tonyl1956

I also think it's an intelligent survey, with a few oddities.

I ignored the pricing on the basis that that's only ever a starting point before the many offers. I just looked at the options they were offering - I still ended up with 'none of the above' in almost all cases!

I can't imagine why any cruise line would remove included gratuities nowadays. 

Even our lowly loyalty ranking gets us a bag of laundry every 7 days. In the case of a the example cruise, one bag would probably be sufficient to avoid using the laundrette, so options including a daily bag of laundry seemed slightly off the mark. Maybe we aren't clean people!

Internet on a 7 day Med cruise would be of fairly low value to many UK cruisers, as those of us who travel regularly probably still have data roaming included in a mobile package. However, on a longer cruise outside Europe, I'd elevate it to a 'deal-breaker'.

It worries me slightly that they may be considering tinkering with a product which loyal Azamara cruisers generally like, but then I never did like change! Maybe the survey was aimed at people who take cruises with several other lines, though.

Hi,

We received an offer to bid for upgrades on our cruise recently:

Bid Offer date - 15/05/24

Cruise Date - 13/07/24

Cruise Length - 9 nights

Loyalty Level - Explorer*

Minimum bid required - £160 (Veranda Plus)

Amount Bid - No bid

Cabin Booked - Veranda (V1)

Cruise Region - Mediterranean

*Our adult children are new to Azamara and received identical numbers in their offers.

For info, a minimum bid for a CC Suite would have been £790, which we could have been tempted by, now that you aren't forced to take an upgrade to an unsuitable (for us) bath cabin, but not this time as we are travelling as a group. All the other options were way out of our comfort zone!

That's probably the same 'Destination Celebration' we will have the opportunity to experience on Journey on 18th July when we are also in Split. 

I'm wondering what causes an onboard show to have an activity rating of Medium?

The People Mover is an elevated rail link connecting the Piazzalle Roma (not far from the railway station) with the car park at Tronchetto Island, making a stop at the old cruise terminal.

Do you check in at the cruise terminal or at Chioggia itself?

We end a cruise in Chioggia in July and plan to take public transport from there to the city for a couple of nights. There is a combination of bus and ferry which could take you all the way to Chioggia. Depending on where you are staying and how easy it is to move about with your luggage, this might be more enjoyable, if not necessarily so convenient or speedy.

There is a map at https://muoversi.venezia.it/sites/default/files/mappa_linee_di_navigazione _13_09_2021web.pdf which shows most of the ferry routes. The link to Chioggia is shown at the bottom right of this map, with the People Mover towards the left of the map.

Thanks, Riocca

20 hours ago, Riocca said:

If you booked onboard you can a one off change to another sailing and retain all your onboard booking benefits of course you will lose any promotions that came with the original booking.

Like you we booked this cruise whilst onboard quite a while ago and we were waiting to see what Azamara were going to offer but when the 2026 itineraries were launched we decided to move the booking to Quest’s 22 night Antarctica cruise. We received our onboard loyalty discount and the $300 OBC, the new booking came with the Early Booking Bonus which was the same promotion as we had on the original booking. 

I didn't know that you were able to do that with a booking made on board. We'll contact the TA and start things moving.

We had the early booking bonus too, but my main worry was/is the FCC we had been awarded for cancelled ports in NZ last year.

We're booked on that cruise and were disappointed to see it in today's email. I'm hoping they cancel it sooner rather than later, as we've got quite a lot of FCC tied up in the booking and suspect we might lose that if we cancel. Not so much of a deposit as we booked on board, so only £125 each.

I'm going to approach our TA and see what they think Azamara might offer.

I always travel with a back up card as well, though just occasionally, everything seems to fail. One filling station (automatic) in France refused all our cards in 2020, so we never bother stopping at Total Energie pumps now when driving through or around France.

As you point out, Rabidcruiser, a refusal at check-in would be a source of embarrassment, as well as annoyance.

Our banking arrangements are overdue for a review anyway. After 35 years of marriage, we still don't have a joint account, so maybe Halifax and Clarity would be the way to go for this.

