Riocca

Our last few cruises boarded at Venice, Fort Lauderdale and Rio and at each port the priority stickers were being issued by an agent with a cabin list at the bag drop.

One reason not to use the online luggage tags is that when they issue them at the bag drop they also identify those passengers with priority check in, suite or loyalty, and issue stickers so that check in staff can identify those passengers.

The strong taxi unions in Sicily won’t allow cruise lines to operate free shuttles, it’s been that way for a while and I don’t think it will change anytime soon.

That Grand Voyage has been unavailable to book for many months now, I understand that Pursuit’s 21st November 2024 cruise now starts in Port Louis Mauritius. Presumably Pursuit will now dead head from Athens to Port Louis as Journey did earlier this year.

Glad it’s not just me being driven mad by this pop-up it’s not just on entering the forum but every time I change a page.

Not sure that would be a problem, we have a b2b booked on Journey for next year on the new booking system under one booking reference and due to availability had to have a different cabin on each leg.

My email problem has been resolved by adding news@email.azamara.com to my safe senders list and safe mailing list. Adding this address to contacts may als have the same effect, just need to make sure it’s not on your blocked list as well.

A few cruise lines use ibs software although their main business appears to be aviation. One of those cruise lines is MSC so it’s possibly saying something that they chose Versonix for Explora Journeys. Once you get the hang of the Seaware software it’s actually not that bad problem is that being a generic system there are limitations to things we had before mainly cabin availability and booking tours with OBC online, if those things can be resolved then customers may be happier. Lack of familiarity with the system and the use of unclear graphics doesn’t help, hopefully in time things will settle down. As we have a hole in our vacation schedule having cancelled our Pursuit October Red Sea cruise I am looking at alternative options, and of the websites for other cruise line and tour operators are absolute shockers making Seaware look good. This includes RC/Celebrity which is continually saying my password is incorrect, once updated it’s ok for a few days then denies access again.

I think the biggest mistake is the Azamara agent trying to help the customer, having spoken to the new U.K. call centre yesterday they are very keen to help but need to be a little stronger in saying no when they should. I’ve got a good idea which TA is involved and a short while ago friends booked one of these packaged bundles that included an Azamara cruise. One of the other elements was provided by a very well known travel operator, our friends wanted to upgrade a flight so contacted the TA who said not possible so then contacted the tour company who correctly said no it’s not possible to make any changes to the booking. As it happened they were able to upgrade with the airline at check in but are now saying they wouldn’t ever book anything with the tour operator as they were uncooperative. These travel agents bundled holidays can be great value, in fact our friends payed less for the bundle than Azamara were selling the same cabin grade cruise only, but customers are not often made aware of the limitations of making changes.

No luggage labels required, they label the luggage at the drop off point and it’s part of the system to identify those with priority boarding. If you do use the generic labels and have priority boarding there’s every possibility your status will be missed and you won’t be issued with the stickers that enable check in staff to identify your status.

We have email problems as well I am in contact with Erin O’Donnell and apparently we are on the email list and emails are being sent but Outlook are bouncing them back as spam. I’ve checked my email account and there’s nothing blocking Azamara emails in fact they’re on the safe senders list so it’s a bit of a mystery at the moment. On the original subject I’ve just phoned Azamara to get a price for a cruise and obviously got through to the new call centre, zero waiting time but obviously not used to talking to direct customers. I think a little patience may be required initially but I’m sure they will get it sorted out eventually.

This is clearly a Travel Agent package and will be subject to their terms and condition, obviously we can’t know which agent although I could guess. I know that at least one agent who if any changes are made by the customer to any aspect of the booking the booking is automatically cancelled. Biggest error in this is that the Azamara agent actually talked about the cruise aspect of the booking with the customer, they used to refuse point blank to talk about any TA bookings referring the customer back to their agent, I know it used to annoy people but there was a good reason for it. I’m sure many on here are aware of my opinion of U.K. travel agents following some of their antics during the pandemic. However I see advertisements almost daily for cruise packages that are clearly holidays packaged by the agency but made to look like a cruise line package. It’s simple in the U.K. if you book anything with a travel agent then you must only contact them regarding any aspect of that booking as they under U.K. legislation are the ones responsible for that booking.

Agreed, U.K. customers certainly felt more connected to Azamara during those days. Since the pandemic and the problems we had with U.K. travel agents we have booked direct with Azamara and while we’ve had good service from the staff in Wichita I feel that U.K. customers would benefit from having a single point of contact to deal with any issues. The U.K. travel trade has a good network of support many of them date back to the days of Richard Twynam, so a Director of Customer Services who would be available to all U.K. customers would be a welcome addition.

Unfortunately not it has to be a full 7 days so the second bag would only apply to a cruise of 14 days or more.

