Azamara non-existant customer service

[Mandi211]

I sailed on the Onward on a b2b from December 22 till January l7th.  I had some issues with a awful shore excursion and while onboard I had a run around with the Shore Escursions department.  I got no where and when I arrived home I have now sent 2 post excursion messages and also a customer service email, along with pictures of the excursion which was not as advertised.  To this date, I have not had the courtesy of any response at all.  Considering I have sailed with Azamara many times and had no issues, I am extremely annoyed that I had had no response.  I trried calling them but kept getting sent to Royal Carribean customer service and they had no idea about anything with Azamara.  I gave up!!!

 

[blag]

You are not alone in finding that some excursions don't meet your expectations.

Generally-speaking, though - in my experience - if sufficient people complain, Azamara responds. Isolated complaints (and I am not saying that you are alone in complaining about this specific excursion) tend to get ignored.

For example, one one of our Azamara cruises a few years ago all the excursions in Mumbai caused considerable complaint, and refunds were issued whilst we were on board. In fact, although we did not like Mumbai, we thought the excursion was OK (but not great).

Similarly, in December '22 we had one excursion that was really unsatisfactory, and many complained. A refund was issued whilst we were on board.

But, on a Baltic cruise this summer, we endured a really tedious excursion. So bad that, as far as I know, only two out of the 20 or so finished the walking tour. We complained, but no refund was issued - apparently because we were in a significant minority. And again, I repeat, for all I know, you may have been part of a majority.

I really don't believe that Azamara shoreside will do anything if it was not resolved on board.

[travelberlin]

1 hour ago, Mandi211 said:

I sailed on the Onward on a b2b from December 22 till January l7th.  I had some issues with a awful shore excursion and while onboard I had a run around with the Shore Escursions department.  I got no where and when I arrived home I have now sent 2 post excursion messages and also a customer service email, along with pictures of the excursion which was not as advertised.  To this date, I have not had the courtesy of any response at all.  Considering I have sailed with Azamara many times and had no issues, I am extremely annoyed that I had had no response.  I trried calling them but kept getting sent to Royal Carribean customer service and they had no idea about anything with Azamara.  I gave up!!!

 

Sorry to hear about your bad experience with shore excursions. Unfortunately that department is not the strongest at Azamara and independently how much you complain on feedbacks, it does not change much. I am not sure if they are independent providers.

On the ship you have the possibility to escalate your complain to the hotel director. If it is something related to attitudes from personnel, you can also give the feedback to the Human Resources manager.

 

One possibility to get an answer to your email could be to try to post it to the loyalty or next cruise officer onboard and ask them to pass your request.

We used to have a person on this boards appointed by Azamara which was very helpful with any issue. Unfortunately she is not there anymore.

Ivi

[Mandi211]

13 hours ago, blag said:

You are not alone in finding that some excursions don't meet your expectations.

Generally-speaking, though - in my experience - if sufficient people complain, Azamara responds. Isolated complaints (and I am not saying that you are alone in complaining about this specific excursion) tend to get ignored.

For example, one one of our Azamara cruises a few years ago all the excursions in Mumbai caused considerable complaint, and refunds were issued whilst we were on board. In fact, although we did not like Mumbai, we thought the excursion was OK (but not great).

Similarly, in December '22 we had one excursion that was really unsatisfactory, and many complained. A refund was issued whilst we were on board.

But, on a Baltic cruise this summer, we endured a really tedious excursion. So bad that, as far as I know, only two out of the 20 or so finished the walking tour. We complained, but no refund was issued - apparently because we were in a significant minority. And again, I repeat, for all I know, you may have been part of a majority.

I really don't believe that Azamara shoreside will do anything if it was not resolved on board.

By chance was it the "Columbia Coffee Experience" in Cartagena you complained about?  Everyone was complaining and I took it to Guest Relations as soon as I returned to the ship.  They inturn messaged Shore Excursions.  Took a few days to hear back, said would be looked into and again waited a few more days and got a voice mail one day saying I wouldn't get a refund.  At that point,my temper flared and went immediately to shore excursioss.  Seeing I was so annoyed, they offered me  20//% refund which was not good enough!  So, addressing it immediately didn't help and I did tell them I would be contacting Azamara when I got home.  Obviously, I am getting nowhere and their lack of response is infuriating to me.

[blag]

8 minutes ago, Mandi211 said:

By chance was it the "Columbia Coffee Experience" in Cartagena you complained about?

No.

[laurieb]

21 hours ago, Mandi211 said:

I sailed on the Onward on a b2b from December 22 till January l7th.  I had some issues with a awful shore excursion and while onboard I had a run around with the Shore Escursions department.  I got no where and when I arrived home I have now sent 2 post excursion messages and also a customer service email, along with pictures of the excursion which was not as advertised.  To this date, I have not had the courtesy of any response at all.  Considering I have sailed with Azamara many times and had no issues, I am extremely annoyed that I had had no response.  I trried calling them but kept getting sent to Royal Carribean customer service and they had no idea about anything with Azamara.  I gave up!!!

