Impressions from first time Azamara cruiser

[TrulyBlonde]

3 hours ago, Host Grandma Cruising said:

I think that probably illustrates one of the differences between the 2 groups of passengers. As I said before many Azamara passengers travel mainly for the destinations, although having said that the trivia quizzes are always very popular.  We rarely join in any activities on the ship but we did join a trivia team on one cruise and enjoyed it. 

I only cruise for destinations. What are you going to do on a sea day? I would expect almost all people who cruise do it for the destination on all cruise lines regardless if it is O or AZ.

[Bloodaxe]

1 hour ago, portofinoitaly said:

I only cruise for destinations. What are you going to do on a sea day? I would expect almost all people who cruise do it for the destination on all cruise lines regardless if it is O or AZ.

 

Far from it, many people love transition cruises for lots of sea days and good value for money.

Edited March 16, 2019 by Bloodaxe

[ak1004]

Didn't the São Paulo tour yesterday. Very poorly organized. N a 8 hours tour, they had only 2 short stops, plus a short walk through some park, plus 2 hours wasted on lunch on a roof top restaurant. Which was nice but nothing special. No free time, no walking tour in a downtown. This was a $200 tour and the only tour available in São Paulo.

 

to add insult to injury, the trip back took around 3 hours, and we could come to the white night party only after 7pm. Of course no chairs available at that time, except for deck 10. It started raining around 8pm so they moved inside. A complete chaos.

 

Questions to Azamar:

 

1. Why only one tour in São Paulo?

2. Why to so white night in a port like São Paulo when ship departs on 9pm and some guests are expected to be late?

3. Why no backup plan for rainy weather?

Edited March 16, 2019 by ak1004

[Grandma Cruising]

2 hours ago, portofinoitaly said:

I only cruise for destinations. What are you going to do on a sea day? I would expect almost all people who cruise do it for the destination on all cruise lines regardless if it is O or AZ.

Mostly we just like to chill out on a sun-bed ( we mostly only go on cruises to sunny places). We have done Athens to Dubai 3 times on Azamara. That has lots of sea days and we love coming home very relaxed.

[ak1004]

14 minutes ago, Host Grandma Cruising said:

Mostly we just like to chill out on a sun-bed ( we mostly only go on cruises to sunny places). We have done Athens to Dubai 3 times on Azamara. That has lots of sea days and we love coming home very relaxed.

Different people obviously have different priorities. For us it doesn't make sense to pay that kind f money to chill on - we can take an all inclusive on the Caribbean at half price.

[Grandma Cruising]

1 minute ago, ak1004 said:

Different people obviously have different priorities. For us it doesn't make sense to pay that kind f money to chill on - we can take an all inclusive on the Caribbean at half price.

For us it’s the mixture of relaxation and destinations - for example Athens to Dubai gave us relaxation and the chance to go to Luxor, the Valley of the Kings, Wadi Rum, Petra, & Muscat. 

[ak1004]

Today was another example or poor organization.

 

We booked a tour in Ilhabella for 1pm. Meeting time was 12:45, the ship is tendered, so customer desk advised us to leave the ship around 12:20 (5-10 minutes wait plus 10-15 minutes travel by the tender). That sounds good - there is only one issue: the buffet opens at 12pm. So we basically have only 20 minutes to eat.

 

After arriving at the buffet at noon, it turns out that today they actually open at 12:30. So the only lunch option was the patio, which has only some grilled meats like burgers and some chicken. And when we arrived few minutes after 12, they were not actually ready.

 

Extremely poor experience, and poor customer service (the lady at the front desk didn't even know that the buffet opens at 12:30 instead of 12). Most other ships the lunch buffet starts at 11:30 btw. 

 

But if you know there is a tender, and buffet starts at 12:30, how you schedule a tour for 1pm????

[uktog]

We had that problem a few times in South America not sure where the breakdown in communications is arising. The other problem was guests who’d spotted the potential issue piled into the Living Room sandwiches but unfortunately they only had the amount of sandwiches for a normal day so ran out with no back ups.  On the second time we worked out in advance had a large breakfast and skipped lunch. 

[ak1004]

Tendered in Paraty today. When the tender arrived ashore we had to wait inside a closed tender in 30+ degrees Celsius for 30 minites because there was no free spot for us. Why to send a tender from the ship if you know there is no free spot??