A step in the right direction hopefully the staff will be fully trained this time. https://travelweekly.co.uk/news/tour-operators/azamara-cruises-to-open-uk-call-centre

This is from the Azamara website hopefully will explain the details. How will complimentary nights be redeemed? Can complimentary nights be combined? Can they be divided and used on different bookings? When members reach the next loyalty level, they will earn a complimentary night’s reward based on their new tier. Members can earn up to 10 complimentary nights at the top level. Complimentary nights must be used on a new booking made within 12 months following the sailing when the new level was reached. Bookings can be made on most voyages open for sale at time of booking. Blackout dates will apply. Complimentary nights will not be retroactive, cannot be combined or divided for use on different bookings and cannot be allocated to multiple reservations (with one exception - see note regarding Discover Platinum member who do not use all their points on one voyage). Complimentary nights may only be redeemed on voyages of seven nights or more. Travel Partners will receive commission for the nights their clients purchase, but not for free nights. Discoverer Platinum members who receive 10 complimentary nights will be able to use their remaining complimentary nights if they book a 7-night voyage. Examples: A new Discoverer member receives 4 complimentary nights when moving from the Explorer tier to the Discoverer tier. Once they redeem their 4 complimentary nights, they'll pay for 3 nights if they book a 7-night voyage, or pay for 6-nights if they book a 10-night voyage A new Discoverer Platinum member receives 10 complimentary nights when moving from the Discoverer Plus tier to the Discoverer Platinum tier level. This member books a 7-night voyage and has 3 complimentary nights remaining. The remaining 3 complimentary nights may be used on a new booking, made within 12 months following the sailing when they reached the Discoverer Platinum level.

I get the impression there’s a problem getting the past cruise information (pre separation) from the RC system, whether it’s because of data corruption as with the original data or because it would also contain Celebrity cruises under the same loyalty number. Our Azamara history only shows cruises since the changeover, looking at my Celebrity account it not only shows past Azamara Cruises pre the data separation but recent cruises since that date that were originally booked on the RC system. So there must be some kind of data link still existing between RC & Azamara. We were on an Azamara cruise at the point of data migration and that cruise has been lost on both systems although we have received the loyalty points from Azamara which were entered manually.

Royal Club is actually a Heineken brand, and it was said was part of the deal to carry their beer. However Schweppes is part of the Coca-Cola empire so it shouldn’t be difficult to negotiate a reasonable deal for that product given the number of Coca-Cola brands normally stocked. Fevertree being a stand alone brand and a premium one at that will obviously be more expensive so the suggestion it should be available on the Ultimate Package is a good compromise. Royal Club also produces a cola product I’ve always wondered how that would be received by customers if it was the only cola offered?

On April 1st this year we arrived in Lisbon at 6am dead on time, we disembarked as soon as possible which was 7.15am. Luggage was all off and in the arrivals hall by then, but we then had to wait for what felt like ages for security with sniffer dogs to clear the luggage for collection. That said our taxi arrived at 7.40am and we had our cases and were on our way by 7.45am. Being Easter Monday traffic was light and we were first in line for check in for the 11.05 BA flight, check in opened early at approximately 8.45am so we had time to relax in the lounge before heading to passport control. The persistent problem at Lisbon terminal 1 is passport control we have seen queues of well over an hour there however despite the warnings from BA’s check in staff on this occasion we were through in less than 5 minutes.

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. Judging from the offers made to customers on the recently cancelled cruises the best we could expect was a lift & shift to another itinerary of up to 18 days which probably wouldn’t work with the 22 day itinerary we wanted to book.

Last year we had a discussion with an Assistant CD about background music around the pool area, was saying that if they play music they get a number of complaints but if they stop playing music they get an equal number of complaints that there’s no music. Classic case of you can’t please all the people all the time, personal preference is no music but don’t object to the occasional live music on sea days.

It’s the $1 US transaction after recent use in a different country that gets flagged by the fraud department, when I had a card compromised, thanks to a well known hotel booking site, it was flagged up because of a series of low cost transactions in Florida. The bank said this is what normally happens as the card is tested before being hit with the big one.

We’ve been using our Halifax Clarity card since 2015 and, touch wood, have never had a problem using it abroad. When we first had it you used to have to inform them where you were travelling but after a couple of years we were told that was no longer required. Like all banks they use AI to monitor if transactions are out of the normal pattern, so I expect if a card is being used in Australia and they then see a small test transaction in the U.S. it rings alarm bells unless it’s within the normal pattern of the card. Fortunately Azamara transactions are within the normal pattern of use for our cards, however we always have our normal HSBC cards as a backup.

Only thing I would say is that Azamara did a test transaction at the end if every cruise week. So if there was for example $100 due at the end of the first week it appears in pending transactions and at the end of the second week there’s another $100 test transaction. Our cruise was 17 days so I could see 2 pending transactions on the card but these are cancelled before the final balance is taken. It then depends on how the card issuer handles these pending transactions, Halifax viewed it as the same transaction so only the larger of the two pending transactions was taken from the available balance. Hopefully I’ve explained that okay 😀

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.