Land Discoveries planner issues (again) and exchange rate bias

[uktog]

The answer to poorly described and over-priced ship’s Tours is obvious. Book your own private tours with others through Cruise Critic. As long as people keep booking the ship’s tours, they will keep offering them. This is not just an Azamara problem, we have had similar issues with HAL.

We mostly just use the Voyage Planner, along with Trip Advisor, to give us ideas about what excursions might be bookable in any port.

 

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And how am I to use the OBC I have then? There are many reasons why the cruise lines tours may be a travellers preferred choice. I have absolutely no issue with them offering tours at all, I just want the publication of the offering to be accurate.

[Bloodaxe]

The answer to poorly described and over-priced ship’s Tours is obvious. Book your own private tours with others through Cruise Critic. As long as people keep booking the ship’s tours, they will keep offering them. This is not just an Azamara problem, we have had similar issues with HAL.

We mostly just use the Voyage Planner, along with Trip Advisor, to give us ideas about what excursions might be bookable in any port.

 

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The answer is for Azamara to get their act together, which they seem either incapable or unwilling to do.

[Spursgirl]

The answer to poorly described and over-priced ship’s Tours is obvious. Book your own private tours with others through Cruise Critic. As long as people keep booking the ship’s tours, they will keep offering them. This is not just an Azamara problem, we have had similar issues with HAL.

We mostly just use the Voyage Planner, along with Trip Advisor, to give us ideas about what excursions might be bookable in any port.

 

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As it happens Host Grandma Cruising I had booked a private tour for Jerusalem but as I had knee issues I dropped out because I didn't wish to hold back my fellow guests.

 

Lottie A and I then booked the ship's tour Easy Jerusalem which frankly was anything but and I was in significant pain for much of the day. Our lunch stop was a total farce and the afternoon part of the tour a shambles. As a cruise line which parrots Destination Immersion at every turn this is totally unacceptable

[hubofhockey]

And how am I to use the OBC I have then? There are many reasons why the cruise lines tours may be a travellers preferred choice. I have absolutely no issue with them offering tours at all, I just want the publication of the offering to be accurate.

 

Yup, we have $1700 to burn through. This could be dinner package, two spa treatments a piece, and maybe one really good excursion.

[Grandma Cruising]

You are right, I hadn’t taken account of OBC. Giving people lots of OBC means that they are a ‘captive audience’ for Shore Excursions,so the rules of marketing no longer apply as they would if passengers were using their own money to buy the excursions.

 

 

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[rallydave]

This is absolutely ridiculous. These issues have been ongoing for years now and Azamara management still haven't done anything to resolve them.

The OBC workaround which costs non American guests is so unfair. Why should Ann be giving Azamara £41 of her money on just ONE excursion? And £125 for three excursions? You can be sure that if Azamara was at a disadvantage in these conversion costs then it would have been fixed very quickly indeed. I have a lot of OBC for our June B2B cruises but I don't think I will be spending much of it on shore ex.

 

As for the descriptions and mistakes for the shore excursions online brochures...well again, it's a joke. Does no-one proof read these or do any research? On our last cruise in October an excursion in Rhodes offered us the opportunity to see The Colossus of Rhodes statue. We would be a bit disappointed as it was completely destroyed in the earthquake of 226 BC!

Our expensive Jerusalem excursion in October was a shambles and did not visit the advertised sites. I could go on....

 

The cost of some of the standard ship excursions are outrageous compared to Viking for instance. Is it any wonder that most experienced cruisers use the roll calls to arrange private excursions to go where we want to go at much less cost? Again on our last cruise there was a shore ex Sabbath dinner in an Israeli home advertised at a cost of around £550 EACH. There were two problems with this. Firstly it seemed an outrageous cost for a two and a half hour excursion when the travel time was 40 mins each way and secondly, even though I'm not Jewish, I know that a Sabbath dinner does not take place on a Tuesday....the day it was advertised! This description would breach The Trades Description Act in the UK.

 

This week I booked a land holiday to Italy online with a British holiday company. Within 2 hours I had complete documentation with all details correct, a nice online booklet with tour excursions at reasonable cost and my special requests confirmed. The Viking and Silversea pre cruise and Admin experience is also outstanding and from the start of your booking, you know you are going to have a premium experience. Why can't Azamara be like this?

As nonrev has said in another thread, once we get onboard all is well and we relax into the stellar onboard experience.... maybe Heike, Ryszard or Philip could have a secondment to MIA for a short time? I'm sure with their impressive management skills they could sort out the problems with the Admin departments in a few weeks! 😄

 

So tell us again Azamara ....after years of these problems with the website, OBC issues, shore ex issues etc... just WHY can't they be fixed?

 

The answer to poorly described and over-priced ship’s Tours is obvious. Book your own private tours with others through Cruise Critic. As long as people keep booking the ship’s tours, they will keep offering them. This is not just an Azamara problem, we have had similar issues with HAL.

We mostly just use the Voyage Planner, along with Trip Advisor, to give us ideas about what excursions might be bookable in any port.orry

 

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Sorry Grandma Cruising, your above response is similar and completely incorrect, to Larry's response to the failure of the email system to keep peoples emails active, ignore the problem and have people use private tours in your response and also ignore the failed IT system and contact Nicole in Larry's response. Similar to a road being closed due to it being impassible and telling people to take the 50 mile detour while ignoring the impassible road and doing nothing to repair it.

 

The fixes in both cases are quite obvious but, being ignored at the expense of the customer.

,

[Bloodaxe]

You are right, I hadn’t taken account of OBC. Giving people lots of OBC means that they are a ‘captive audience’ for Shore Excursions,so the rules of marketing no longer apply as they would if passengers were using their own money to buy the excursions.

 

 

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The excursions are not just for people using O B C, many people are using their own money to pay and are being similarly dissatisfied.

The work around for using O B C to book in advance is a joke anyway.

Edited January 20, 2018 by Bloodaxe

[Food galore]

I don't know if this is the right thread but can anyone tell me how long it takes for a visa card be accepted when buying ship tours. I have just paid for some with my husband's card and as yet have had no acknowledgement as to whether the payment has gone through.