Riocca

We were on Azamara Journey’s 2018 Monaco GP cruise which put us in Monaco for both the Saturday & Sunday. We were tendered into Fontvieille Port but the walk to the circuit was fairly easy, however sea conditions can be challenging which made tendering difficult so although further away Nice or Villefranche although further away can provide a more reliable access for the GP. Our then travel agent had a specialist Grand Prix department so we bought tickets for both days from them. Their recommendation was Tribune (Grandstand) High T which is opposite the pit lane so you get to see more of the action especially during Qualifying on Saturday. If you’re into celebrity spotting it’s the ideal spot and Saturday is by far the best day for that, there’s also a big screen showing the action around the track. It’s recommended to take some ear defenders as it can become extremely noisy.

Last year onboard Onward, there was a Father Christmas for any Children onboard, which were mainly the Captains family. Christmas Carols in the Den with minced pies and mulled wine also a sing along Christmas Concert in the Living Room. In all the dining venues there was a special menu on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve was White Night with a countdown clock projected on to ship.

I think that one of the features of the Seaware software is the availability of a dynamic pricing algorithm.

I presume as Pursuit will be in Asia in the Spring of 2026 there will be some reworking of the itineraries to avoid the Red Sea. Possibly even staying in that region for the summer to avoid having to reposition a ship to Australia & Asia for winter 2026/27.

I had a similar problem, Azamara said that they were sending emails but that they were bouncing back from my Outlook account. I checked and there were no Azamara addresses in my blocked email file even clearing the file didn’t work. Eventually Azamara got me to add “news@email.azamara.com” to my safe senders list and, touch wood, everything has been fine since getting at least an email a day.

Just one package covers two passengers.

We were on Quest in March and when I questioned which internet was with the Experience More package it was immediately upgraded to the faster speed.

It’s very easy to blame the software system but this type of thing is usually down to an input error by a human being. Last week I saw on travel agents website a price for a CC suite on an Azamara cruise including flights £1600 below their cruise only price and £1750 below Azamara’s cruise only price. I did make a hopeful enquiry but after a lot of referrals to various departments in the company they had to admit it was a pricing error. These things happen all the time and retailers are under no obligation to sell at that price if it’s obvious wrong.

The rules were that you had to have taken at least 50% of your cruises, or it might have been points earned, with Azamara to qualify for free nights. I assume that this would still apply especially as they are now a separate company.

It might depend on which ship, we’ve been on Onward & Quest recently and on both there were normal hairdryers not the ones where you have to hold the button.

Yes we found out onboard Onward last year when we use 3 free nights and posted the information on here. Others have since confirmed this is Azamara’s new policy making the free nights now of real value.

Depends on your cruise history with Azamara and how many points you already had, as your in a CWO suite you get 18 points per day so 180 points for a 10 day cruise. With Azamara’s new system these are credited at the start of the cruise, a total of 300 points will take you to Discover level and that earns you 4 free nights. It used to be very complicated to work out the value of the free nights but that all changed at the end of last year now it’s very simple book a 7 night cruise and you pay for 3 nights. However you still pay the full cost of taxes and fees, but you also get the benefits of any offers available on the selected cruise.

Last time we sailed out of Barcelona they held back on processing any upgrades until we had left Spanish territorial waters, but we were able to benefit from the upgrade before then.

Yes, wines by the glass should be available in all bars and restaurants.

Can’t see that this is a problem that’s going to be high on the “to do” list as there are too many variables within b2b bookings to possibly even make it possible. Remember the upgrade bid system is administered by a third party company, as it is with all cruise lines, so Azamara’s bookings will have to fit within the parameters of what they can offer. You also need to consider what proportion of b2b bookings keep the same cabin throughout and what availability for upgrades would be on each cruise. So upgrades would only be possible on a cruise by cruise basis and the possibility of being able to do the same upgrade over a number of cruises is remote. The single booking number for multiple cruises has a number of advantages for passengers in regards of OBC and onboard accounts and I’ve been been told it’s very helpful for the onboard systems.

The upgraded wi-fi should give you between 3 - 4 Mbps which should be enough to stream the match.

If you log into your Celebrity account, or if you don’t have one you can create one using your Azamara loyalty number, you can see your past history. Although all Azamara cruises are now labelled as Celebrity cruises, all our past Azamara cruises are listed with the exception of the one we took during the transition period which is missing from both systems although we did receive the correct points. In addition the Celebrity system is also showing cruises taken since the system separation but booked when Azamara were still using the RC booking system, which would indicate RC have retained some of Azamara’s data. I could imagine that given the previous problems that there may be a reluctance in importing more data from the Royal Caribbean system, or are RC reluctant to release the data as it also contains Celebrity information. Guess we will never actually know.

Had similar issues at the beginning of the week using Safari on an iPad, cleared cookies and cache and all has been working fine since. Possibly there’s been an update on the website and out of date cookies are causing some problems.

I have been in contact with Erin recently to resolve a couple of minor issues and the email I’ve been using is: eodonnell@azamara.com

This is from the UK website, https://www.azamara.com/gb/about-azamara/contact-us Some of the hours are covered by the U.K. call centre others by the Wichita call centre but either can deal with U.K. issues.

This shows how complicated the rules are: https://www.gov.uk/bringing-food-into-great-britain

It’s impossible to say for certain but I would suspect that Azamara are waiting to see how many passengers booked on the original cruise decide to take the revised itinerary. Until then Azamara won’t know what inventory they have available to offer new passengers.

Many times we’ve seen Royal Club served with a premium gin because the customer didn’t specify Fever Tree which was available, bar staff are no doubt instructed to serve the cheaper tonic by default because of the cost difference. Maybe some don’t appreciate the difference but we do and always ensure we’re very specific when ordering drinks.

Let’s hope so, I think the problem is a lack of understanding about G&T’s, quintessentially it’s been a British drink. Most spirits, especially premium spirits, are considered best drunk neat gin & possibly vodka are an exception as they’re traditionally mixed with something else, if you look at Azamara’s drinks menu gin is offered in a number of cocktails which contain multiple ingredients and usually little or no tonic. However the traditional British Gin & Tonic is about 75% tonic making the mixer a very important constituent so the quality and taste of that ingredient is very important. Royal Club tonic is just a very poor quality product and shouldn’t be considered but no doubt the cost is very attractive to the bean counters who have possibly never even tried a G&T. In March we stayed pre cruise in Rio at the Yoo2 Hotel which was a popular trendy venue in Botofogo, the rooftop bar, which was always busy with locals, had an amazing and extensive Gin & Tonic menu, the gin was Larios and the tonic Schweppes mixed with a number of botanicals by the mixologist. Despite Larios not being the best of gins the resulting drinks were absolutely fabulous.

I understand the problem cruise lines have with Fever Tree, with Royal Club coming from Heineken and Schweppes from Coca-Cola with bulk buying the cost is going to be very low. But Fever Tree as an independent brand is going to be very expensive in comparison, a compromise for Azamara would be to offer it with the Ultimate Package as they do with the premium bottled waters. I’ve seen this working with another cruise line where fountain Coke was included on the basic package but cans on the upgraded package.