Grandma Cruising

No we haven’t spent any yet as our cruise isn’t until November. We want to book excursions but can’t see all the details on some of them.

Ours is part of the ‘Essentials’ package that was the promotion on our cruise when we booked it.

Mine shows $150, but also says Guests 1,2 so I assume it means $150 each, $300 each, which is what I expected.

It’s on the reservation page that comes up when you click on Manage Your Reservation. Mine shows up as below

Our OBC for our November cruise shows up correctly

Especially if your next cruise isn’t for a while

Not now - out last two cruises (October last year on Quest and March this year on Pursuit) were unhosted, no drinks or appetisers, no staff at all.

That will be interesting!

Balcony cabins on Azamara (& Oceania ‘R’ class) have exactly the same bathroom as Oceanview

I just wonder how many will turn up if there is no registration system.

That you complained about the size of the bathroom on the Azamara ships, yet say you prefer Oceania, so I guessed you don’t go on the ‘R’ class Oceania ships in a Verandah or Oceanview cabin. If you did the bathroom size would not have been such a ‘main concern’ for you.

Presumably you don’t use the Oceania ‘R’ class ships - Sirena, Regatta, Insignia & Nautical as their cabins & bathrooms are exactly the same size as those on Azamara.

I can’t find anything on the Azamara site and Cruise Critic are saying they have paused Meet & Mingle registrations ( along with those for a number of other cruise lines). Seems to me Meet & Mingle may be a thing of the past - shame.

The second offer is the current UK promotion.

I also just tried logging in with my IPhone and found the difference between the two. On my IPad my level (correctly) is Discoverer with just over 500 points, but on my IPlone I was delighted to see I was Discoverer Plus with 2500 points!

We had a lovely tapas lunch in Seville at a little bar near the Cathedral. The Croquettes (cheese, ham, fish) were delicious

On Azamara’s website - click on the menu top left, click on Our Ships, then on Wine & Dining, then on Speciality Restaurants https://www.azamara.com/gb/our-ships/onboard-dining#link-specialtydining

Very happy to do so. We went through a UK travel company that had booked the whole boat, so it was all UK passengers. I guess if you booked direct with Katarina you could have a ‘mixed bag’ of nationalities on board. We really enjoyed our cruise. It was from Split to Split calling at Korcula, Dubrovnik and Hvar plus a couple of other stops at much smaller places. The format is that you have breakfast and lunch onboard, but go ashore for dinner (except for one night when we had a ‘CaptainsDinner’ and another night when we were at a very small place and the ships cook asked if we’d rather eat onboard. We all agreed so paid for him to cook us a BBQ.) We were on a De Luxe vessel and the cabin was good - very roomy. Food was fine but obviously not ‘fine dining’. There was always plenty of it and we ate well. There were few crew - Captain, First Mate, Chef and a couple of ‘dogsbodies’ who did everything else. Most days we sailed in the morning including anchoring in a quiet bay so we could have a swim off the back of the boat (there were ladders going down into the water). On our cruise we had an English speaking guide, but also if we stopped in a larger port (Hvar, Dubrovnik, Korcula) we had a local guide to give us a tour. I’m not sure if our on-board guide and the local guides are always included or if this was organised thro’ the UK travel agent. Drinks we’re not included, but there was a bar and you could get most drinks, including local wine by the glass. Hope that’s helpful, please get back to me if you have any other questions.

Tea on Pursuit in March was Twinings which was fine, but also Bigelow which was awful. We have tea delivered to our cabin every morning, but always take our ownYorkshire Tea bags!

I’d be interested in the answer - I have never heard of anyone doing this.

You can’t do it until fairly close to your cruise - used to be round about 30 days before. Have you an Azamara account? If so when you click on ‘Upcoming Cruise’ you’ll see a line that says ‘Check In Unavailable’. Once it is available that is where you will do it. If you haven’t an account yet, set one up by registering on their website.

i didn’t use it, so I don’t know. Maybe someone who has done this will answer.

They may stick to the current system! Not only do passengers not stick to the selected times, Azamara doesn’t either! On our recent transatlantic from Rio boarding didn’t start until 2pm, but all the Azamara transfers picked people up from their hotels at 11:30am getting them to the terminal by 12, regardless of their check-in time! When we got there at 1:30ish for our boarding time of 2pm the terminal was full and we were allocated to group 29. We didn’t get on board until we’ll after 4:30.

You can’t do that as the people on the cruise before yours will still be onboard. They will disembark on the morning of June 17, before you embark in the afternoon.

That’s a tricky one, I don’t think you’d get a refund outside their normal cancellation terms.