 

Did you book with a travel agent?  They can contact their Azamara rep and that should get you some kind of response. 

[Edinburghgirl1]

On 2/16/2023 at 3:49 PM, Mandi211 said:

I sailed on the Onward on a b2b from December 22 till January l7th.  I had some issues with a awful shore excursion and while onboard I had a run around with the Shore Escursions department.  I got no where and when I arrived home I have now sent 2 post excursion messages and also a customer service email, along with pictures of the excursion which was not as advertised.  To this date, I have not had the courtesy of any response at all.  Considering I have sailed with Azamara many times and had no issues, I am extremely annoyed that I had had no response.  I trried calling them but kept getting sent to Royal Carribean customer service and they had no idea about anything with Azamara.  I gave up!!!

 

I to had occasion to call Azamara about a suitcase which was damaged on embarkation by the crew taking if the luggage.. I got no joy from calling the Azamara number so tried the Royal Caribbean one. They were excellent and took full ownership of the issue. When it was established the case could not be repaired they arranged a settlement  to be made to my credit card. 

[travelberlin]

2 hours ago, Edinburghgirl1 said:

I to had occasion to call Azamara about a suitcase which was damaged on embarkation by the crew taking if the luggage.. I got no joy from calling the Azamara number so tried the Royal Caribbean one. They were excellent and took full ownership of the issue. When it was established the case could not be repaired they arranged a settlement  to be made to my credit card. 

When was this? Azamara does not belong to Royal Caribbean anymore.

Ivi

[Edinburghgirl1]

12 hours ago, travelberlin said:

When was this? Azamara does not belong to Royal Caribbean anymore.

Ivi

I am aware of that. We sailed in November disembarked in December and I spoke to RCI in January. They were great to deal with unlike Azamara pre and post cruise customer service. 

[Riocca]

13 hours ago, travelberlin said:

When was this? Azamara does not belong to Royal Caribbean anymore.

Ivi

It’s probably more relevant when the booking was made as Royal Caribbean remained the booking agent for Azamara until SP Cruises took over the responsibility some time in 2022 once they had obtained the correct accreditation to operate in the U.K.

[lisiamc]

Veering slightly off-topic, but since we’re speaking of Royal Caribbean, we had our very worst experience with a Royal Caribbean shore excursion some years ago (2016?) in Grenada. The bus was full to bursting, and the only seat left for us was on the engine block, on a loose piece of plywood, with our feet stuck straight out in front of us. Of course there was no seatbelt, as this was not actually a seat. The engine block was also quite hot, and the plywood did not fully insulate our sizzling bums. If the driver had braked suddenly, DH and I would have gone straight through the windscreen. Our choice was to accept this “seat” or decline the excursion by our own choice, which meant that no refund would be possible, according the person coordinating the excursions at the port. We went, but only under protest. Once back on the ship, we had meetings with several people from the excursion desk, who tried to tell us that the clause in the excursion description page, along the lines of “we make every effort to provide the best local transport available, but it may not be up to the standard provided in other areas.” meant that the seats offered were acceptable. It took a meeting with the Hotel Director to get the point across that these seats were not acceptable in any way, and receive an apology and a refund. The refund was nice, but we really wanted RCCL to be aware of the risk to passenger lives!
 

This was the low point of any ship’s excursion we’ve ever taken, and a strange side effect is that it would take quite a lot before we felt another excursion was worth complaining about! 

[Host Jazzbeau]

7 hours ago, lisiamc said:

Veering slightly off-topic, but since we’re speaking of Royal Caribbean, we had our very worst experience with a Royal Caribbean shore excursion some years ago (2016?) in Grenada. The bus was full to bursting, and the only seat left for us was on the engine block, on a loose piece of plywood, with our feet stuck straight out in front of us. Of course there was no seatbelt, as this was not actually a seat. The engine block was also quite hot, and the plywood did not fully insulate our sizzling bums. If the driver had braked suddenly, DH and I would have gone straight through the windscreen. Our choice was to accept this “seat” or decline the excursion by our own choice, which meant that no refund would be possible, according the person coordinating the excursions at the port. We went, but only under protest. Once back on the ship, we had meetings with several people from the excursion desk, who tried to tell us that the clause in the excursion description page, along the lines of “we make every effort to provide the best local transport available, but it may not be up to the standard provided in other areas.” meant that the seats offered were acceptable. It took a meeting with the Hotel Director to get the point across that these seats were not acceptable in any way, and receive an apology and a refund. The refund was nice, but we really wanted RCCL to be aware of the risk to passenger lives!
 

This was the low point of any ship’s excursion we’ve ever taken, and a strange side effect is that it would take quite a lot before we felt another excursion was worth complaining about! 

Wow.  I think in my case it would have taken quite a long time before even thinking about booking another ship excursion!

[lisiamc]

1 hour ago, Host Jazzbeau said:

Wow.  I think in my case it would have taken quite a long time before even thinking about booking another ship excursion!

The guide was actually very good, and except for the very real feeling of dicing with death on the bus, we enjoyed the excursion!