Azamara Selling off cruises to consolidator ?

[helby]

4 minutes ago, uktog said:

I expect they mean they had early access to reservations - Azamara often do this to LCV members

Sorry I was unclear. It was three weeks ahead of the cruise, not an early booking.  I did get some extra onboard credit as well.

[wjfan417]

The Azamara site is showing really low fares right now so that might be part of it too.

[clojacks]

I find it odd how many posters found it to be a bad thing?? Why? You do realize how the tone of your dissatisfaction, and how elitist or exclusionary it sounds....if not worse?? What "group" of cruisers are you concerned you may end up cruising with?

[tgg]

5 minutes ago, clojacks said:

I find it odd how many posters found it to be a bad thing?? Why? You do realize how the tone of your dissatisfaction, and how elitist or exclusionary it sounds....if not worse?? What "group" of cruisers are you concerned you may end up cruising with?

 

I think I can guess the "group" of cruisers they're concerned about.

 

The guys show up for dinner in the main dining room wearing baseball caps, wife-beater shirts, shorts, and flip-flops. When the maitre d' refuses to seat them, they say " I paid good money for this cruise and I'll wear what I damn well please." 

 

They complain loudly about the lack of wet t-shirt contests.  

 

Elitist?  Exclusionary?  Your call.

[clojacks]

12 minutes ago, tgg said:

 

I think I can guess the "group" of cruisers they're concerned about.

 

The guys show up for dinner in the main dining room wearing baseball caps, wife-beater shirts, shorts, and flip-flops. When the maitre d' refuses to seat them, they say " I paid good money for this cruise and I'll wear what I damn well please." 

 

They complain loudly about the lack of wet t-shirt contests.  

 

Elitist?  Exclusionary?  Your call.

Even with a steep steep sale, that's not Azamara's cruisers. And yes, "my call" says you, or whoever is referring to them, are being both by describing them as such because they have booked a sale fare.

Edited February 18, 2022 by clojacks

[ECCruise]

1 hour ago, tgg said:

 

I think I can guess the "group" of cruisers they're concerned about.

 

The guys show up for dinner in the main dining room wearing baseball caps, wife-beater shirts, shorts, and flip-flops. When the maitre d' refuses to seat them, they say " I paid good money for this cruise and I'll wear what I damn well please." 

 

They complain loudly about the lack of wet t-shirt contests.  

 

Elitist?  Exclusionary?  Your call.

Never seen that on ANY of our Azamara cruises.  Not once.  And know, for a fact, that some of them were sold at "fire sale" prices shortly before sailing.  Respectfully, I think you are describing what you think you might find, rather than the reality.

 

CAVEAT:  We NEVER sail in the Caribbean, so our experience does not include any sailings there.  

 

Edited February 18, 2022 by ECCruise

[tgg]

1 hour ago, ECCruise said:

Never seen that on ANY of our Azamara cruises.  Not once.  And know, for a fact, that some of them were sold at "fire sale" prices shortly before sailing.  Respectfully, I think you are describing what you think you might find, rather than the reality.

 

CAVEAT:  We NEVER sail in the Caribbean, so our experience does not include any sailings there.  

 

There's nothing respectful about telling me I'm making this up.  It happened on a Cuba cruise December 11-21 2018.  More than 70% of the passengers  had never cruised on Azamara, which was very unusual.  In addition to questionable dinner attire among the men, there were complaints about the size of the casino and the lack of glitzy shows.  You had to be there.

 

[Janet&Carl]

On 2/18/2022 at 6:52 AM, Grandma Cruising said:

That happened to a Lisbon to Rio cruise we did a couple of years ago. There were lots of people onboard who had bought the cruise at the last minute at a very cheap price. That cruise had a very different atmosphere from most other cruises we’ve done with Azamara.

 

 

This has also happened to us on an MSC cruise from Venice to Rio - we got to Lisbon and about 50% of the crew changed (Brazilian rules about % of crew that had to be Brazilian) the atmosphere onboard changed too - lots of lycra clad people and lots of noise - lots of coughing where people were not covering and therefore by the time we got to Brazil many onboard were sick.  

[osandomir]

3 hours ago, clojacks said:

Even with a steep steep sale, that's not Azamara's cruisers. And yes, "my call" says you, or whoever is referring to them, are being both by describing them as such because they have booked a sale fare.

You can call it “whatever” but actually that kind of behaviour was happening more often when the cruises were deeply discounted after the final payment. When someone booked well in advance and paid in full it’s neither expected nor feels comfortable to be on the cruise around the people who decided they can behave as they pleased showing obvious disrespect for others.

[laurieb]

My current theory

perhaps, with a smaller number of passengers and crew, they are wanting to keep all guests on decks 6, 7 and 8.  We had a category 5 and have now been moved to a v3 for the March 6 cruise.