4 minutes ago, Riocca said:

On our recent cruises Azamara has tested the credit card with just $1 until there’s a debit balance on the onboard account when they will use the amount due. Payment isn’t taken until the cruise is over and the final invoice is issued.

We use the Halifax Clarity credit card for traveling as it offers currency conversion at the full Mastercard rate with no fees. As it’s a true credit card you don’t have to preload any money and it’s accepted everywhere Mastercards are accepted.

Thanks for that. I thought it might be a few hundred or even a thousand.

I know there are cards around like Clarity but they seem to come and go in terms of fees, etc. I'll see what our kids have actually got and advise accordingly. 

This is not quite a newbie question but I'm asking on behalf of some first time Azamara cruisers!

Last time we were on board (Quest Jan 2023), I used my Revolut card at check in and the process was fine. It's not a credit card but I had plenty of $ on it, as we were on a much longer trip, so had the money in $US while on the ship, swapping it to $NZ & $AUS as we went along. For those of us from the UK, many of the banks make significant charges if we use our ordinary cards abroad, either by using an unfavourable exchange rate or making individual transaction fees, or both!

This year, we are going again, but taking (slightly!) younger family members, who use similar cards when travelling. They may not have such a lot of spare cash to load up their card with $ and this trip is more or less just for the cruise, so in reality apart from a few € for incidental spending in ports, they shouldn't actually need much.

Wanting to avoid any issues at check in, does anyone know how much Azamara 'ring fence'? 

I would assume it's not a lot, as experience suggests they make an appropriate charge every time you spend anything anyway and I'm sure there would be a knock on the door pretty soon if your credit wasn't good!

Thanks in advance

Tony

Yes, saw that and just posted about it on the Roll Call.

I'm surprised they haven't taken the opportunity to make a much more radical change. As I opened the email, I expected to see Dubai as an end destination had become the Canaries (or similar).

We haven't booked flights or any pre- or post-cruise accommodation, as I'm still of the opinion it won't happen.

Interesting. The small print says it's applicable only to 'United States, Canada and select global markets'. I might ask my TA whether they've heard anything regarding the UK, as some of the cruises specified look interesting enough that they would take precedence over one we are looking at right now.

I hope they honour the old offering. I have two 'Refer & Receive' applications accepted but the cruise concerned, for two family members and their partners, isn't until July next year. As they have been accepted, I'd assume the cabin credit has been added to their accounts, but I won't receive the FCC until after the cruise.

Am I wrong, or would the new system cost Azamara a fixed $400, while the old one probably cost them less, because it would be used to buy items with a face value of $450 but a cost value to them of (potentially at least) significantly less?

Maybe the new CFO doesn't like the idea having the slightly variable liabilities on the accounts.

I know this thread wasn't about having a kettle in the cabin, but my wife pointed out a blog to me from someone currently on Journey (in one of the larger suites). They requested a kettle from their cabin attendant and one has been provided.

We now seem to favour veranda cabins as the balance between value and enjoyment (for us) and I think shelf/worktop space in those is tight enough without adding a kettle to the mix, so I shan't be requesting one, even if they become available on a wider basis. We normally use a tea pot, with tea bags, and find the on board tea bags just about OK most of the time. Inspired by this thread, maybe we'll take Yorkshire bags with us next time and 'borrow' a tea pot for the duration.

I have a suspicion that this affects the Journey also, which has had a one week cruise added from 5th to 12th December this year. I'm sure I'd read somewhere that this had been planned to be a dry dock in Singapore, but now the ship is cruising to Ho Chi Minh and back (no other ports). Mind you, I'm not sure what could have been achieved in a week anyway - presumably they weren't doing any enormous jobs.

15 hours ago, Grandma Cruising said:

I think you are too optimistic! We bought the Indulgence package which includes $250 spa credit. Once on the ship (Quest) the onboard account on the TV didn’t separate the Spa credit out, so we thought it could be used as ordinary OBC, so ‘spent’ some of it in the shop. We got a nasty shock when we got home and saw the final invoice and found out that our credit card had been charged for the things we bought in the shop!

