Azamara shore excursions

[woodley]

I have cruised on 48 cruise's over the years on many different cruise lines but never before on Azamara.  Usually I try and book private excursions as I find the ship's offerings to be poor value for money.  Can those of you that are regular cruisers with Azamara let me know what their shore excursions are like, value, interest and quality or if you would also prefer to do private excursions.  

[travelberlin]

32 minutes ago, woodley said:

I have cruised on 48 cruise's over the years on many different cruise lines but never before on Azamara.  Usually I try and book private excursions as I find the ship's offerings to be poor value for money.  Can those of you that are regular cruisers with Azamara let me know what their shore excursions are like, value, interest and quality or if you would also prefer to do private excursions.  

Shore excursions with Azamara are very expensive. They use providers in ports, which also serve other cruise lines. This means the quality of their offerings are the same that other cruise lines offer,  but the prices are more expensive. There was a post in these boards referring to the higher overheads from Azamara excursions.
Unless you have a very specific excursion you wish to book, that due the time involved might be a problem returning to the ship, I would recommend you book private excursions or get together with people from your roll call. 
Ivi

[woodley]

Thank you that is helpful.  

 

[Jem 12]

On our recent Azamara cruise, we did mainly all Azamara excursions as we had a large shore excursion credit, they were generally adequate, with one or two major disappointments, one was the sting Ray encounter in Antigua and the trolley to the beach in St Lucia. I wouldn’t recommend either I of these. 
We have previously done a sting ray excursion in Grand Cayman which was far superior, this was a privately arranged excursion. The Trolley train was just a complete waste of an hour to get to a very dirty beach, we only had an hour there, very few even bothered to go into sea as not enough to dry off. 
The beach was actually very near to ship but the trolley took us all through a very busy port area plus the town, the people were all pleasant but everything else was disappointing. 
I fed back my disappointment, but nothing else really happened. 
we enjoyed the ships excursion to Virgin Gouda baths and a couple of snorkelling trips booked through the ship. The best excursion was river tubing in Dominica but it was a very long bus ride in a very old bus, which barely made it up the hills, we only got back to the ship 5 mins before all aboard time!!! But it was great fun. 

 

 

 

 

[Host Jazzbeau]

The location of your cruise may affect your opinion of ship shore excursions.  Shore excursions in the Caribbean are often disappointing, IMHO, because there isn't anything to see there – except the more expensive ones like the America's Cup Challenge.  

 

Our recent Azamara cruise in the Adriatic included a ton of OBC so we took only Azamara excursions – and we felt that all of them delivered good value for money.  

 

We especially enjoy the food-oriented excursions, even though they are expensive, because they offer small groups and itineraries that I have not seen duplicated with private tours.

[luv2travel90266]

About to embark on my second azamara cruise. My first in Iceland I formed a group of 8 off cruise critic, shopped and booked some fabulous small group tours.
 

My upcoming back to back in the Med got little responses on the cruise critic roll calls. Taking the Azamara tours as a result. I estimate the Azamara cruise excursions about 1/3 more cost along  with a larger group. Roll call followers were less than 1 dozen on both, 1-2% of the passengers. Not a complaint but an observation. 
 

I agree with the large OBC offered they need they be spent. I do feel there are some great private tour operators we are missing. 

 

[the mice]

 

We were on a B2B in the Med in the fall. The 1st leg was a unique itinerary, Islands of the Western Med.  We had some OBC so booked a couple of ship's tours.  They were good. We did a few other private tours, booked for just the two of us (traveling for a month post relaxation of COVID rules/masking so staying healthy was a top priority) and they were also OK (although we did not care for our guide for Girona - very knowledgeable but not tuned in to when we had information overload) . This roll call was a bit active and there were some posts for private tours but I don't know if they got the numbers to run. 

 

On the 2nd leg (French Intensive), this was a slow selling cruise until close in. AZ offered $1000 OBC in one offer.   We had lots more than that so we booked some pricey ship's tours.  One was cancelled due to lack of interest (very disappointing since this was a highlight for us) and what we ended up with was an OK excursion but not of great interest to us.  Too late to have arranged anything else in that small port.  And we had our final port changed due to high seas so got refund of that ship tour.   Overall, the ship tours offered on this leg were not that good. 

There were 106 posts on this roll call. No one planned any private excursions looking for sharing.  Only taxi shares to airport.  This itinerary covers a lot of popular ports so many may have already visited them so that could have contributed to the lack of interest. 

[ilv2cruz4evr]

What size group are the Azamara excursions?

[laurieb]

6 minutes ago, ilv2cruz4evr said:

What size group are the Azamara excursions?

The ones we’ve taken have been fair in size, from 12 to maybe 25 guests.  We did go on one post Covid when cruising had just started up again that was larger, however we were put on two buses to provide distance in the seating.

