Birdie91436

To avoid being too negative...We booked all our tours for this cruise from the ship. Except for the Normandy Beaches tour, we enjoyed all of our other tours and were quite satisfied with our choices. We had some very good tour guides, and except for some crowding at more popular locations (not the fault of the tour or the ship) the tours were as promised.

I don't even know how one would contact the Hotel Director. We have taken taken about 60 cruises oin multiple cruise lines and ship sizes and have never had a problem like this.

The ship was the Azamara Journey and the cruise was in June of this year. We did not talk to the Hotel Director, just Guest Services. We were able to resolve the issue and did not realize that talking to the Hotel Director was an option. It's possible that other people on the tour did so. Unfortunately, nothing can give us back the wasted time and the Normandy Beach tour was on that I was really looking forward to.

We are first time (and probably last time) Azamara cruisers. We had a similar experience on our France Intensive cruise. Our starting time was changed although the other groups for the same tour left on time. The tour was billed as The Landing Beaches of Normandy which was supposed to involve a visit to Omaha Beach (as the primary attraction) , the American Cemetary and a walk past Sainte-MereEglise with a sip of coffee and pastries at a local coffee shop. We were also supposed to listen to first-hand accounts of the battle. This was not the tour we got (although the other groups did seem to have a much better experience). Our tour guide knew nothing about WWII or D Day. The extent of her knowledge seemed to extend to a couple notes she had as to the parachutist caught on the top of the church and the statement that on D Day the Omaha beach was bloody. Instead of a short walk by Sainte-MereEglise, we were given 45 minutes free time (with nothing to actually see in the town other than a fabulous Airborne museum which we were told we didn't have time for), followed by a 30 minute break for coffee and unimpressive cookies. So we basically wasted over an hour doing nothing. We then headed to Omaha Beach where we were given 10 minutes to look at a memorial....no walking on the beaches, nothing about the battle. The only part of the tour that worked was the visit to the American Cemetary and even then she did not mention the fabulous visitor center exhibits. When we got back, at least 2/3 of the people on the tour went to complain to Guest Services and filled out complaints with Shore Excursions. Two days later I went to check with shore excursions to see what (if anything was happening). I was told they had contacted the tour operator and needed to get "both side of the story" (basically calling the passengers who complained liars) and they would get back me later that evening. We were finally giving a 99% refund on the tour as a non refundable credit. This was the last day of the cruise so that wasn't really very useful. After a long exchange with Guest Services we were able to get the refund changed to a refundable credit so we did get the cash we paid for the tour back. Needless to say, we are not impressed with Azamara's treatment of their guests and probably will not travel with them again.