Like you we bought the Indulgence package on Quest and found the onboard account confusing on the TV. The balance payable was incorrect at all times due to the fact that the 'reconciliation' doesn't happen until the very end of the cruise. We knew we'd marginally overspent on the Shore Excursion element but had enough Spa credit for my wife to buy some stuff from the Spa on the last day, leaving an unspent balance, but I was still confused enough by the end of the holiday to request a copy of the final account by email (no longer supplied on paper), though I was in fact more concerned that two real 'spends' on the last day hadn't been charged or had been charged to friends rather than us. The account showed that they don't offset between shore and spa credits, never mind 'ordinary' spending.

I hesitate to say it, but maybe the software system onboard needs an upgrade!!!!!!

2 hours ago, Riocca said:

Azamara’s system is provided by Versonix Seaware who run systems for a number of different cruise lines including MSC & NCL so are very experienced in this type of system. 
As said elsewhere the old system is still live and running RC & Celebrity, I doubt very much that Versonix have access to RC’s system and are relying on data transfer. Those of us who experienced the old system will be unsurprised that the data transferred is far from complete or clean.

The point I was trying to make is that Azamara is responsible for telling Versonix what it wants in very precise terms. That's not a management skill, it's a systems skill that may well not have existed in Azamara. Equally, I suppose, Versonix has a responsibility to establish those requirements. If the two parties contracted on the basis of 'MSC or NCL with Azamara look and feel', I'm not sure who is more stupid. Both deserve to suffer, which just may be what is happening.

I agree that the data could easily need an enormous amount of cleansing but that should have been anticipated by Versonix, too, if not Azamara.

Anyway, at least stuff on the ships is working well and they are making 'baby steps' forward in other areas.

Our TA tells me that the people who she can reach on the 'phone (from the UK) are only dealing with cruises departing in the next 30 days. I can understand why our booking for late 2024 isn't top of their list and am patient enough to wait, but I can imagine anyone wanting to do something associated with a cruise in May would be getting a bit 'edgy'.

Does Azamara have any real software systems knowledge? Or their own software engineers? They probably wouldn't have needed either previously. Even writing the requirements for the softies to implement would be a mammoth task before any implementation and testing could take place. 

There's been quite a lot of talk on this thread about future cruise prices having jumped since the new website came into play. There are cruises which seem to have dropped significantly too. We've just booked the 18 night Ancient Trade Routes cruise on Pursuit in October 2024. On the 14th March, we requested a price for a V1, following a thread on here which said prices had dropped. Website price was around £3600 and our TA quoted a small saving on that. We decided to book but for some reason we delayed and prices on the new website looked lower, so we spoke again to the TA. Now less than £2500 for the same cabin. I've had to help the TA lady through the process to ensure the Early Booking Bonus is included (Azamara initially told her it wasn't) but that is a very worthwhile reduction. I'm having to restrain myself from searching for other bargains!

One interesting techie thing is that it's not working properly on Safari (v14) on an oldish Mac or on an iPad (running iOS 15). No cruises appear in the search. Works on Firefox on the Mac.

That shower curtain looks thinner than the ones we had on Quest a few weeks ago, which rarely seemed to cling.

It's a good idea, though, and I wouldn't be too worried about a small amount of 'spillage' into the rest of the bathroom, as there is a gully and further drain there anyway. As long as the floor towel is placed slightly away from the edge in order for the gully to work, I don't believe significant flooding would occur. I think I'll adapt it somehow for next time, perhaps using the tap as the inner holding point. 

The shower is a compromise we have to live with and I'm much happier to do that than pay loads extra for the CCS with a walk in shower.

Not sure whether this helps or adds to the issues surrounding debit cards, but it might be useful to someone:

When travelling, we use one of the multi-currency debit cards (Revolut in our case). I'd registered mine during the online check-in process and half-expected them to tell me that it would need to be replaced by a 'proper' credit card before we boarded in Auckland. No problem, though. I suspect these cards work as a credit card with a variable credit limit, rather than a pure debit card, in most places. The only times we ever have trouble with them seem to be 'pay at pump' fuel stations in France but (UK) cards of any sort seem to be declined on a random basis in France!

