Warning: Azamara cancels our cruise two days out: Gaurantee is not a guarantee

Really beyond words now. I am sitting in the airport about to board a flight to Sydney. ‘Our cruise’ leaves on Thursday, it is Monday afternoon. I booked a ‘guarantee’ (what a joke) cabin and paid in full months ago, on Azamara Journey. I just received a phone call from Azamara US that they don’t have room for us on the ship and our ticket is cancelled. Can you imagine? I kid you not. I’ve had move over offers before from Princess, but this is not that. TWO. DAYS. Less than. Don’t ever book a gaurantee with Azamara.

From what I have seen so far this line seems like a real loser. Their website belongs in the 1980's. Their get a refund policy when on board for the shore excursions is ridiculous. I have a cruise scheduled that I am seriously considering canceling and just taking the financial hit whatever it may be.

That’s crazy! I know how disappointed I would be, especially after looking forward to a holiday for a long time. So sorry to hear about it.

If you’re still flying into Sydney, you should see if there are any last minute cruises on other lines as we have a lot operating out of here at this time of the year.

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From what I have seen so far this line seems like a real loser. Their website belongs in the 1980's. Their get a refund policy when on board for the shore excursions is ridiculous. I have a cruise scheduled that I am seriously considering canceling and just taking the financial hit whatever it may be.

I would encourage you to give it a try. You will see a totally different side of Azamara. The onboard experience is great.

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Really beyond words now. I am sitting in the airport about to board a flight to Sydney. ‘Our cruise’ leaves on Thursday, it is Monday afternoon. I booked a ‘guarantee’ (what a joke) cabin and paid in full months ago, on Azamara Journey. I just received a phone call from Azamara US that they don’t have room for us on the ship and our ticket is cancelled. Can you imagine? I kid you not. I’ve had move over offers before from Princess, but this is not that. TWO. DAYS. Less than. Don’t ever book a gaurantee with Azamara.

That’s terrible. Whatever you decide to do, I would be writing to Mr Pimental and seeking compensation from Azamara.

I hope you manage to salvage something from your holiday plans.

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Really beyond words now. I am sitting in the airport about to board a flight to Sydney. ‘Our cruise’ leaves on Thursday, it is Monday afternoon. I booked a ‘guarantee’ (what a joke) cabin and paid in full months ago, on Azamara Journey. I just received a phone call from Azamara US that they don’t have room for us on the ship and our ticket is cancelled. Can you imagine? I kid you not. I’ve had move over offers before from Princess, but this is not that. TWO. DAYS. Less than. Don’t ever book a gaurantee with Azamara.

I cannot imagine how upset you must feel. Not sure have heard of anything similar on this board before thank goodness.

Assume Azamara have offered you hefty compensation for this awful disappointment. Hope you manage to arrange an alternative cruise holiday.

I'm so sorry, but I'm sure no words are going to help you at the moment. What a complete nightmare. These Australia sailings are popular, but I can't imagine how you feel. All I can say is they must have resold the cabin that my friends were in and had to leave because of a medical emergency pretty quickly! I hope Azamara can make this up to you somehow. I have read on the Celebrity board where a similar thing has happened, but never on Azamara.

Phil

Really beyond words now. I am sitting in the airport about to board a flight to Sydney. ‘Our cruise’ leaves on Thursday, it is Monday afternoon. I booked a ‘guarantee’ (what a joke) cabin and paid in full months ago, on Azamara Journey. I just received a phone call from Azamara US that they don’t have room for us on the ship and our ticket is cancelled. Can you imagine? I kid you not. I’ve had move over offers before from Princess, but this is not that. TWO. DAYS. Less than. Don’t ever book a gaurantee with Azamara.

I can well imagine you are in shock! Sounds hard to believe. Did you ask for written confirmation by email that your paid in full booking for a guarantee cabin has been cancelled with less than two days notice?

My understanding is that a guarantee booking is a guarantee of a passage on the cruise, with cabin number to be allocated later.

If this is not the case, booking a guarantee cabin is a whole new ball game.

Suggest you refer the matter to the Ombudsman.

I was thinking that given when our friends finally gave up their cabin quite late on this trip must have been seriously oversold. I feel so sorry for the OP. Now is certainly not the day to extol the virtues of Azamara!. I so so hope the OP finds something special really quickly or they get a call from Azamara that last minute space is available now

We all know technically a problem can happen but we usually say but it’s not like that on Azamara.

But now it is on this matter

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I would encourage you to give it a try. You will see a totally different side of Azamara. The onboard experience is great.

Considering this thread was started by some poor soul who was cancelled at the last minute, I'm sure they REALLY didn't want to read that!

Phil

Isn’t the cruise that the OP is supposed to be on a charter? It doesn’t appear on the website?

Not that it should make any difference of course

I would encourage you to give it a try. You will see a totally different side of Azamara. The onboard experience is great.

 

 

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Grandma you remind me of a stick of seaside rock, yours says Azamara all the way through.

I would encourage you to give it a try. You will see a totally different side of Azamara. The onboard experience is great.

 

 

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But sadly the OP is unable to experience the on board ambience due to the crass behaviour of Azamara.

Think you should take off those rosé tinted specs today Grandma

Isn’t the cruise that the OP is supposed to be on a charter? It doesn’t appear on the website?

