laurieb

6 hours ago, excitedofharpenden said:

Azamazing Evenings are going the way of the dinosaur unfortunately to be replaced by these Destination Celebrations.  Not the same at all. 

 

Phil 

Our onbard performances on the Scotland Intensive and the Ireland Intensive last year were the best I have seen!

Very, very well said!

Just received this email today; we're cruising on Quest May/June.  Followingthe link though, the price is more than the email, so perhaps they have rethought the increase and it will stay 26.95.

Oh, there's an IPA available, at least on the list; I hope it's onboard too!!!

only thing showing up is a tour to Padua ending there...

On 1/9/2024 at 12:30 PM, wjfan417 said:

We booked an Azamara transfer that took us to Tronchetto. There were no taxis available there, so we took the People Mover to Piazzale Roma and took a taxi from there. The taxi driver tried to talk us into walking across the bridge from there to Santa Lucia station but I never would have been able to climb the stairs with my luggage.

Does Azamara still offer the transfers onboard?  

On 3/16/2024 at 7:25 AM, BuddyR said:

If I purchase an Experience More Essentials package using OBC before the cruise, could 1 person upgrade to the Ultimate Drinks on board for the $8 per day, less the loyalty discount?  Has anyone ever done this?

I thought that the upgrade to ultimate was only available for those who received an experience more package as a promotional offer from Azamara. 

3 hours ago, tgg said:

So what, you may ask, happened to the Visa card for the couple I referred?  Well, after my friend Alan sent Azamara several emails, he received this response:

 

Hi Alan,

 

I heard back from our referral team. You will receive your $200 Visa e-gift card when your booking remains uncancelled and is within 90 days before the sailing’s departure date. Please reply with any questions.

 

Kind regards,

CAROLINE GRAY

Azamara Cruise Expert

 

 

Alan and his wife are sailing in October 2024 so they should get their card in early July. Stay tuned.

really makes perfect sense to me

On 3/9/2024 at 10:10 PM, lahore said:

Pointless arguing about it.  I did realise that, is my point.  You don't know the total I am paying and how much interest it may or may not accrue; nor whether the resulting amount is something I would consider significant so perhaps just assume that I am a PhD holder with a functioning brain and you would be on the money (pun intended).  Let's leave it there. 

wow, kind of harsh?

wow, that's great!

Yes, please let us know what you find out 🙂

On 3/8/2024 at 12:01 PM, blag said:

On a 25-day cruise, IMHO, any package makes sense, but the value varies with your needs/preferences and which accommodation you occupy onboard.

Totally agree, in particular for the indulgence package for a cruise that long.  

I've never seen it available onboard; a call in to Azamara may be helpful.  I've never seen anything advertised through Azamara for it; may be that they cooperate in the sense that they work with the company for drop off and pick up?

14 hours ago, Kayena Kevin said:

Some maybe all travel agents here have cancellation fees written into their terms. We have not yet talked to our agent (long weekend here) so do not know yet what will happen.

That is a TA thing then, not an Azamara issue, so you can't blame Azamara for that.  I'm very close to a TA that lost ALL  commissions for 2020 and most of 2021.  I understand why some would now have a cancellation clause, but the cruise lines don't.

2 hours ago, Kayena Kevin said:

Hello all. Well Azamara have finally accepted that the cruise must be cancelled. To all who were booked to go through the Red Sea I am sorry i will not meet you. Now, as for the options Azamara are offering after cancelling, I am less than eimpressed. Firstly choose another cruise of 27 days or less with some minor benefits - guess whart there are no cruises of 27 days so we are asked to choose a shorter cruise with no compensation. Secondly accept a 130 %  Credit. But what happens to the credits, additional services etc that were part of our original booking? Thirdly reach out to our travel agen for further options. Well there is an issue with full refunds - those refunds will come minus the commission of our agent. Frankly in identical circumstances other companies have chosen to reimburse agents as well as providing a full refund to customers.Come on Azamara, we want to cruise with you agaqin but this is a poor response, especially given the delay in making the decision. Easy to offer support for airfares lost what about the cost of visas and hotels?

I'm not one affected, but thought that the compensation is more than fare.  The commission, that's on your TA, not Azamara. 

