New website.

[islandwoman]

14 hours ago, Cookie77 said:

Curious to know from those recently onboard --------- Was the ship full?  I've looked via an online agency at my cruise in July and also at a few others coming up in the next couple of months and there are many cabins still available.  One ship is as much as 41% vacant.  I wonder if this is accurate given the website problems.

From onboard Azamara Quest, day 21:

I don't know whether the ship is full, but there seem to be as many passengers as usual.  But keep in mind that this cruise, that embarked from Singapore on May 5, required a final payment with no refund well before the website mess happened.  So for many passengers, including me, it was either get on the pre-paid no refund flight and hope for the best, or lose a lot of money.  

[excitedofharpenden]

I think we all realise, expert or not (me the latter) that IT transfers don't always go to plan. But what is just not right is the terrible time one has in actually communicating with Azamara. And this is not a recent thing. It's been going on for months. 

 

Phil 

[almostnewtocruise]

5 hours ago, hamrag said:

The cruise director announced on our Onward cruise 6th May that it was the first full sailing and how proud they were about that!

 

Our booking was a late one, 4-6 weeks out from memory, at that time there were only 5 cabins available and they were gone within a week of our booking. From that point, the cruise did not show as it was fully booked.

Our   Med. Onward cruise on the  22nd of April was also almost full. There were lots  of solo travelers, so probably not many empty cabins (if at all).

What impressed me was the fact that we - with only 209 days of cruising - were in the 2nd place of the  "frequent cruisers". This has never happened before.

There were many "first timers" and (relatively)  "new Azamarians" aboard.  

[Riocca]

Of course none of us know what actual problems RC have encountered in transferring information from one system to another but a lot of people are saying it should be relatively easy to transfer the contents of database A to database B and in theory it would be. However when you think about it in this instance it’s not the case, because RC’s system database was common to Royal Caribbean, Celebrity and Azamara the Azamara data would have to have been extracted from the system. The fact that our Celebrity and Azamara loyalty numbers are the same and past cruises for both showed in both accounts indicate just how integrated the RC system is.

 

If that theory holds water then RC’s software people would have to produce an algorithm that extracts the Azamara information from the RC database, if correct this no doubt would have been tested on small batches of data but nothing like the scale when you try it on 1000’s of bookings.

 

Personally I think both sides underestimated the scale of doing this transfer and it was always going to produce a whole lot of pain, maybe Azamara tried to run before they could walk. But one thing is sure despite the pain of the last couple of months it will be resolved it always is.

[blag]

38 minutes ago, Riocca said:

Of course none of us know what actual problems RC have encountered in transferring information from one system to another but a lot of people are saying it should be relatively easy to transfer the contents of database A to database B and in theory it would be. However when you think about it in this instance it’s not the case, because RC’s system database was common to Royal Caribbean, Celebrity and Azamara the Azamara data would have to have been extracted from the system. The fact that our Celebrity and Azamara loyalty numbers are the same and past cruises for both showed in both accounts indicate just how integrated the RC system is.

 

If that theory holds water then RC’s software people would have to produce an algorithm that extracts the Azamara information from the RC database, if correct this no doubt would have been tested on small batches of data but nothing like the scale when you try it on 1000’s of bookings.

 

Personally I think both sides underestimated the scale of doing this transfer and it was always going to produce a whole lot of pain, maybe Azamara tried to run before they could walk. But one thing is sure despite the pain of the last couple of months it will be resolved it always is.

But databases are designed to be interrogated. It's fundamental. 

Of course we don't know the underlying platform, but I don't think that it would have been difficult to generate a query to find all 'Azamara' bookings, and dump those data.

This could have been done almost as soon as the purchase process commenced, and software engineers/programmers could then have processed the data, thereby avoiding the current SNAFU.

It's all very well to say that these 'transitional' kind of problems are not uncommon, but, if so, awareness of this fact, surely, should warrant proper - and timely - preparation! 

I would speculate that Azamara prevaricated and that the suppliers of their new software were commissioned much too late.

Neveryheless, what seems to be interesting is that the non-web (i.e. the native interface) seems to be more-or-less intact. That suggests to me that, in fact, the data itself is not at fault, but the process of building the 'front end' has gone extravagantly, hideously, wrong! 

[fruitmachine]

11 hours ago, Riocca said:

Azamara must be making new bookings as comparing the booking reference numbers on our bookings made 2 months apart the number had increased by just over 10,000.

It would be normal to have the last digit of a reference number like this to be a 'check-digit'.  It stops most accidental transpositions of digits being an issue. That would mean you drop the last digit when comparing booking numbers.

Without a whole series it's impossible to tell, but I wouldn't assume either way.