 

On our way back had to wait for 40 minutes for a tender.

 

Very poor organization. Doesn't feel like a luxury ship at all.

[ak1004]

Joined the officers hosted table for dinner. Great experience, good food. Cherries Jubilee was fabulous!

 

No evening show today, replaced with a movie. Last time it happened to us was on Carnival cruise about 5 years ago. With the level of shows they have here, probably not a big loss anyway..

 

WiFi is getting worse and worse. I'm not talking about watching videos or anything fancy - loading a simple page like this one (or gmail) can take almost 60 seconds. Ridiculous. 

 

[cruzsnooze]

Last month I sailed on the Pursuit for 16 nights, Chili to Argentina. I found the entertainment boring with 3 nights having a pianist which is good to snooze by! Trivia is about all they offer in the way of organised activities. The two guest lecturers were just OK. I found the open seating always had prompt seating and excellent service but the food choices were limited to what I expected. The passenger demographics and friendliness were fabulous. The other passengers were always engaging and ready to chit chat if you were so inclined. The Captain kept us well informed and was quite personable. 

 The buffet was always crowded and hard to walk down the food line with so many people. It was very limited in choices, however the service was good. I couldn't see myself sailing on this line for a transatlantic with multiple sea days but for a port intensive cruise I wouldn't hesitate to book again.

[Ken the cruiser]

Interesting thread. We just turned silver on Oceania and are elite on X. We are looking at some interesting AZ itineraries for a few years out as we like to book early and was wondering how life was aboard an AZ ship. From reading this thread, hopefully the experiences the OP is describing is an exception rather than the rule.

[Ken the cruiser]

2 hours ago, ak1004 said:

Joined the officers hosted table for dinner. Great experience, good food. Cherries Jubilee was fabulous!

 

No evening show today, replaced with a movie. Last time it happened to us was on Carnival cruise about 5 years ago. With the level of shows they have here, probably not a big loss anyway..

 

WiFi is getting worse and worse. I'm not talking about watching videos or anything fancy - loading a simple page like this one (or gmail) can take almost 60 seconds. Ridiculous. 

 

So did you bring up some of the issues you've been mentioning on this thread, or were you polite and say how wonderful a time you are having?

[Lottie A]

6 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said:

So did you bring up some of the issues you've been mentioning on this thread, or were you polite and say how wonderful a time you are having?

I hope ak1004 has more class than to discuss any issues he/she has at the dinner table. The Captain's Table is a nice social event with usually 8/10 other people invited and I'm quite sure they would not enjoy a conversation about the deficiencies of the cruise. Most of them are probably having a wonderful time. 

 

The proper way to resolve any issues is to speak to the Hotel Director and they are very happy to do this. 

[Ken the cruiser]

5 hours ago, Lottie A said:

I hope ak1004 has more class than to discuss any issues he/she has at the dinner table. The Captain's Table is a nice social event with usually 8/10 other people invited and I'm quite sure they would not enjoy a conversation about the deficiencies of the cruise. Most of them are probably having a wonderful time. 

 

The proper way to resolve any issues is to speak to the Hotel Director and they are very happy to do this. 

Makes sense. ak1004, have you discussed the issues you are experiencing face-to-face with the Hotel Manager yet? If not and the opportunity arises, it sounds like a great idea, especially since you recently went to dinner with him (or her).

[ak1004]

15 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said:

Interesting thread. We just turned silver on Oceania and are elite on X. We are looking at some interesting AZ itineraries for a few years out as we like to book early and was wondering how life was aboard an AZ ship. From reading this thread, hopefully the experiences the OP is describing is an exception rather than the rule.

 

I don't know if this is an exception. I see that many people have similar experience including people sharing it here. We met few couples on board who  cruised with Azamara few times but say that quality on the Pursuit went down significantly.

 

15 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said:

So did you bring up some of the issues you've been mentioning on this thread, or were you polite and say how wonderful a time you are having?

 

We are having a fabulous time. We learned not to let those small issues to impact our vacation.

 

Don't get me wrong, we do appreciate the excellent service, less crowded buffet, smaller groups on shore excursions, no lines etc. compared to the big ships. The food is not bad overall, but it's not better than Celebrity or Princess. I guess we just expected better from Azamara.

