Grandma Cruising

We're on Pursuit at the moment & at the end of this cruise we go up to Discoverer Plus, earning 6 free nights. We went to talk to the Cruise Sales Manager yesterday, looking to book Bordeaux to Barcelona on the Onward in September. We expected to be able to either get whatever promotions there are plus on board booking discount OR to use the free nights. We were delighted to be told you can now have both so we were able to book the cruise at a very discounted price.

Azamara Pursuit Cape Tiwn to Canaries Captain - Mikael Palmroos Staff Captain - Alex Dumitrescu Hotel Director - Ngawhira Fleet F & B Manager - Mario Kucko Cruise Director - Emily Love Asst Cruise Director - Nicholas Simpson Guest Relations Manager - David Martinez Exec Chef - Joao Fernandez Cruise Sales Manager - Ke Wu

I did get an email back from 'Wendy Warner' after I emailed her to complain She apologized & said they were going to set up more international numbers. She also gave us the grand sum of $50 OBC which barely covered the cost of the phone calls.

We bid £500 to go from OV 7006 to a verandah. I think the minimum was about £440 or so.

Us too, saw her docked in Cape Town from the top of Table Mountain

Interesting that Whispering Angel is still on the list. It was hard to find on Journey in November.

Our cruise starts on Monday 20 Feb and the email saying our upgrade bid was successful was sent on Friday 17Feb. Unfortunately we didn't receive it until Friday afternoon in Cape Town (having left home 24 hours earlier). The wording was as follows:

Yes, that's all you pay..

Same here

As far as I can see you should be, it’s for cruises of 7 days or less, so yours qualifies.

If you go into manage my reservation for your cruise & click on the Guests tab at the top, you will see a form on which you complete information such as passport number- there are two tabs Guest #1 & Guest #2 ( or if you’re older as we are Senior #1 & Senior #2).

Found this on the website accessgambia.com ”US Citizens Nationals from the US require an entry visa with at least 1 blank page on their passport for the stamp. Check with your doctor whether you need any vaccinations. You can apply for a visa at the Embassy of The Gambia in Washington DC. They may be allowed entry without a visa, provided they obtain one from the Immigration Department in Banjul within 2 working days. If you look at Azamara’s visas required document it says US citizens require a Visa-on-Arrival. Further down it says Azamara will organise it & charge the $121 cost to your onboard account.

It’s very strange, isn’t it!

Do you have an’Booked’ tab above your booked excursions then an ‘Available’ tab to the right of the ‘Booked’ tab? That’s above the excursions I haven’t booked, and the use OBC item is right under the Available heading when I choose it.

This is what I see when I click on theExcursions Paper/pencil icon, then click on the ‘Available’ tab. It’s right at the top.

Me too and I assume that’s what the email is referring to. That item has been at the top of the excursions list on my upcoming cruise for quite a long time.

I think it is the Pursuit that is having the (possibly) norovirus problem.

May be easier for them to find all the available wines in Discoveries MDR

Cruise Critic won’t let us mention TAs by name. We use our daughter who is a self-employed TA who is a consultant with a national travel company.

Our two last Azamazing evenings were ashore, both in hotel grounds, neither very inspiring locations. The one in Colombo was an excellent show with great drummers, dancers and musicians and a very good video background, but getting there was not good. Having asked the VIP guests to go to the buses, the rest of us were left waiting well over 45 minutes before any further announcements were made, then we queued for ages to get on the bus - not good when, like my DH, you find it very difficult to stand. The other one was in Aqaba and was OK, but not very ‘Azamazing’. I hope our Walvis Bay ‘Azamazing Evening Onboard’ is considerably better than described by ECCruise above.

On the other hand maybe we shouldn’t be too surprised that the price has gone up. I don’t know about in other parts of the world but in the UK drink prices have gone up a lot, along with everything else. The wines we mostly drink have gone up about 30% over the last 18 months or so, and spirits are dearer too.

Ours on our forthcoming Cape Town to Canaries cruise on Pursuit was recently changed to onboard. It’s African musicians and I’m sure it will be good, but the initially promised drive into the Namibian desert would have been better.

Be interested to hear from people on other ships to see if this increase applies to all ships, or is it a trial on one to see how it goes?

Have you tried a different browser? I use Safari on an IPad. When I click on the paper/pencil icon, then the ‘available’ tab I see the excursions with ‘Book’ in a blue oval

Sorry to hear this, I wish you all good luck going through the storm!