[tgg]

1 hour ago, laurieb said:

My current theory

perhaps, with a smaller number of passengers and crew, they are wanting to keep all guests on decks 6, 7 and 8.  We had a category 5 and have now been moved to a v3 for the March 6 cruise.

 

What a nice surprise.  Enjoy the upgrade.

[Mrs Miggins]

4 hours ago, laurieb said:

My current theory

perhaps, with a smaller number of passengers and crew, they are wanting to keep all guests on decks 6, 7 and 8.  We had a category 5 and have now been moved to a v3 for the March 6 cruise.

Perhaps you are right but we havent heard anything about our Cat 5 from 16th April.  When did you get notification?

Certainly if there has been a big surge in bookings - none of them have checked onto our painfully empty roll calls.   That might indicate the bookings are from the UK.  Many of my friends who cruise have never heard of it nor do they wish to join.

Still despite everything I am sure we will enjoy our cruises, but perhaps in a different way than in the past.

[Mrs Miggins]

Just looked at March 6th cruise on UK site and the only Cat 5 are the 08 on Deck 6 plus a Guarantee Ocean view.  Exactly the same scenario as on our cruise.

 

[Dylandude]

10 hours ago, tgg said:

 

I think I can guess the "group" of cruisers they're concerned about.

 

The guys show up for dinner in the main dining room wearing baseball caps, wife-beater shirts, shorts, and flip-flops. When the maitre d' refuses to seat them, they say " I paid good money for this cruise and I'll wear what I damn well please." 

 

They complain loudly about the lack of wet t-shirt contests.  

 

Elitist?  Exclusionary?  Your call.

spot on

[excitedofharpenden]

Selling off cruises late in a fire sale most definitely affects the feel of the cruise. I've been on some where this has been done and the atmosphere is quite different. I've been able to directly compare as I've been on a series of b2bs when it's happened. 

 

Azamara markets their line as attracting a certain socio economic group and therefore cruisers choose based upon that and being amongst a crowd they feel comfortable with. When it becomes a cheap free for all you notice. And so do the crew (and security team). 

 

Phil 

[Laganlady02]

Azamara also has to increase the number of guests on board.

Since the Christmas cruise Quest is sailing with approx 200-220 people per cruise. This is not sustainable, especially sailing out of Miami with the larger American market.

In the short term I think there will be cheaper prices for the European  market .When the Quest started sailing in Greece in August and September the price point was too high - I think the management have realised that now.

They need new money and cheaper prices which will appeal to a wider market.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[excitedofharpenden]

I agree that the pandemic will have an effect on the way business will continue and at the end of the day they need to attract people to sail with them and fill the ships, but the fire sale of cabins in this way was being done well before Covid. 

 

Phil 

[Mrs Miggins]

I'm still hoping LaurieB's answer is correct.

[laurieb]

6 hours ago, Mrs Miggins said:

Perhaps you are right but we havent heard anything about our Cat 5 from 16th April.  When did you get notification?

Certainly if there has been a big surge in bookings - none of them have checked onto our painfully empty roll calls.   That might indicate the bookings are from the UK.  Many of my friends who cruise have never heard of it nor do they wish to join.

Still despite everything I am sure we will enjoy our cruises, but perhaps in a different way than in the past.

We were notified just yesterday 

[Skicruiser55]

Another possibility is that AZ is upgrading people because the veranda cabins are available and they want to open up cabins to sell at lower price point.  Plus it can give those that always sail in an OV or inside the opportunity to sail in a veranda which as some of us know once you go up a category or 2 it’s hard to go back.   Just a thought…..

[clojacks]

I recently cancelled a B2B on the Quest for this summer...going to Norway and then Ireland. Out of curiosity, I checked the price for the Norway segment, and it is listing on Azamara at about $2500 for a V3 than we paid a year ago.

[blag]

30 minutes ago, clojacks said:

$2500 for a V3 than we paid a year ago

more, or less? 

[clojacks]

14 minutes ago, blag said:

more, or less? 

oops....MORE. Thanks for catching that.

[clojacks]

14 hours ago, osandomir said:

You can call it “whatever” but actually that kind of behavior was happening more often when the cruises were deeply discounted after the final payment. When someone booked well in advance and paid in full it’s neither expected nor feels comfortable to be on the cruise around the people who decided they can behave as they pleased showing obvious disrespect for others.

I'm just shocked at the number of you who seem to believe that "this behavior" is restricted and is characteristic of those purchasing a sale fare...to be honest with you, it is starting to appear like my cancellation wasn't a bad idea. Not that I exhibit these behaviors, but I also don't make assumptions that a particular cruiser will, "if they don't fit my socio-economic" demographic. WOW.

[HalifaxYorksCruiser]

Just looked at our Quest cruise for 23rd April and prices more expensive than when I originally booked although there is currently $1000 OBC whereas we got $500 OBC. The price we paid was still better than an extra $500? I haven’t seen any better offers from travel company consolidators.