 

We shared some things with the staff. For example, why they schedule excursions for 1pm in a tender port when buffet opens at 12:30. Or why there is no food or snack options after 9pm. Their response was: you can order room service. Which I don't consider appropriate.

 

Also after seeing the cruise director response to the internet issues that I described previously, I just don't see how any feedback is going to help. It is what it is. They focus on things that are important to their target audience. Which is fine.

 

Also, some things are a given considering the ship limitations. They cannot provide a good evening entertainment when there is no real theater. They cannot accommodate everyone on the white night because the pool is not big enough. The buffet area is less crowded than on big ships, but still more crowded than on Riviera. Again, the buffet is too small for the number of people. They cannot change it.

 

i think considering all the limitations, they are still doing a great job. And if the itenary is good and the price is right, we could definitely consider coming back. Which I cannot say about Costa, Carnival or mega ships of RCI.

Edited March 18, 2019 by ak1004

[hiccups]

5 minutes ago, ak1004 said:

 

Don't get me wrong, we do appreciate the excellent service, less crowded buffet, smaller groups on shore excursions, no lines etc. compared to the big ships. The food is not bad overall, but it's not better than Celebrity or Princess. I guess we just expected better from Azamara.

 

 

This kind of sums up our experience, although I would rate the dining room food on Azamara as very good (not as good as Oceania, but better than mainstream lines).  We like the smaller ships, and the included beverages and gratuities are nice.  We still have yet to be wowed by the service on Azamara that many posters here describe.  It's good service that generally meets our needs, to be sure, but we haven't found it to be head and shoulders above any other line we've cruised with.

We have a price point we keep in mind, and as long as we can find Azamara cruises that fit it, we'll keep considering them.
 

[Ken the cruiser]

58 minutes ago, ak1004 said:

 

I don't know if this is an exception. I see that many people have similar experience including people sharing it here. We met few couples on board who  cruised with Azamara few times but say that quality on the Pursuit went down significantly.

 

 

We are having a fabulous time. We learned not to let those small issues to impact our vacation.

 

Don't get me wrong, we do appreciate the excellent service, less crowded buffet, smaller groups on shore excursions, no lines etc. compared to the big ships. The food is not bad overall, but it's not better than Celebrity or Princess. I guess we just expected better from Azamara.

 

We shared some things with the staff. For example, why they schedule excursions for 1pm in a tender port when buffet opens at 12:30. Or why there is no food or snack options after 9pm. Their response was: you can order room service. Which I don't consider appropriate.

 

Also after seeing the cruise director response to the internet issues that I described previously, I just don't see how any feedback is going to help. It is what it is. They focus on things that are important to their target audience. Which is fine.

 

Also, some things are a given considering the ship limitations. They cannot provide a good evening entertainment when there is no real theater. They cannot accommodate everyone on the white night because the pool is not big enough. The buffet area is less crowded than on big ships, but still more crowded than on Riviera. Again, the buffet is too small for the number of people. They cannot change it.

 

i think considering all the limitations, they are still doing a great job. And if the itenary is good and the price is right, we could definitely consider coming back. Which I cannot say about Costa, Carnival or mega ships of RCI.

Good points and like I said, great thread. For my DW when I read your comments to her, the poor internet service raised a big red flag for her. Hopefully this internet service issue is isolated to just the Pursuit and not to their other 2 ships. When there isn’t a lot to do during down times, sometimes checking email and doing cruise line searches and the like on the internet can be quite entertaining. 

 

We were just on the Riviera for 45 days on a Med/TA cruise in Oct/Nov and everything you said is correct. However, we encountered one big issue that even the HM agreed with and that was the very poor internet service. Not only did they have slow bandwidth response times, but they also had serious onboard router saturation problems. Simply put, my DW might be on for 5-10 minutes and get knocked off the router due to too many devices trying to bind up to the same router (doing if nothing else auto-email checks) in our regional cabin area. What changed was that O starting May 2018 now allows every cabin one unlimited internet account without upgrading the hardware on the ship. So even if your device isn’t logged onto the account, if it’s powered on it will still try to bind at least to the router if your email account is set to auto-sync. But, other than that very irritating service for 45 days, we had a great time.

[Grandma Cruising]

Never had that problem with WiFi on either Journey or Quest, I agree tho’ it can be fairly slow. Nevertheless I always manage to download my newspaper & keep to to date with emails etc.