[CynthiaP]

We were on an AZ Med cruise last fall. About two weeks before the cruise, we were notified of the cancellation of an excursion we had booked. Fine, we had 2 weeks to figure something out. But during the cruise, we were notified of another cancelled excursion 2 days before the port. Went to shore excursions and there was a long line of people. The lady in front of me had her excursion for the next day cancelled. When I finally made it to a service rep she told me the excursion was cancelled due to lack of interest. So Azamara turned their problem into my problem! Nice for them, they weren't out any money because I was using OBC. But then I had a problem - either select what was left of ship excursions or figure something else out.  

 

I decided to limit Azamara cruises only to those that have an itinerary I can't get elsewhere. So as of right now, we don't have another AZ cruise until 2024. And I'm watching other ships to see if some of them have a similar itinerary. There are a lot of ships in the sea.

[ilv2cruz4evr]

4 hours ago, CynthiaP said:

We were on an AZ Med cruise last fall. About two weeks before the cruise, we were notified of the cancellation of an excursion we had booked. Fine, we had 2 weeks to figure something out. But during the cruise, we were notified of another cancelled excursion 2 days before the port. Went to shore excursions and there was a long line of people. The lady in front of me had her excursion for the next day cancelled. When I finally made it to a service rep she told me the excursion was cancelled due to lack of interest. So Azamara turned their problem into my problem! Nice for them, they weren't out any money because I was using OBC. But then I had a problem - either select what was left of ship excursions or figure something else out.  

 

I decided to limit Azamara cruises only to those that have an itinerary I can't get elsewhere. So as of right now, we don't have another AZ cruise until 2024. And I'm watching other ships to see if some of them have a similar itinerary. There are a lot of ships in the sea.

Wow! That is awful…..thanks for info.

[kydems]

I am not usually one to use ship shore excursions, however we had 4 B2B cruises from Amsterdam to Barcelona last year and a bucket load of OBC to use so we booked all ship tours. Some were not as good as we would have hoped for some were better than expected.

My husband had a medical incident on board, and we were off the ship for 9 days during the 40-day cruise while he recuperated in hospital. The shore excursion team refunded all the tours we had booked during that time either to OBC or the credit card if we had paid for it that way. We were then able to discuss all future shore excursions that we had booked with the shore ex team and modify our bookings to suit my husband's needs at that time. The team was marvelous and made my life so much easier. I cannot imagine the problems I would have had if we were cancelling and changing options with private providers.

I am not saying that we will book only ship tours in the future, but this experience is something for others to consider.

[Host Jazzbeau]

I have rarely used ship excursions in the past, but our recent Azamara cruise came with a boat load of OBC so we did all ship excursions this time.  They all lived up to the descriptions, and never felt crowded or 'large.'  One was a big disappointment (Mostar from Dubrovnik) but only because traffic/border crossings took it from 11 hours to 13 and the payoff wasn't even worth the 11 hours.  But three were under-described by Azamara, and delivered more than the description promised [Lake Bled & Island; Rovinj on Foot; and Kotor By Boat With A Capella Performance].  Bottom line:  we were very happy with our Azamara shore excursions and will consider using them again in the future.

[federalexpress]

In my limited experience, the quality of the excursions is fine but oh my, the price. They were typically 2-3 times what you could arrange yourself. That's too greedy a margin. I paid $550 for a 4 hour private driver and guide in one port, this in a supposedly low cost country. Given they seemed to be angling for a tip, I mentioned the price to them to indicate I might feel that was the most I felt like paying for my 4 hours. I think they got the message; I realise this doesn't go the those at the coal face, others have to take their margin, including AZ, but let's just say they nearly fainted when they heard how much....

[Host Jazzbeau]

4 hours ago, federalexpress said:

In my limited experience, the quality of the excursions is fine but oh my, the price. They were typically 2-3 times what you could arrange yourself. That's too greedy a margin. I paid $550 for a 4 hour private driver and guide in one port, this in a supposedly low cost country. Given they seemed to be angling for a tip, I mentioned the price to them to indicate I might feel that was the most I felt like paying for my 4 hours. I think they got the message; I realise this doesn't go the those at the coal face, others have to take their margin, including AZ, but let's just say they nearly fainted when they heard how much....

Private driver/guide tours on all cruise lines I have researched are similarly overpriced – even in comparison to their other shore excursions.  For regular shore excursions, automatic cancellation for changed/missed ports and the ease of working with the shorex desk are worth some premium.

[roberts2005]

On my recent Pursuit cruise we took some ship’s  tours.   The ranch visit in Montevideo was excellent.  The sheep farm in Punta Arenas was ok, but not great.

 

I wish cruise critic would set up a data base to review ship’s tours.  Even if only a rating of one to five stars.

[uktog]

There is no consistency of standard on Azamara excursions, I have had trips that range from outstanding to appalling and all points in between.  I like the idea of the database, I would also like Azamara to have minimum quality standards in terms of guides, their competence, knowledge and language skills and that these standards are shared with guests so guests can feedback when it is met well or when it is not.

