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

[excitedofharpenden]

Woo hoo! First thing I thought of this morning when I woke up was I wonder if they found a cabin for you and they did. A complimentary cruise is even more of a result! Have a wonderful time and destress as soon as you can! You should be able to get a couple of free pills for the migraine too:)

 

Phil

[excitedofharpenden]

I am so sorry about this happening, Lahore. But I am glad we have been able to reinstate your passage on this cruise, and not just with a $250 OBC, the cruise will be complimentary.

Enjoy your well-earned holiday! And I hope you & DH will forgive us.

This is great Bonnie! Kudos to Azamara where it is due for doing this for lahore.

 

Phil

[malcliz]

I wonder how they found a cabin but great news that they did! Have a wonderful cruise.

[MMDown Under]

I am so sorry about this happening, Lahore. But I am glad we have been able to reinstate your passage on this cruise, and not just with a $250 OBC, the cruise will be complimentary.

Enjoy your well-earned holiday! And I hope you & DH will forgive us.

 

Well Done, Azamara and Bonnie for your assistance. A measure of a company is how it handles its mistakes. I am so happy for lahore. Makes one proud to be part of the Azamara extended "family", albeit a new member.

[Glenndale]

I’m so pleased for you Lahore but you should never have been put through this.

Like others I wonder how they could suddenly have ‘found’ a cabin at such short notice?

Anyway, have a great holiday and once you are on board relax and try and put all this behind you.

It has been a while since I cruised with Azamara but I’ve always had a most enjoyable time on board. :)

[florisdekort]

To everyone who is complimenting Azamara for “doing the right thing”... They didn’t build an extra cabin overnight so let’s hope they had an unexpected cancellation (and lucked out!) and didn’t boot or buy someone else off the ship with less than 24 hours notice. Someone who isn’t posting on Cruise Critic. Just saying.

 

 

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[Mrs Miggins]

Everyone who read this thread did so with horror. How could such a thing happen. So pleased that it now appears to be resolved.

Many of us are worried about the way Azamara seems to be going recently but the happy outcome has certainly made me feel better.

 

It will be interesting to find out how they 'found' a cabin for you.

 

We all hope that Azamara learn from this debacle. Cruise Critic is certainly a powerful tool.

 

Looking forward to further posts on how your cruise proceeds. So very happy that you will be able to experience Azamara onboard. They always get that bit right !

[oddjob16]

I am so glad this was resolved in this manner. Kudos to anyone who played a role. @Bonnie: I am sure this could not have been possible without a CBO. Glad to have you.

Chapeau!!

Now it is time to find out why and how this mess got started in the first place.

@Lahore: Wish you a pleasant holiday. Hugging you both. :)

[life plans]

Iahore,

You, and your husband, have done so well with the way you have dealt with this very stressful situation. I hope you can relax now and enjoy your long anticipated holiday.........& you know that you had lots of support.

 

...... for me ....this just shouts.....never trust the Azamara ' corporate product ' again, because all the stress should never have happened in the first place....... no amount of, well deserved , compensation would make up for that.

Unlike you, giving thought to this being a ' first world problem', Azamara are purely a money making corporation ....I am sure they give very little thought to 'first world problems'.

[nonrev1]

I am so sorry that we won’t meet… But it is time for me to go home. You have obviously deserved the good karma that you received. Enjoy your amazing adventure and please post along the way.

[Bloodaxe]

I would like to say all's well that ends well but clearly all is not well with Azamara.

Have a wonderful cruise.

[NEILPADZ]

Hi all... the exact same thing happened ourselves in July with Royal Caribbean. Booked and paid for an outside guarantee for the four of us. Got phone call 4 days before to say ship was overbooked even though I rang twice previously querying why we hadn't been allocated yet. We too had flights and hotel booked and didn't find out until 2 days before that we got an inside room. We had no other choice but to accept it as we had planned everything around our holiday dates as well including leave from work and couldn't change. It really left a bad taste towards rci.

 

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[Oliversgrandma]

Lahore - as a relative newcomer to cruise critic, and a first-timer going on an Azamara cruise in 12 days time can I just say how impressed I have been with the dignified way you have dealt with this near disaster. I was horrified to read your original post and have watched the thread unfold with increasing dismay until this morning read the updates. I do hope you and your husband can now look forward to an enjoyable cruise. Azamara really need to learn from this experience - their customer relations team in Oz need seriously sorting out. With very best wishes from a very chilly UK.

[vival]

I have followed this thread with horror! I’m delighted you have had such a happy outcome and as you say most likely as a result of the power of social media.

It really should never have happened and makes one wonder who actually makes these decisions without a thought to the consequences for the passengers involved.

We love Azamara but with everything I read on these boards regarding their Head Office I do feel they have lost their customer focus and their only focus is on the bottom line. Certainly their prices keep going up and up.

Hopefully you will be able to put this behind you and have a wonderful trip.

[excitedofharpenden]

We love Azamara but with everything I read on these boards regarding their Head Office I do feel they have lost their customer focus and their only focus is on the bottom line.

I so agree with this. It's the "fill the ship at all cost" approach. Been like this for a while now.

 

Phil

[Spursgirl]

It was so good to wake up this morning to find that you have resolution and I am pleased that Azamara have belatedly stepped up and offered you a complimentary voyage. Obviously I hope you and your husband have a wonderful time.

