Takapuna Grammer Girl

For JM0115, Carol’s email address is ccabezas@azamara.com

At least your request was acknowledged, so that’s a start.

Well, I never heard either from any of those three. But my email to the Guest Services Manager did not bounce as being undeliverable. For what it’s worth, the same day I emailed the President of Azamara, I heard from someone about my refund. Coincidence or not? It might be worthwhile for you to email Carol Cabezas. Good luck!

Well after not getting a call back for three consecutive days, after not receiving any response to my emails to Guest Relations, to the Guest Relations Manager and to the Chief Administrative and Information Officer, I decided, as a last resort, to email Carol Cabezas, the president of Azamara. That was this morning. I did not receive a reply from her but, later today, Thomas Rooney, Executive Guests Relations, contacted me to discuss my request for a refund. He said the delay was because Royal Caribbean had not transferred my credit card number. So here it is, my refund, which I had been asking for since April 15, has been processed. I find it interesting that, the same day as I emailed Ms. Cabezas, I was finally contacted by someone at Azamara. Coincidence? May be may be not. At any rate, I have renewed my faith in Azamara and look forward to our next cruise in the Middle East in 2024. I guess I can say my patience was rewarded.

Cruise cancelled on April 5th. Still no refund of deposit, no communication whatsoever from Azamara.

Yes, I used Christopher Elliott’s Advocacy site. He is a wonderful consumer advocate who publishes a list of executives to contact and covers all types of companies, including cruise lines. His website is www.elliott.org. You enter Azamara in the search field and voilà. I hope you will have better luck than me.

Yes it is utterly absurd. So I finally emailed the Guest Services Manager a week ago but never got a reply. Yesterday I emailed the Chief Administrative and Information Officer. We’ll see what comes out of this. Yesterday, I noticed Azamara changed their recording when you call. So I was able to talk to someone right away. The agent was surprised that the refund was taking so long. He said he would forward the refund to the cancellation department and the refund should take up to 14 days. Again, we shall see.

We are very happy for you! You are one of the lucky ones. This shows that Azamara does not seem to be able to prioritize requests for refunds.

It is becoming more more evident that many of us are totally dissatisfied with the complete lack of communication and response. Just wondering what Azamara considers an appropriate time before they get back to its customers. We are astonished that KevintheIrishDJ said they have been waiting since January, for a refund I presume. Also wondering how many past and future cruisers might be looking at other cruise lines. We are getting close to become part of that group. This chaotic situation cannot be good for their reputation but do they really care? The real sad thing is that we absolutely loved our three cruises with Azamara in every respect and have been looking forward to our cruise in then Middle East in October of next year.

Thank you, Laurieb. It looks like almost everyone is asking me to be patient. It’s probably anybody’s guess how long this will go on.

I knew Azamara had difficulties in transitioning to a new system. But now I have come to realize it’s a disaster as suggested by Host Jazzbeau. I do not have a problem waiting for our refund. All I ask for is to receive some kind of response when I inquire about its status. I find it unacceptable that they offer to call you back but I do not receive a call back after 3 days. When I send an email, I expect at the very least an acknowledgment and even better, a response to my question. None of this has happened. Is Azamara that short staffed? Having said this, I sympathize with everyone who is taking a cruise in the next 30 days. I wish them the best of luck while they navigate (no pun intended) through this mess. I just fear that the 30 days keep getting extended.

Thank you for your advice. We were thinking of sending an email to the Guest Services Manager and, depending on his answer or lack of it, sending one to the CEO. In the latter, it might be a good time to bring up the possibility of disputing the charge with our credit card. It really is sad to have to fight for something as simple as a refund due to a customer, especially when the vendor agrees with the refund. I just don’t get it.

On March 15 we made an online reservation for the October 26, 2024 Ancient Trade Routes Voyage cruise. We wanted to cancel our 2023 Ancient Trade Routes Voyage cruise and postpone it to next year. Unfortunately we were not able to cancel one and book another one at the same time because nobody answered the phone. So finally, on April 5, someone called back and cancelled our first cruise. The agent added that, if we had done the cancellation and the booking together, the deposit would have transferred to the new booking. That made sense to us but, unfortunately, it was not to be. We tried several times to inquire by phone about the status of our refund. Finally, about 4 weeks ago, an agent called back to say that it was being processed, which should take another 2 weeks. Not hearing anything, we requested a call back on 3 consecutive days, May 1, 2 and 3. Nobody ever called back on any of those days. So, on May 3, we sent an email to Guest Relations to explain the issue. We have not received a response. We are puzzled and quite frankly quite displeased with such lack of response on the part of Azamara. We fully understand the magnitude of such a huge system upgrade. However, not calling back people and not responding to emails is both unprofessional and unacceptable. We seem to have reached an impasse and are at a loss as to how to proceed. So my question is what next step we should take to obtain a refund of our $1100 deposit. Are we been unrealistic in our expectations? Should we contact one of the Azamara executives? Has anyone had or is anyone having the same problem with getting a deposit for a cancelled cruise refunded? Thank you for any ideas or suggestions you may have to offer. Patrick Stéphan