Azamara Journey 17 May 2012 - Shore Excursion pricing

[maven9]

We did AZ in the fall to Holy Land...and had a less than great experience on an excursion. Were you on that voyage?

M.

[Jade13]

We did AZ in the fall to Holy Land...and had a less than great experience on an excursion. Were you on that voyage?

M.

 

Yes. I remember you from our roll call. You were going to go on a private excursion with us in Israel, but decided to do something else. I am so glad we had a private tour the first day (of three in Israel) since AZ canceled all of their excursions when we ended up in Haifa when the Ashdod port was closed. We were able to go on the tunnel tour in Jerusalem. We met a couple who ended up taking a bus to Jerusalem (since Azamara canceled all of their tours the first day) and then had to pay hundreds of dollars to take a taxi back to Haifa when they could not get a bus back.

 

Which excursion did you not like?

 

Most of our AZ excursions were good, but we had a problem in Kusadasi and the only one we would not recommend. We got left behind in Ephesus on the AZ excursion (yes, on a ship excursion). The tour operator did take us by taxi to catch up with the tour after trying to convince us to get on another bus that was full of RCCL (or Celebrity - I forget which one) pax and going someplace else. Later in the tour someone spoke up that people could not hear him through their audio and his response was they needed to keep up with him and also some nasty comment everyone heard that he had been a guide for years and knew what he was doing... This tour guide is no longer allowed to guide Azamara excursions and because of this AZ now has an escort from the ship on every excursion.

 

We know others on the other Turkey port/excursion who had a poor experience and heard AZ refunded 50% because the tour guide "forced" everyone to go to a jewelry shop. They were not allowed to stay on the bus either as the driver wanted to lock the bus.

 

We would not take any AZ excursion in Turkey until AZ switches tour operators. We would recommend all the other excursions.