[audobon_tx]

3 minutes ago, Ken the cruiser said:

Good points and like I said, great thread. For my DW when I read your comments to her, the poor internet service raised a big red flag for her. Hopefully this internet service issue is isolated to just the Pursuit and not to their other 2 ships. When there isn’t a lot to do during down times, sometimes checking email and doing cruise line searches and the like on the internet can be quite entertaining. 

 

We were just on the Riviera for 45 days on a Med/TA cruise in Oct/Nov and everything you said is correct. However, we encountered one big issue that even the HM agreed with and that was the very poor internet service. Not only did they have slow bandwidth response times, but they also had serious onboard router saturation problems. Simply put, my DW might be on for 5-10 minutes and get knocked off the router due to too many devices trying to bind up to the same router (doing if nothing else auto-email checks) in our regional cabin area. What changed was that O starting May 2018 now allows every cabin one unlimited internet account without upgrading the hardware on the ship. So even if your device isn’t logged onto the account, if it’s powered on it will still try to bind at least to the router if your email account is set to auto-sync. But, other than that very irritating service for 45 days, we had a great time.

Never been on a cruise ship, any line, that had fast internet.  Having said that, Pursuit internet worked acceptably everywhere I sailed in the Med, TA, through Lima.  In S. America and other places with spotty satellite cover, like Norway,  it will come and go.  I cruise for long periods and handle my business affairs by internet on the ships, or I couldn't cruise.  I think some issues are being over sold.

[ak1004]

12 minutes ago, flyingshoes said:

Never been on a cruise ship, any line, that had fast internet.  Having said that, Pursuit internet worked acceptably everywhere I sailed in the Med, TA, through Lima.  In S. America and other places with spotty satellite cover, like Norway,  it will come and go.  I cruise for long periods and handle my business affairs by internet on the ships, or I couldn't cruise.  I think some issues are being over sold.

 

Internet speed is not something subjective. It can be clearly measured by speedtest. I posted a screenshot that shows speed of less than 0.5 mbps. This is miserable by any standards. 

 

Last year on Regal Princess we got over 15 mbps. This is obviously an exception but on most ships we got around 3-5 mbps (on Riviera it was around 2-3 mbps)

 

I would consider 3-5 mbps acceptable, and 1-2 mbps the absolute minimum.

[audobon_tx]

7 hours ago, ak1004 said:

 

Internet speed is not something subjective. It can be clearly measured by speedtest. I posted a screenshot that shows speed of less than 0.5 mbps. This is miserable by any standards. 

 

Last year on Regal Princess we got over 15 mbps. This is obviously an exception but on most ships we got around 3-5 mbps (on Riviera it was around 2-3 mbps)

 

I would consider 3-5 mbps acceptable, and 1-2 mbps the absolute minimum.

 

I got 30-45 most days.  Like I said I manage my affairs on the internet.

[Ken the cruiser]

21 minutes ago, flyingshoes said:

 

I got 30-45 most days.  Like I said I manage my affairs on the internet.

You got 30-45 what most days?

[audobon_tx]

3 minutes ago, Ken the cruiser said:

You got 30-45 what most days?

Onboard network speed in mbps.  Satellite up/down is the weak link and is slower than that of course.  I send 5 mb photos via email, manage my banking and financials, pay bills, post 10 photos ar a time on FB, use MarineTraffic and Windy apps, etc.  Streaming is a non-starter although I have heard from fellow pax that Facetime and the like work (can't vouch for that).  WhatsApp works fine for calls and texts, including photos.

[nordski]

7 hours ago, flyingshoes said:

Onboard network speed in mbps.  Satellite up/down is the weak link and is slower than that of course.  I send 5 mb photos via email, manage my banking and financials, pay bills, post 10 photos ar a time on FB, use MarineTraffic and Windy apps, etc.  Streaming is a non-starter although I have heard from fellow pax that Facetime and the like work (can't vouch for that).  WhatsApp works fine for calls and texts, including photos.

 

Last spring we were able to use Facetime using the ship's network whilr in one of our ports. I don't think there can be any guarantee of speed given the different locations the ships visit.

 

As has been pointed out, at times in Norway we lost all internet connection and even occasionally TV reception.