 

Must admit though the OP's horror story has made me wonder how many times this might have happened before, and if it could happen to us in the future.

 

Huge thanks to Bonnie and others at Azamara who made this right for Lahore but sorry, my faith in the company has been shaken

[Glenndale]

To everyone who is complimenting Azamara for “doing the right thing”... They didn’t build an extra cabin overnight so let’s hope they had an unexpected cancellation (and lucked out!) and didn’t boot or buy someone else off the ship with less than 24 hours notice. Someone who isn’t posting on Cruise Critic. Just saying.

 

 

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The same thought did cross my mind, we will never know.

[uktog]

I so agree with this. It's the "fill the ship at all cost" approach. Been like this for a while now.

 

Phil

I agree, the "ethics" of some of the pricing strategies and the way I perceive the customer is now kept informed and decisions are made do not sit as well with my personal values as Azamara did a few years ago. I accept they are a business but I believe you can be commercial and treat the customers appropriately in the same breath.

[vival]

I agree, the "ethics" of some of the pricing strategies and the way I perceive the customer is now kept informed and decisions are made do not sit as well with my personal values as Azamara did a few years ago. I accept they are a business but I believe you can be commercial and treat the customers appropriately in the same breath.

 

Well said I totally agree! Of course a business will only survive if it makes a profit. But for me I’m losing that ‘nice feeling’ I had about Azamara and from what I’ve read don’t think they value their customers as they used to, and surely long term that can’t bode well as customer loyalty has to be important. The onboard experience was certainly still fantastic last June and hopefully will be when we cruise again with them in September but I like many others are looking at other lines for future cruises.

[Riocca]

Just catching up on this truly horrific story, so glad that it’s been resolved and we hope that lahore & DH can put this out of their minds and have a cruise memorable for the right reasons.

However you have to wonder how this came about in the first place, I understand that it’s not uncommon on mainstream lines where the emphasis is on filling cabins to maximise the potential onboard spend but this shouldn’t be the case with Azamara.

Could it be Azamara aren’t masters of their own domain and there’s too much reliance on the RC back office who don’t always appreciate the Azamara ethos?

 

 

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[procter]

Great news for you but the cynic in me wonders WHERE the cabin came from.

The only logical reason is that somebody else has had to cancel with less than 2 days to go, either that or their systems are such that they do not ACTUALLY know how many cabins they have sold which is an even more frightening thought for the future.

We were stuck at Rome airport when Azamara "forgot" to book a connecting flight home for us and those 3 hours were bad enough so I cannot imagine how the last 2 days have been.

As everybody says once you get on board I believe the Azamara vibe will takeover and you may be able to finally enjoy your cruise!!!!

[lahore]

Thanks again for the ongoing support and comments about the way we dealt with this. I must confess you might not think I was a very nice person if you heard my original phone call at the airport. Many profanities were eventually used!

 

I should also step up for the Australian RCL Office as someone said they needed attention. To the best of my knowledge they weren’t involved in this until it was them who phoned me to say they had found a place on board. The original people I spoke to were all in the US or their call centre - the guy I spent the most time with had a strong accent and could have been Philippino or Latin, so could have been in the offshore call centre, was not Australia.

 

The only problem I have now is that the Australian Office did not tell me about the complimentary offer for the cruise now, which Bonnie obviously did. So I am still anxious to have that confirmed please if you read this Bonnie.

 

As for wondering where the cabin came from, who knows, I don’t want to speculate. I pray that someone else was not inconvenienced but there is nothing special about us that would make Azamara do that. After all, the next person ‘bumped’ could have also been a CC member and/or keen to show their dissatisfaction on social media which would make matters worse for the company. I only hope an error was found.

 

For me it’s good night now. I really hope to sleep better tonight!

 

 

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[hubofhockey]

Thanks again for the ongoing support and comments about the way we dealt with this. I must confess you might not think I was a very nice person if you heard my original phone call at the airport. Many profanities were eventually used!

 

I should also step up for the Australian RCL Office as someone said they needed attention. To the best of my knowledge they weren’t involved in this until it was them who phoned me to say they had found a place on board. The original people I spoke to were all in the US or their call centre - the guy I spent the most time with had a strong accent and could have been Philippino or Latin, so could have been in the offshore call centre, was not Australia.

 

The only problem I have now is that the Australian Office did not tell me about the complimentary offer for the cruise now, which Bonnie obviously did. So I am still anxious to have that confirmed please if you read this Bonnie.

 

For me it’s good night now. I really hope to sleep better tonight!

 

 

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I wish I could say that I am happy for you, but relieved a better term. $250 Onboard Credit is chump change for what they put you through. The least they can do is pay for your cruise.

 

I don't know why an Azamara employee is authorized to make this "too bad your guarantee was 'kind of' a guarantee" without giving you a plan to make you whole at the time.

 

I am new to Azamara and our first cruise is scheduled for next year. We already had one false start that was handled poorly by Azamara, and my belief that Azamara corporate is horrible and they are great on the ship, still persists. They (Azamara) are lucky in this case that they have someone like Bonnie doing damage control for them.

[CruiseGal999]

Wow. Really glad it was settled and you are going on the cruise. If they hadn't, I guess your only other resort would have been to contact the Boston Globe and gotten results that way. : ? )

[oliveau]

Presumably, when you left home Azamara / your TA had already sent you your tickets...........? If so, to me that implies a contract.