 

Not that it should make any difference of course

It doesn’t appear to be a charter, just sold out. If you have bought a guarantee or a defined cabin, you should still have a contract of passage. I can’t see how Azamara can get out of this by simply cancelling the ticket. I haven’t read the contract, but if this is true, a guarantee cabin is nothing more than a stand-by ticket and IMO worth nothing.

. I haven’t read the contract.

IMO these are the most important words in the entire thread,

I would encourage you to give it a try. You will see a totally different side of Azamara. The onboard experience is great.

 

 

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Some people will never let go of their flag. :rolleyes: Talk about defending the undefensible!

I have never heard of such a situation before, best wishes to you lahore I really hope you can sort this out.

I'm waiting with baited breath for Bonnie's appearance, it will be interesting to hear Azamara's side in this.:(

It is definitely not a charter. Wow, I am stunned! I would be crazed! When they called and canceled your ticket did they offer you anything? Nothing would make up for this but it might take some of the sting out!

Some people will never let go of their flag. :rolleyes: Talk about defending the undefensible!

 

 

 

I have never heard of such a situation before, best wishes to you lahore I really hope you can sort this out.

 

I'm waiting with baited breath for Bonnie's appearance, it will be interesting to hear Azamara's side in this.:(

Hi everyone. Thank you all for the empathy.

For those of you (thankfully in the minority) who might think I misunderstood or did not represent myself well; I’m 59, extremely well travelled and a university academic who my friends would describe as an determined, outspoken and feisty woman.

OK, so with that off my chest thank you for the empathy, I sorely need it. I still think I am going to wake up tomorrow and find this is all a nightmare. Doubt it though.

Here’s the scenario: I was sitting in the Qantas Lounge, with my bags already checked in for my flight from Melbourne to Sydney and that is where I took the call. No way I could not board the flight as my bags were on the plane. I was on the phone for over an hour and went through several layers of supervisory hierarchy. And believe me, I tried everything from utter incendiary outrage to threats to sue, to semi-coherent negotiation. It seems that it is in the contract that they can dump anyone at any time.

They kept on with the ‘customer service training’ corporate double speak but there’s no way the guy was moving. I did, of course, get offered compensation by way of a full refund, and a free cruise to the same value any time for two years, plus a $500 USD credit to reimburse me for expenses that they expect me to prove to them.

All that is very well, but TWO DAYS beforehand. If two weeks I could have made other arrangements with my LIFE, like cattery, grandkids birthday reorganisation, work deadlines prior to leave etc etc. It’ just defies thinking about really.

So, I am still in negotiations and will get back to them tomorrow. At the moment I am sitting on my bed in the Intercon in Sydney utterly exhausted.

I was at the taxi rank at Sydney airport staring at an advert for the ‘make a wish foundation’ of a child with cancer, and a guy rolled up next to me in a wheelchair - he had prosthetic arms and no legs. I know this is a first world problem, and others are in much worse straits but my partner nearly died of a pulmonary embolism in November and this was our trip to recuperate. Thanks Azamara.

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I would encourage you to give it a try. You will see a totally different side of Azamara. The onboard experience is great.

 

 

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At the moment I would encourage her/him to give it a big miss. He’s likely to never actually get on the ship in order to encounter the ‘onboard experience’.

Same thing happened to our niece on Celebrity, got home from work Thursday evening to an answerphone message that the cruise on Saturday was overbooked and they were off it.

And that was with a cabin number and everything. They got a full refund and a voucher for a cruise up to the same value within 12 months.

Isn’t the cruise that the OP is supposed to be on a charter? It doesn’t appear on the website?

 

Not that it should make any difference of course

No, definitely not a charter.

Phil

IMO these are the most important words in the entire thread,

Yes, but please don’t be smart after the fact. I know that too, but it shouldn’t happen like this. They should have procedures in place to avoid giving someone who’s already started to travel to the port of departure two days notice. Airlines do it, but you can always catch the next plane. In this case, there isn’t even a cruise with a space leaving Sydney that will get me back in time for start of semester when I have to be back at work.

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I am dumbfounded and cannot even think of words to tell you how bad I feel about your situation.

Since you are in Sydney and the ship is arriving tomorrow afternoon maybe trying to speak with someone on the ship vs. the call center would help. Not sure in this case, but I have seen them work magic. Just a thought.

I am dumbfounded and cannot even think of words to tell you how bad I feel about your situation.

 

Since you are in Sydney and the ship is arriving tomorrow afternoon maybe trying to speak with someone on the ship vs. the call center would help. Not sure in this case, but I have seen them work magic. Just a thought.

Dumbfounded, that’s the appropriate word Nonrev1. Thanks for the thoughts. I might try that but to be honest at the moment I feel like I don’t want to go near them, I don’t know that I could go through that conversation again. And the things that my DH is saying about Azamara I’m thinking it will take him a year before he could even countenance the free cruise. I might go there though.....it’s worth a thought.

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Dumbfounded, that’s the appropriate word Nonrev1. Thanks for the thoughts. I might try that but to be honest at the moment I feel like I don’t want to go near them, I don’t know that I could go through that conversation again. And the things that my DH is saying about Azamara I’m thinking it will take him a year before he could even countenance the free cruise. I might go there though.......

 

 

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