[fruitmachine]

3 hours ago, JYDCruise said:

Exactly . . . which is why Sycamore/Azamara should have planned better (or, frankly, planned at more than just a Gantt chart wish-list). Not just in IT, but at some point in the process someone should have raised a flag and said "hey, Carol, this migration isn't going to be ready on time - not even close - and we'd better have more customer support in place because the phones are going to start ringing!".

I've been on the other side for multiple private equity funded divestments.

Sycamore will have very few people on this beyond accountants.  They buy a business because they think the management team (perhaps augmented) can perform better away from the clutches of their current parent company.  From an operational viewpoint, almost everything is left to the acquired investment's management team.

 

[fruitmachine]

I just tried to get a price from a major UK travel agent.

The same employee that we booked Azamara with in January told me that they are not currently offering Azamara cruises!  He said that Azamara's reservation systems are down and not offering agent rates (though I suspect this might just be what he sees in his employer's systems) and that "It's almost impossible to speak to them over the phone "

Regardless of the detailed reasons, agents have already turned away from them.

[Grandma Cruising]

1 minute ago, fruitmachine said:

I just tried to get a price from a major UK travel agent.

The same employee that we booked Azamara with in January told me that they are not currently offering Azamara cruises!  He said that Azamara's reservation systems are down and not offering agent rates (though I suspect this might just be what he sees in his employer's systems) and that "It's almost impossible to speak to them over the phone "

Regardless of the detailed reasons, agents have already turned away from them.

Not all of them, mine has no problem

[fruitmachine]

1 minute ago, Grandma Cruising said:

Not all of them, mine has no problem

Hence my suspicion that what he saw was the manifestation of the TA management's commercial decision.

[john1970]

I looked today on two major US websites and could not find Azamara. This of course just could be coincidence or just my lack of IT skills. 

[kent4489]

So, I have been on hold for with Azamara for 4 hours and 33 minutes.... then the call dropped! (Guess they've turned their phones off for the day.) So, how are you lucky people getting through? My TA was on hold for over 3 hours the other day, but can not fix my loyalty issues which is holding up confirming a correct price on one of our cruises. So, I am trying to get the loyalty resolved. I want it correct before I make final payment soon. The other cruise, we are using our 4 comp nights and that one appears to be correct now. Yea... Progress.

 

RE: booking numbers

I booked one cruise on Mar. 15 and my booking number is 4146118

The other cruise, I booked on Mar. 21 and the booking # is 10000399

These are B2B cruises.

[KevintheIrishDJ]

Was able to sign in with changed password. No OBC or refund.

[uktog]

2 hours ago, fruitmachine said:

Hence my suspicion that what he saw was the manifestation of the TA management's commercial decision.

That was an experience I reported many pages ago - in my case it’s servicing an existing booking I want to upgrade. The agent got a price that was not correct and to date I do not think they’ve tried to reconnect. I believe this reflects the organisation policy. I’m out of the country until next week and I will try and force resolution on my return. 
 

[ikelmay]

6 hours ago, excitedofharpenden said:

I think we all realise, expert or not (me the latter) that IT transfers don't always go to plan. But what is just not right is the terrible time one has in actually communicating with Azamara. And this is not a recent thing. It's been going on for months. 

 

Phil 

This is the part I find just jaw-dropping.  I've been around long enough to see a good few IT fiascos, product recalls etc., and it seems to me that successful companies get ahead of the bad news by being proactive and communicating honestly and promptly with their customers.

 

I really don't think giving the impression that your management team has gone to ground is helping right now.

 

[RichYak]

IMO, if the data from RC was so difficult to port over, that would have affected the initial development of AZ's new website. That should have all been resolved well before going live. To me, this is all on Azamara. I've found a perfect itinerary for my first AZ cruise but I'm holding off on booking. To be honest, the way things are right now, I'm not sure I'll ever pull the trigger. TA's dropping AZ like a hot potato is a huge red flag too. What a shame.

[islandwoman]

12 hours ago, john1970 said:

I looked today on two major US websites and could not find Azamara. This of course just could be coincidence or just my lack of IT skills. 

I have the website of a major US cruise travel agency up right now.  I searched for Azamara from May 2023 until May 2024.  More cruises than I care to count came up.  Many of them are showing deep discounts.

[NicNata]

13 hours ago, kent4489 said:

So, I have been on hold for with Azamara for 4 hours and 33 minutes.... then the call dropped! (Guess they've turned their phones off for the day.) So, how are you lucky people getting through? My TA was on hold for over 3 hours the other day, but can not fix my loyalty issues which is holding up confirming a correct price on one of our cruises. So, I am trying to get the loyalty resolved. I want it correct before I make final payment soon. The other cruise, we are using our 4 comp nights and that one appears to be correct now. Yea... Progress.

 

RE: booking numbers

I booked one cruise on Mar. 15 and my booking number is 4146118

The other cruise, I booked on Mar. 21 and the booking # is 10000399

These are B2B cruises.