 

I find that where there are standards of guiding (sometimes with exams) set by tourist boards and Azamara use these registered guides the standard of the tour is usually far far higher than the ones where the operator has scratched around and just found someone who speaks English or worse still found a comedian interested in taking you to their cousins shop even through the tour is supposed to have no shopping and knows very little solid facts about the area they are guiding in.

 

Azamara used to put escorts on tours and one of their roles was to feedback.  Mind this did not always work, some did not want to give their friends on Shorex some extra work and others just went for the time out but it was a kind of indicator to the guide there was some supervision.  Since Covid this has not happened so much, they need to bring that back.

 

Azamara also used tablets that were passed round the bus for immediate feedback towards the end of the tour, in addition to the technology not working on one tour the guide stood over us and tried to check we were giving her a high score, unfortunately this intimidated many who then did even though the score was certainly not warranted

[mchell810]

Just to ad a thought about the tablets for immediate feedback: I find the idea of touching this object that everyone was touch disturbing.  Yes, one can sanitize afterwards but the germophobe in me was a bit freaked out.  The one time I did use the tablet I found the questions pretty generic and there was no space for real comments.  I wish Azamara would use paper surveys and/or just send an email to give tour feedback.

 

[federalexpress]

15 hours ago, Host Jazzbeau said:

Private driver/guide tours on all cruise lines I have researched are similarly overpriced – even in comparison to their other shore excursions.  For regular shore excursions, automatic cancellation for changed/missed ports and the ease of working with the shorex desk are worth some premium.

 

It wasn't just private guides/drivers. There was a trip on the Falklands that was well over double the price of the one we booked, same itinerary, £150 per person versus £320 onboard. Another, a trip to an estancia for lunch and penguins, was $120 direct, just under $300 on the ship. That was more embarrassing because it was exactly the same venue, albeit we travelled there in separate coaches, presumably hoping the groups did not talk to each other. As I say, I think that's too greedy and if the situation is the same on other cruise lines, then they are greedy also.

 

I don't think the shore excursion team provided much in the way of added value, certainly not enough to justify 2-3 times the price. In truth, I found it easier working direct. In fact in contrast to the exemplary service levels everywhere else in the ship, the excursions desk were the weakest link.

 

You can tell how much margin there is in this sector when you consider an online booking tool like Viator, effectively a direct competitor to ship's tours, whose commission varies from 20 to 30%, way more than similar online booking engines for hotels, restaurants etc. But I guess nothing much will change for a long as people book the ship's tours and maybe for many it is just easier that way and the vast cost difference is secondary.

[luv2travel90266]

This is a great time to remind people to look for the roll call for your cruise and post there. On my last trip I found some excellent tours with a van for 8 at a price approx 30% less than similar offered by the Azamara. We had a great time with the smaller group.

 

For my upcoming cruise and there is very little participation. Only 8 following the roll call is less than 2% cruising. If you don't find an existing  roll call for your cruise start one. 

[hamrag]

37 minutes ago, federalexpress said:

.....I don't think the shore excursion team provided much in the way of added value, certainly not enough to justify 2-3 times the price. In truth, I found it easier working direct. In fact in contrast to the exemplary service levels everywhere else in the ship, the excursions desk were the weakest link.....

 

....But I guess nothing much will change for a long as people book the ship's tours and maybe for many it is just easier that way and the vast cost difference is secondary.

We didn't take any Az tours on our B2B cruises but, based on my reading across various threads, a significant number who book the Az tours have OBC to burn. That makes the OBC of less value to passengers who get same, and means it costs Az much less than it's face value because of the exorbitant tour pricing. 

Edited February 13, 2023 by hamrag

[luv2travel90266]

Agreed. I am keeping track and will use much of my OBC for dinners, chefs table, internet, and covering corkage fees. On both my cruises I expect I will still need to add cash but will take some Azamara tours to burn through OBC. 

[woodley]

Thanks everyone for your input. It is very helpful.  Seems that Azamara tours are much the same as the other lines some tours are good some not really worth it.  I think I will do a combination of ship tours to use the credit and private ones to save some money.

 

[federalexpress]

On 2/13/2023 at 5:55 PM, hamrag said:

We didn't take any Az tours on our B2B cruises but, based on my reading across various threads, a significant number who book the Az tours have OBC to burn. That makes the OBC of less value to passengers who get same, and means it costs Az much less than it's face value because of the exorbitant tour pricing. 

 

I think that is fair comment. Given I intended to mostly arrange my own, I used my $1000 OBC to part buy the Indulgence package. I especially valued the Ultimate package for wine and the wifi for 2, but also the free laundry was handy and the chef's table a nice extra. Given the cruise was 17 nights, this gave very fair value. You also got $700 tours credit and a $250 spa credit. I put both to use but it is fair to say that had I been shelling out my own money in a more direct way, I would not have used either.

[roberts2005]

When I booked last Spring the promotion was $1,000 OBC for shore excursions.  There was discussion at the time whether Azamara would allow the OBC to be used in other ways.  Wound up using the OBC for Azamara tours that sounded interesting.  One was excellent, one good, and one not so good.