earlvolfan

I sailed on the Paul Gauguin in it's inaugural season in 1997. It was a Radisson/Regent ship back then. Nice boat with a French crew, but it had to be modified after the first season with stabilizers.

We're planning to disembark the Journey on the upcoming Antiquities cruise (Friday) two days early in Crete. Customer Service Representative said that it was no problem and would notify the ship. We will confirm with Guest Relations when we board Friday.

Per Person...

50 minutes ago, Grandma Cruising said:

Congratulations on your successful upgrade bid, thanks for posting information about it - I’ve added it to the spreadsheet.https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pEoojQ5-EPmD4cI3gw1dVcYfYTXfZePdDXxU09l0H3M/edit

It would be helpful if you could give me another couple of bits of information - what’s your Azamara Circle level, can you remember when they emailed you to offer the opportunity to bid and can you remember what the minimum bid was? Don’t worry if you can’t - it’s all helpful.

Sure, I'm Explorer, the e-mail to upgrade came on 5/24/22 and the minimum bid was $1,000.

So I just got an email that my upgrade bid for a Club Continent Suite from a Veranda Plus Room for $2,020 total.

It's August 10th, 6 days before our cruise that departs on August 16th from Reykjavik.

3 hours ago, mdpa said:

Does anyone know how many people are onboard the current cruise out of Barcelona?

Unfortunately, It looks like some fell overboard...

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/18791052/woman-falls-overboard-cruise-search-majorca/

Glad it worked for you.

As a frequent traveler as well as a frequent cruiser, I always plan tomarrive in or near port the day BEFORE the cruise. 

11 hours ago, Ceegeefl said:

Does anyone know what Viking does if you test positive before the cruise?  I'm wondering if you get a voucher for a future cruise or if the insurance through Viking reimburses you.

My wife tested positive before our Northern Lights cruise in January and we got a complete refund (minus the cost of insurance) about 30 days after filing the claim with TripMate.

After reading the cruise contract, I tried to get Viking to refund the fare under the terms of the contract, but they pushed me to file an insurance claim first, only promising me that they would reimburse me for any shortfall of the insurance claim, which there wasn't.

We're on the Venus next week and our "What to expect.." web page still says...

There will be up to daily COVID-19 tests (saliva samples).

It appears to me they can test less than daily, if they choose.

Found it!

363373879_NorthernLightsShoreExcursions.redacted.pdf

Go look at the January 24, 2022 roll call. Someone posted an excursion list from 2020.

We're more hikers and explorers than beach people, so it looks like they're appealing to both crowds on Milos. I knew what would probably happen with the Kusadsai stop, but was still disappointed. I'm looking forward to a great cruise, though.

We're leaving Thursday, arriving Friday, staying at an airport hotel before heading to the ship on Saturday. Doing the same on the back side, leaving on Sunday after doing a post departure tour of Athens with Windstar. We're TYS-ATL-ATH and ATH-ATL-TYS on Delta, who, to their credit, proactively changed us from TYS-ATL-AMS-ATH when they restarted their ATL-ATH routes, a much easier and safer routing.

Speaking of safety, I purchased the Abbott’s BinaxNOW™ COVID-19 Ag At-Home Test Kit 6 Pack to keep with us in case we needed it somewhere along the way. We're planning to do a test the day before we leave just to make sure we'll be clear to cruise before flying to Athens and running the risk of a 10 day quarantine there. We are, of course, fully vaccinated, but concerned with the uptick in 'breakthrough' cases.

Oh, well, Kusadasi was just cancelled on the August 7th Greek Islands cruise on the Windstar. I have visited Ephesus a few years ago, but I was hoping my wife would get to experience it on this trip.

Hey, Laurelguy,

My wife and I are on the August 7th cruise with you as well. We're flying in from Tennessee a day before the cruise and leaving a day after. We're both previous Windstar cruisers as well and looking forward to returning.

Thanks for your posts. It will be dissappointing if Kusadasi is cancelled. I was there with Regent a few years ago and have several nice rugs to show for it. 😉

My wife and I will be there! We're sticking with the ship's tours, even thought we can 'free roam' now.

Does anyone know if the Rug Dealers will be open in Kusadasi? I've actually bought rugs there years ago...and they still look like new!

Many of the remaining cruises in the last quarter of 2021 and first quarter of 2022 depart from Miami.

Does anyone have a concern about Azamara actually running cruises out of Miami since the state of Florida is not allowing cruises that depart that state from confirming vaccination status prior to departure?

Well, both Greece and Israel are open to vaccinated visitors, so I don't think that it's unreasonable to expect Azamara to let us know the actual reasons that they are canceling the cruise.

Actually, Florida is preventing cruises leaving from their state to require proof of vaccination status, so the type of vaccine that you received is inconsequential.

I just received notice of cancellation of the October 27th Israel Intensive cruise from Athens that I had booked. I'm a fully vaccinated US citizen and thought since this cruise was departing from Athens, with Greece fully open, and Israel having led the world in vaccinations that I would get to check off a bucket list item.

This is my fourth Azamara cancellation, a cruise line that my wife and I came to love and cruise frequently before the pandemic, but have become frustrated with after these seemingly random cancellations without detailed explanation for the reason for the cancellations. We have one other cruise booked with them to Iceland next August, but I am just about ready to get a refund of the tens of thousands of dollars that we have given them and invest them with other cruise lines that seemed to have been able to adjust their post pandemic schedules more effectively. I hope that these difficulties aren't related to the new ownership. 

For instance, we will be leaving for Athens in a little over 30 days for a Greek Island/Turkey cruise on Windstar. We also just received an email stating that ship's tours would no longer be required to leave the ship in Greek ports. I do realize that Azamara is now offering Greek Island tours as well, but I already had Windstar booked after Azamara canceled our previous Greek Island tour earlier this year.

It seems that Azamara could do a better job adjusting to and communicating about their post pandemic itineraries.