I have called Azamara twice in the last week and both times was on hold less than 1 minute. I call immediately the lines open which is 10am here in the UK. Both times I have had friendly service and achieved what I wanted to. My loyalty points are still wrong but I am not concerned by that. I am holding off booking excursions till onboard as my OBC shows just as a coupon without an amount

[Ayden]

7 hours ago, RichYak said:

IMO, if the data from RC was so difficult to port over, that would have affected the initial development of AZ's new website. That should have all been resolved well before going live. To me, this is all on Azamara. I've found a perfect itinerary for my first AZ cruise but I'm holding off on booking. To be honest, the way things are right now, I'm not sure I'll ever pull the trigger. TA's dropping AZ like a hot potato is a huge red flag too. What a shame.

I tend to agree on pulling the trigger as we are also waiting on booking, however to your point on agents dropping Azamara, i just opened an email from a large big box TA which is not only advertising but featuring Azamara as a great deal!  I have been using this agency for many years and this gives me some encouragement.

 

[hamrag]

2 hours ago, islandwoman said:

I have the website of a major US cruise travel agency up right now.  I searched for Azamara from May 2023 until May 2024.  More cruises than I care to count came up.  Many of them are showing deep discounts.

But, are they bookable.....?

[RichYak]

6 hours ago, islandwoman said:

I have the website of a major US cruise travel agency up right now.  I searched for Azamara from May 2023 until May 2024.  More cruises than I care to count came up.  Many of them are showing deep discounts.

 

4 hours ago, Ayden said:

I tend to agree on pulling the trigger as we are also waiting on booking, however to your point on agents dropping Azamara, i just opened an email from a large big box TA which is not only advertising but featuring Azamara as a great deal!  I have been using this agency for many years and this gives me some encouragement.

 

Certainly we can all find plenty of TAs online that continue to sell Azamara, particularly TAs that deal only in cruises. That's not really the point. The point is that there are some TAs, including at least one huge online TA, that have recently stopped listing Azamara cruises. That fact should give everyone here some pause, regardless of who you typically use to book AZ with. As I mentioned upthread, it's a huge red flag for me.

[kent4489]

Well, I'm happy to report that I have seen a little progress today!

 

I called this morning and was on hold for only 45 minutes. ( I did NOT use the TA option or the sailing in 30 days option, just the general option 3.) Got a great agent that was very helpful (helped me even though this is booked with a TA). 

*BTW, my TA was also on hold on my behalf for 1 1/2 hours. I emailed to let her know that I was able to get through so she hung up, so apparently the TA line isn't always getting connected ahead of the general public. 

 

What I wanted was printed booking confirmations as I had not received them previously (I booked both of these right at the beginning of the transition and was told I would get confirmations in a couple of days-over two months later and I still did not have them). I received both in a matter of a minute. One priced correctly, but not the other. I now feel confident that it will get corrected.

The correct one was booked on Mar. 14 and was booked into the RCCL system (and shows that on the confirmation). We had just moved to Discoverer status and our 4 comp nights were used on this booking and applied correctly.

The incorrect one was booked on Mar. 21 and was booked into the new Azamara system. Our Discoverer discount was not applied (only the Explorer discount).

***My TA requested these on Monday and still has not received them.

 

Anyway, after I hung up and looked the confirmations over, I noticed our OBC did not show up so I called back. On hold for 1 1/2 hours and got the most helpful and knowledgeable agent. She took screen shots of our OBC and e-mailed them immediately (so now I have proof). I told her I would wait until the one price was corrected before applying for the B2B OBC. She told me that she will take care of getting the process started as the form was not currently online. Lastly, I mentioned to her that my birth date was incorrect on my account and she said she would fix that. I just signed in and it has already been corrected. 

 

So, finally seeing some good signs. 🙂

[Host Jazzbeau]

One of the points mentioned in Carol Cabezas' email was that they have hired at least two cohorts of customer service reps but that the impact would be delayed as they have to go through training.  These posts from @NicNata and @kent4489 give me hope that the training is thorough and the positive impact is starting to show.

[fruitmachine]

On 5/25/2023 at 7:50 PM, fruitmachine said:

I just tried to get a price from a major UK travel agent.

The same employee that we booked Azamara with in January told me that they are not currently offering Azamara cruises!  He said that Azamara's reservation systems are down and not offering agent rates (though I suspect this might just be what he sees in his employer's systems) and that "It's almost impossible to speak to them over the phone "

Regardless of the detailed reasons, agents have already turned away from them.

I got a call from my TA this evening.  Azamara's systems have opened up again with TA rates.

In even better news, I'd called Azamara a little earlier to ensure that my TA could take over a direct booking that I'd made.  They answered the call in less than a minute. 😀

[islandwoman]

18 hours ago, hamrag said:

But, are they bookable.....?

Not sure.  The last time I did business with this agency, there was no online booking.  You put in your request and an agent contacted you.