Shore Excursion prices — AZ has finally gone over the edge

[ikelmay]

13 hours ago, laurieb said:

Excursions always go up in price the closer you get to your sail date, on all cruise lines, especially for tours that are popular.  

I think you're rather missing the point here which is that numerous posters have reported not being able to book tours in advance with OBC because of the IT meltdown, thus being forced to wait until on board to reserve.

 

It strikes me as a little underhanded to then inflate tour prices excessively, especially when the company has created the problem of not being able to advance book in the first place.. 

[JYDCruise]

12 hours ago, Host Jazzbeau said:

Yes, but Azamara does seem to have some moral obligation because people were unable to book ahead at the lower prices.  I'm not asking them to lose money, if the operators have raised the wholesale price – but they shouldn't be making the increased margin of late-booked excursions, in this case.

Fully agreed, but it's more than that. Right now, Azamara should be doing high-dives into cups of water to generate goodwill, rather than the opposite.

[nonrev1]

15 hours ago, laurieb said:

Excursions always go up in price the closer you get to your sail date, on all cruise lines, especially for tours that are popular.  

That is exactly my point. They do go up.  But,  if the company is not giving you the ability to book them, that should not be a price  increase that we need to incur.  They should hold the prices stable. I don’t know of many people that have been able to book excursions. I tried to book them on my cruise in April because they suggested to do it before the pricing went up and I would get a 10% discount.  They could not see the tours or my OBC. ( that was early in the meltdown)  I have no little pencil in my reservation.  Without that, I can’t book.  I finally got a live voice, apparently when I don’t see the pencil, they can’t see the tours. My agent can’t book them either.   So yes, I am very well aware that the pricing goes up, you confirmed what I had already mentioned. There is just nothing I can do about it.  That is why I am suggesting out of good will, Azamara hold the prices where they are and not penalize us for their  issues. 
 

Edited May 20, 2023 by nonrev1

[AllisonJames]

Update: since the AZ website seems to be glitchy on an IPad, I checked from my desktop computer. Nope — still crazy! Now I am wondering if somehow the Glasgow excursions are giving prices for TWO people, which would actually somehow make sense (as an error anyway)! Told my husband…”we can either go on AZ shore excursions…or pay for our daughter’s wedding, which should we choose?” 😎

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[XJ6]

Dear, oh dear, oh dear, 'plus ça change......'

 

Quite conveniently, Azamara is now providing, on their generic website (i.e. without logging into my account) the current prices for all of the shore excursions I was able to book a few days ago for my upcoming cruise. Managing shore excursions is today, once again, not accessible to me. However, I now have the dollar prices for each of them - and they are either the same, or slightly lower than, the prices which were available some months ago. Crazily, the prices on two of these excursions are now marginally lower than they were at 4 hours ago. The sterling conversions in my account, however,  are just as crazy as before (but the increases over original rates are not as unfavourable as some on here have experienced )

 

However, my OBC is in US dollars... I now, again, have the prices in US dollars for the excursions at the level they were originally..... and I will now (and, I think, reasonably) ask Azamara to charge these dollar excursion prices against my OBC in dollars, and never mind faffing around with currency conversion rates - unless they want to give me my OBC at one of the awful rates they seem to be using to price things in Sterling.

 

This should just all be so easy.....

 

Someone said the other day on the boards that the responsibility for this whole fiasco (i.e. not just excursions) lay largely with the former owners, rather than Azamara.

 

There is a phrase originating quite some time ago, which has been a key point of legal agreements for many, many years - 'Caveat Emptor'.... i.e buyer beware !

 

I am no lawyer, but Azamara, in this case, was 'the buyer' and I am afraid it is solely up to Azamara to get its desired outcome from the process, not the 'seller'. In business to business contracts, it is generally held (at least in the UK) that the buyer has to do proper due diligence before commiting to a contract. The onus on the seller is, basically, to not deliberately deceive the buyer.

 

Soon to be on my way.... and my big real concern at the moment is that currently, Azamara seems to be saying my flights  are 'independent', and I do not have transfers from the airport to the hotel we'll be staying in the night before boarding. They were both paid for through Azamara. Kinda fundamental stuff before even getting to the point of 'everything will be all right once we're aboard ship'.

[Grandma Cruising]

Can you tell me whereabouts on the Azamara website you saw the shoreexcursions along with their price. I can’t see anything other than ‘Featured Shore Excursions’ on the entry for the cruise I’m going on in November, and none of them are priced.

Edited May 21, 2023 by Grandma Cruising

[XJ6]

25 minutes ago, Grandma Cruising said:

Can you tell me whereabouts on the Azamara website you saw the shoreexcursions along with their price. I can’t see anything other than ‘Featured Shore Excursions’ on the entry for the cruise I’m going on in November, and none of them are priced.

 

 

Hi there.

