Contacting Choice Air

[DreadPirateRobert]

Has anyone had any luck contacting them. 
I’ve tried several numbers and I get nothing.

[KY Deb]

I called Choice Air as I have a reservation through them for an October Azamara cruise.  Choice Air  is now just for Royal Caribbean and the number they gave me to contact for air for an Azamara cruise was 1-855-292-6272.  Which appears to be the generic number to contact Azamara.  I tried to call, but there were no prompts for flights.  I was put on hold and gave up pretty quickly.  If you have better luck, I’d love to hear about it. 

[tyler6597]

Good luck. This situation with the new website is total incompetence of the owners of Azamara which is Sycamore Partners which is a private equity company. They have failed miserably, and the new website is an indication that they don't know what the hell they're doing. This new website or the lack of one is going to have a impact on current booking and any future booking by customers that have sailed previously on Azamar and any future bookings by customers that have never sailed on Azamara. This isn't good for the brand. 

Gary Tyler

[fruitmachine]

1 hour ago, tyler6597 said:

Good luck. This situation with the new website is total incompetence of the owners of Azamara which is Sycamore Partners which is a private equity company. They have failed miserably, and the new website is an indication that they don't know what the hell they're doing. This new website or the lack of one is going to have a impact on current booking and any future booking by customers that have sailed previously on Azamar and any future bookings by customers that have never sailed on Azamara. This isn't good for the brand. 

Gary Tyler

I'd agree that this is all bad for the brand, but it'll have little to do with Sycamore Partners who are primarily arms-length investors, and everything to do with the team who are badly managing an IT migration.  That's a specialist one-off job that has little to do with running a cruise line, and the team is likely heavily populated by short-term contractors that have little skin in the game, with senior staff reporting upwards that "everything will be fine".  Undoubtedly they are being badly managed, but I wouldn't judge the long-term ability of the management team based on this short-term problem.

 

Trust me - Having spent a career in financial services IT, I've seen it all before!

[Riocca]

3 hours ago, fruitmachine said:

I'd agree that this is all bad for the brand, but it'll have little to do with Sycamore Partners who are primarily arms-length investors, and everything to do with the team who are badly managing an IT migration.  That's a specialist one-off job that has little to do with running a cruise line, and the team is likely heavily populated by short-term contractors that have little skin in the game, with senior staff reporting upwards that "everything will be fine".  Undoubtedly they are being badly managed, but I wouldn't judge the long-term ability of the management team based on this short-term problem.

 

Trust me - Having spent a career in financial services IT, I've seen it all before!

Having spoken to people onboard it’s the reverse, Versonix Seaware is a respected IT company that has experience with a large number of cruise lines however having been promised a clean data package from RC what has been provided is anything but. Apparently RC’s system is decades behind and a lot of the data is corrupt meaning Azamara has to manually update the information. If anyone is incompetent it’s Royal Caribbean for providing poor quality unusable data. 
Good news is Azamara’s back office operating system is working fine has been running for over a year now and we’ve no problems onboard certainly not gone hungry or thirsty, for those boarding soon don’t worry online check in is unnecessary and won’t cause any problems. Just turn up at the times Azamara has indicated and enjoy the onboard experience.

 

[Belfastman]

1 hour ago, Riocca said:

Having spoken to people onboard it’s the reverse, Versonix Seaware is a respected IT company that has experience with a large number of cruise lines however having been promised a clean data package from RC what has been provided is anything but. Apparently RC’s system is decades behind and a lot of the data is corrupt meaning Azamara has to manually update the information. If anyone is incompetent it’s Royal Caribbean for providing poor quality unusable data. 
Good news is Azamara’s back office operating system is working fine has been running for over a year now and we’ve no problems onboard certainly not gone hungry or thirsty, for those boarding soon don’t worry online check in is unnecessary and won’t cause any problems. Just turn up at the times Azamara has indicated and enjoy the onboard experience.

 

Problem is if you can't checking online you don't actually get a boarding time as it is part of the checking process.

[Riocca]

10 hours ago, Belfastman said:

Problem is if you can't checking online you don't actually get a boarding time as it is part of the checking process.

From another thread, should have gone to TA’s and direct bookers.

 

 

[KY Deb]

So today when I logged into my reservation on Azamara website, there was a bar with my invoice (I booked with a TA).   When I clicked on the invoice, it showed the amount I owe for the cruise as well as for the air.   So I feel reassured that the air reservations I made through Choice Air have been picked up by Azamara after the split from RCI.  There were no specifics about the air reservations, just the amount I owed, which was correct.  🙏🤞

[MetravelUtoo?]

Just found out, purely accidental, that my May 4 flight with United to Barcelona was cancelled on 04/05 due to non payment!!  I paid in full on 01/30/23!  Waited on hold for FIVE HOURS (Azamara) only to be told “everything looks good on our end, must be a ‘United’ problem!!  
 

Contacted ChoiceAir only to be told they can’t help me as Azamara has been independent since 03/16/23.  Never mind that I paid RCCL Choice Air on 01/30/23.  Beyond frustrated!!! 

[JAT0303]

I have been trying to get them to ticket my May 27th flights to Europe for a week.  The tickets were paid in full on January 18th.  I waited on hold for 6 hours last week and talked to a representative who said he'd send e-mail to the air department and I should hear back by today (I didn't hear from anyone.)  My flights have disappeared from Lufthansa and my seats are gone from our return flight.  My TA can get into the system which shows my reservations and says they are not ticketed.

 

I called again this morning and actually got someone on the phone quickly (6:30 am PST.)  I told her I was having a problem and needed to talk with air department.  She was very nice but said no one can talk with the air department directly anymore and needed to go through customer service.   She put me on hold to go check with them.  I was on l hold about 20 minutes.  She said that my flights are there but they are having to go through every reservation by hand because of their data issues.  She mentioned she is working with a customer who flies in 3 days and doesn't have tickets yet.  She said it's been brought to their attention now and they should work on it now.  I don't have a lot of confidence that there will be a quick resolution.

 

This is our first time on Azamara (lots of other cruise lines) and I'm feeling pretty discouraged with what I expected to be a positive experience.  Like others, I have been involved with major data system changes and we would never have moved to a new system without making sure the data conversion was complete and the system was functioning well.  This is not reflecting well on Azamara.

 

 

 

 

[MetravelUtoo?]

I wonder if sharing our experiences on social media #Azamara would help any?  I have friends that say “yes” but I’ve never tried it?