The only thing which happened is that the ship then pre-authorised from my balance as we spent on board. That means, with a card like this, that you probably ought to have enough USD on your card to accommodate everything from the beginning, rather than assuming you can load the card the day before disembarkation. I suspect they do this with all cards but it's more visible when your 'phone pings to tell you it's been done.

If it had done that and carried on in that manner, I'd have been quite happy, though they did take pre-authorisations for stuff that was included in our Indulgence package. However, nothing is quite that simple and a few days later the pre-authorisations started to revert because the ship doesn't actually take the money, to be replaced only at the end of the cruise with a charge for the full amount. Again no problem, as I think it all worked out correctly. I'm not quite sure, though, because the final charge seemed to have appeared at the start of our final day on board, rather than midnight (or some other convenient time) on the night before we disembarked. I'd made two charges to the account that final day, for a bottle of wine in Prime C (at about 10pm) and a contribution to the crew welfare fund (earlier in the day). Therefore, I'm not quite sure whether they've charged me for these or not, as no final account was provided either by email or on paper and I forgot to look on the TV. Now that I'm home, I will request the final account via the guest relations email address to check.

We’ve just got off Quest in Sydney and experienced Aqualina, Prime C and the Chef’s Table (French).

Aqualina was an OK meal for both of us rescued by an outstanding Grand Marnier Soufflé, offered as a special that night. First time in Prime C was excellent throughout, second time was good but the lobster bisque was incredibly salty compared to the first time. The chef altered it for our friend who had it as a later course.

Our Chef’s Table was a wonderful meal with good wine pairings and pleasant company. However, the second night we were in Prime C, there was a level of noise from the Chef’s Table that would have ruined my enjoyment of the meal had I been there. We were at the first Prime C table and it was loud! We wondered whether it was a group booking but one drawback is that you don’t choose your fellow diners.

9 hours ago, federalexpress said:

 

Well I've not cruised on AZ but that's my plan. Wife to go to do restaurant reservations, me to buy the package and book the excursions with the credit provided. It might be different for me because I'm in a suite so don't pay for the speciality restaurants (but would for the chef's table, without the package)

 

The way I see it, I'm onboard, I can use my OBC at that point and they can do the accounting in due course...

Thanks. An abundance of caution suggests that it would be best to have the package in place first, though I might try your suggestion depending on queue length and how agile my wife is feeling on the day. If she's using her wheelchair, I am chief pusher, so we have to stay together unless I abandon her somewhere! We'll use the excursion credit if and when we can but we will get the value from the package with drinks, internet, hairdo and chef's table.

Hi all, I'm not sure this is something for the Tips for Newbies thread but rather than start a new thread for what I hope is a simple answer which may be useful to others, I'll ask it here.

We're boarding Quest a week on Saturday in Auckland and seriously considering the Indulgence package. We have some cabin credit, so want to use that towards the package. 

We will also need to make dinner reservations as soon as we get on board, so intend to join the queue in Windows.

Can we 'buy' the Indulgence package at the same time as making the PrimeC/Aqualina/Chef's Table reservations? Or do we have to join two queues!

Thanks

1 hour ago, uktog said:

If you are an Azamara Circle member and on their mailing list, it is always mentioned in their quarterly newsletter. And certainly onboard you will get flyers about it and it does also get mentioned at Loyalty events.  As for negotiating better prices, the onboard staff these days are order takers and (sometimes somewhat aggressive) sales closers at the advertised prices plus whatever offer bus is passing at the time..  They have no scope to negotiate, they just refer it back to Miami (if indeed they even do that).  Its always worth asking but be prepared for a negative response.

I'm a member and I do receive the emails but so much of the content is them singing their own praises, so unless one of the headline items in the email interests me, they go in the bin and I don't look at the full version online. Having now searched out the December one, I can see that there is more content online than in the email.

Thanks for the tip about future cruise sales. If we can agree on a date/cruise with our children and partners, I might as well just co-ordinate their bookings now and then we can all benefit from the rewards.