43 minutes ago, Laganlady02 said:

All the same location just with suite designation. No one handing anything out as tables are set up with flasks of coffee, hot water, juice and bottles of water. I have also seen cookies and small pastries.

Have been cruising with Azamara for 15 years and this has been the practice every time.

Maybe it was your particular embarkation port?

 

 

The particular port(s) would be my guess too.  

41 minutes ago, jomf said:

You must be special, we didn’t get anything apart from one bottle of water between us! We waited for 4 hours, it was the worst embarkation we have ever experienced! 

I've seen refreshments out every time we've been waiting to embark.

1 hour ago, oddjob16 said:

Yes it is. It is a replecement cruise when they changed Journey's itinerary to US east coast for fall of '24. Original price was acceptable, not very low. Now it is over what we would be willing to pay. 

I have friends that got an owners suite for an excellent price!!

3 hours ago, oddjob16 said:

We have tracked a cruise on Journey for september 2024. Noticed that they have just raised the price with 40% on a veranda stateroom. The cruise is basically half full. This would probably indicate that a promotion is under way «discounting» it back to the old price. We have seen it before…..

Is this the September 21st cruise?  Prices were really low when the new itineraries were released.

3 hours ago, uktog said:

First thing they need to do if this is true is stop referring to them in all their marketing and awful phone tape when on hold 

Their messages on the phone have been in need of updating for a very long time…

32 minutes ago, aliaschief said:

Not sure why when I post a what’s happening of our cruise it gets surrounded in controversy. We spend a lot of time planning and preparing for our cruises. I’m not responsible for those who don’t have a clue how the system works. We have witnessed folks on these segments that have missed dinners by the pool, entertainment events etc. just by not reading The Insider or not understanding what the event is. We ask to see menus in advance, we investigate and seek answers to our questions. We do our homework.

We share our knowledge with other cruisers. “Hey did you know you could do this?” We don’t care what other’s are having for dinner other than asking how’s that dish and maybe choosing it?

We spend a lot of time embracing the knowledge we receive here on Cruise Critic. Others have the same opportunities. it’s their choice but frankly I’m not going to loose any sleep over it.

Maybe the best way is to just not post what’s happening in the first place.
 

 

 

I love your posts and your photos!  I hope you will continue 🙂

I've never seen an IPA, even with the ultimate package.

Azamara does allow you to bring as much of your own onboard as you like, when you embark or at any port you stop at; that may be something to think about doing.

19 hours ago, Reevo79 said:

Does anyone know if there has been some sort of shake-up with the Circle tier levels in the last year?

 

I last sailed with Azamara on the Onward last March and my tier level was at Discoverer, which is where I expected it to be. I have today booked a cruise departing in June and my tier level is suddenly showing as Adventurer, meaning that I have dropped two loyalty tiers for no apparent reason. I have called customer services and they have said that they cannot do anything unless I can provide them with paperwork evidencing that I was at Discoverer last year. I don't have anything like this as I deleted it all once I was back from the last vacation. 

 

I tried calling the dedicated Circle phone line but it will not connect as it is a US toll free phone number and I am trying to call from the UK. 

 

Can anyone shed any light as to what might have happened or what I can do to get my tier status corrected?

 

Many thanks

If your reservation was made without your Circle ID number, you were kicked down to a first time cruiser.  Did you use a TA or book directly?  If TA that you have used before they should have your circle number.  Have you searched through your old emails for something showing your loyalty level?

55 minutes ago, ChucktownSteve said:

I don't know if this helps but I used to live in a tourism cruise port on the east coast.  It was a well known fact that whatever the tour companies charged, the cruise ships usually doubled their regular rate on the same tours so people could walk off the ship and book the same for much less.

I've also observed that some cruise lines use a vendor as their excursion company onboard.  Does anyone know if this is the case on Azamara or they are internal employees?

Not sure I’m reading this correctly; Azamara uses internal employees for their shore excursion desk

21 hours ago, Scots Caz said:

2024 cruises all show Venice-Fusina or Venice-Chioggia. I read the 2025 cruises 'Venice' as 'not sure which port at this point but it will be in the vacinity' 🙂

Cruisemapper currently shows Azamara using Marghera (random search for May 2025)

This makes pefect sense!!