restaurants twice on a 10 day cruise so we certainly did not eat there every night. Maybe it was because we were in the Caribbean but it was a different experience this time.

We were on the Quest from San Juan to Miami and sailed in a suite. We were asked to eat in a specialty restaurant the first night but because we prefer to not share a table we were given the choice of before 6:45 and after 8. The meet and mingle was at 6 so we went at 8:30 to Aqualina. When we arrived, there were several large tables empty. We missed the production Voices which everyone said was awesome because of the late reservation. Next day we asked our butler for a reservation in Prime C for Wednesday due to Azamazing evening on Monday and New Year's Eve/White night buffet on Tuesday. On Monday butler said we had a 6:45 reservation for Wednesday and we asked for reservations in Prime C and Aqualina on Friday and Saturday. He returned later that day and said there were no reservations available for the rest of the week. On Wednesday we went to Prime C at 6:45 and we had no reservation but they seated us anyway. We asked about future reservations and they too said they were booked and had been since the cruise began. We had excellent meals in the MDR and I wasn't that upset but DH enjoys the specialty restaurants and was very frustrated. When you pay that more more for a suite and one of the biggest perks is unlimited access to Specialty restaurants and Azamara doesn't deliver it does go in the negative column and leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

so I know we won't miss the nightlife. Just the pools/dining options.

 

Gillian

Having sailed Princess and Azamara and our next cruise is on Princess, the food IMO is 100 times better on Azamara. We were on the Quest last week and the food was wonderful. We ate in the MDR most of the time, once in Prime C and once in Aqualina and every single meal was excellent. We did not eat in the Windows Café but most praise the buffet as well. We had breakfast on our balcony every morning and the food and service from room service was very good as well. We were very disappointed in the food on our last Princess cruise, but that has been a few years ago.

If you were going to the Caribbean, I too would suggest Princess over Azamara considering your post. However, the Mediterranean is a different ball game. It is all about the ports. Azamara takes you to ports that large ships can't make and stays in those ports for a much longer time. If you are cruising the Mediterranean to do intensive sight seeing then I highly recommend Azamara. For our Mediterranean cruise in 2012 we were deciding between Princess and Azamara and I'm so glad we picked Azamara.

 

Overall it was not our best event, but I can assure you that we all tried to make this as successful as possible. Our tour operations staff are looking into this event very closely, and we will make sure this sort of thing does not happen again.

 

 

Thank you,

Signe Bjorndal

Director of Global Marketing

Azamara Club Cruises

We were disappointed that we did not get to experience a truly Azamazing Evening but I appreciate your honesty.

Andy, the day after our Azamazing Evening there was a questionnaire delivered to our cabin asking us for comments and ratings about the event. We received a follow-up phone call as well, thanking us for taking the time to leave feed-back. It seems like they're really paying attention to how the events are received. They have to be aware that it is, as you say, still a work in progress. Hopefully they put all the information they gather to good use.

I attended the Azamazing Event in St Martin, filled out the questionnaire, and did not receive a follow-up phone call thanking us for taking the time to leave feedback. We were not rude but did express our disappointment in the event. I hope Azamara is appreciative of both positive and constructive feedback.

 

These perimeters led us to Norwegian and Princess. NCL was much less expensive, so that is the way we are leaning. Anyone else have opinions about the Norwegian Pearl? y

 

I am also concerned about the other miscellaneous costs and excursions.

We did round trip from Seattle on the Pearl and we felt claustrophobic. The pool is not enclosed so wasted space and the atrium is very narrow. They had a large screen set up for interactive gaming which took up a lot of space. It was very crowded. That said, we had a great cruise but we did have a balcony and was able to spend a lot of time in our room. We did NCL again on the Star (smaller ship) to the western Caribbean and did not feel crowded at all. The difference was the pool area being utilized. Also, round trip from Settle does not do the Inside Passage and can get very rough seas. If someone is prone to seasickness, be prepared with medication. We originally booked NCL for our Alaska cruise this summer but switched to Princess but that was due to adding the land tour, not the cruise itself.

would love to know whether the current 'reciprocity' will remain or whether Le Club Voyage will be spun off as a separate entity as has often been talked about.

Since we are joining the Quest on Saturday, hoping no news is good news and our points will count for both lines, but not holding our breath.

On one night the TV was tuned to an NFL game but the sound was muted. Max played on, some watched him, some watched the TV.

Sounds promising. DH would have the best of both worlds, listening to Max and watching (but not listening) to football.

 

And on that topic I think the piano is going to stay where it is. The former location in the Mosaic has been re-purposed to push drink packages and art sales, there was no conflict with the TV on this cruise, and I suggested that things could be improved if the lighting could be dimmed in the piano area - Ryzgard vowed to work on the lighting. And the Mosaic was busy every night, even though there was no entertainment there.

I am afraid it will affect next week's cruise with all the college bowl games being played but going with an open mind. On our Mediterranean cruise we ended each evening in Mosaics listening to Max, which we thoroughly enjoyed. Looking forward to being back on the Quest Saturday.

Sounds like we will be sailing with Mr. Pimentel next week out of San Juan.

(btw, called AZ, told Quest will be at Pier 4, OSJ, which would be great to drop luggage, then have all afternoon in OSJ - IF that's accurate;))

Lynn

Wish we had known that earlier. When I asked about which pier, I was told it would be the new pier. That was one of the reasons we let the Cervantes reservation go and switched to Doubletree. Oh well.....

There is bad weather starting to cover the Virgin Islands. St Thomas forecast is for 23 mph winds with 70% chance of rain. The Blackbeard's venue is perfect for such an event in good weather but there is not enough cover for more than a few hundred people. To give Azamara a break it hardly ever rains in the VI in December but this is one of the rainiest on record - something that probably couldn't be foreseen! I doubt they will be able to have the party on deck either.

 

Richard

We join the Quest on Saturday in San Juan. Let's push this rainy weather and choppy seas far, far away!!

We were on the Quest in July 2012 for a Mediterranean cruise. There were some teenagers with families on board. Saw them around the pool a few times and in the MDR. Always well behaved. If your son doesn't need constant entertainment and is comfortable in an adult setting, then I would encourage you to consider Azamara.

At least on Princess there are no areas closed off to everyone

It has been a while since we have cruised Princess but when we did Sabitini's was reserved for suite passengers for breakfast and there was a lounge reserved for suites and higher tier passengers before dinner. Appetizers were served with reduced drink prices.

Since itineraries drive our decisions and not cruise line loyalty, I doubt we will ever see Elite on either line. But...it could be fun trying!

To me, the only benefit was dining in Blu, and you can also do that if you're in a suite where you're likely to get much better cabin service.

We love Blu but are booked in a suite for our next Celebrity cruise. Are suite passengers always able to eat in Blu?

So we're taking the Constellation on the 23rd and booked way before they launched the 123 Go Promotion. We're US customers and booked with a TA. Is it worth even calling about or is there basically zero chance we'll get the drink package added to our room?

We booked a Feb 2015 cruise before the new 123 Go promotion. We asked our TA and he added with drink package without rebooking or any additional cost. Another person from our roll call was able to add the drink package as well. Definitely worth trying.

you must have missed Odessa! or Andrews! or Seminole! the god forsaken list is a long one.

You are getting pretty close to my hometown!!

I want a meet and greet with free drinks!!!!:eek::D:D

Cruise with Azamara! Alcohol, food, Captain, Hotel Director, CD, and several other officers. Great Meet and Mingle.