Ah..... maybe didn't make it clear enough - these are 'Featured Shore Excursions' and just very coincidentally, this morning, the ones I want on my upcoming cruise are 'featured' and priced. Clearly, this is not all of the excursions available on my cruise, nor are all of the 'Featured' excursions that I can see priced. Just pure chance the 'Featured' and priced items today happen to fit my preferences. Sorry to get people excited unnecessarily.

[chucknmarilyn]

5 minutes ago, XJ6 said:

 

 

Hi there.

Ah..... maybe didn't make it clear enough - these are 'Featured Shore Excursions' and just very coincidentally, this morning, the ones I want on my upcoming cruise are 'featured' and priced. Clearly, this is not all of the excursions available on my cruise, nor are all of the 'Featured' excursions that I can see priced. Just pure chance the 'Featured' and priced items today happen to fit my preferences. Sorry to get people excited unnecessarily.

Beyond frustrated with this. I can't even find "featured excursions". I'll go try on PC later.

[JaneStarr]

48 minutes ago, chucknmarilyn said:

Beyond frustrated with this. I can't even find "featured excursions". I'll go try on PC later.

It’s not simple. I was able to access featured excusions by signing out, searching for my sailing and then clicking the link to view details. Scroll down to show itinerary day-by-day. Scroll down while viewing each day to see the 3 featured excursions for port.  Only some of them have prices listed.

(Going from memory here, so I hope you can find them)

Edited May 21, 2023 by JaneStarr
Correction

[Baynanno1]

10 hours ago, XJ6 said:

However, my OBC is in US dollars... I now, again, have the prices in US dollars for the excursions at the level they were originally..... and I will now (and, I think, reasonably) ask Azamara to charge these dollar excursion prices against my OBC in dollars, and never mind faffing around with currency conversion rates - unless they want to give me my OBC at one of the awful rates they seem to be using to price things in Sterling.

 

 

 

On board currency has always been US$.

Pre-booked excursions (for whatever reason) have always been in the cruiser's local currency.

 

It is well worthwhile monitoring fluctuations in currency exchange rates. I have always been able to find a reasonable rate when booking before cruising.

Once you have pre-booked your first excursion, the exchange rate will remain the same for any more excursions booked before your cruise.

 

Once on board your remaining OBC will revert to US$.

Enjoy!

[XJ6]

Sorry, but it's not the currency fluctuations that are the biggest problem - it's Azamara's unbelievable price fluctuations and its inability to provide the opportunity to purchase shore excursions in a reasonable fashion.

 

The ability to 'monitor currency fluctuations', and to take the opportinities this may offer, are completely obliterated by the access to the Shore Excursion reservation system being unavailabvle for the vast majority of time. That, and the fact that  Azamara has apparently increased prices in Sterling (but not in US Dollars) when Sterling has actually appreciated in value against the US Dollar over the past few months.

 

Unfortunately, your suggestion that the exchange rate for Sterling which I obtained in an earlier booking this year on my cruise has not been sustained across the rest off my bookings at all - the latter bookings were made when the system, just a week or so ago,happened to provide a very short window of opportunity for me to make bookings before the window closed again, which I luckily spotted. I used this chance timing to try to ensure that my wife and I did not miss out on the tours we eventually (months ago now) decided we wanted.... not to 'finagle' around the currency exchange rate.

 

I am travelling thousands of miles and paying loads of money for an experience in locations I may never be able to visit again, so I cannot but take any opportunities available to me to ensure that happens sensibly. It is Azamara which is playing fast and loose with the prices of Shore Excursions, the capability to book them, and to not suffer exchange rate 'gouging' (or sheer incompetence) in the process.

 

As I said above - why is it unreasonable for me to pay US dollar rates for Shore Excursions - the currency they are 'offered' at on the generic website - from my OBC fund, which is also in US Dollars (and therefore doesn't need to 'revert' to that currency), if Azamara is playing around with these prices and currency exchange rates ?

 

I am simply trying to make the best of a cruise I booked and paid for some time ago, at a point when I did not have time (due to preparing for another Azamara cruise) to examine in detail specifically what Shore Excursions I should like to make. Nobody said this fiasco would be forthcoming, starting at exactly the time I would be on another Azamara ship.

 

[chucknmarilyn]

Last night I was able to book some excursions for Quest in October so apparently progress is being made. At least I hope they are booked since the procedure for using OBC was a bit quirky. The prices looked comparable to what I would expect. I think mine ranged from $69 to $179pp. 

[NicNata]

On 5/20/2023 at 5:16 PM, fruitmachine said:

I beg to differ and have the data to back that up.

Using a generous £ to $ rate of 1.25 (we could only see £ price pre cruise, and only $ price onboard) Azamara increase excursion prices by between 10% and 123% for a cruise last month.

We are doing a Croatia intensive cruise in October 2023 that includes most of these excursions. All of the excursions have gone up in price pre to post website migration and some of them by eyewatering amounts as in your spreadsheet. Has anyone actually talked to Azamara about why such large increases? I am reluctant to book now because I don't know if the new prices are correct or if it is yet another glitch of the website. I noticed that on this cruise, several of the tours are repeated multiple times (stating the same price each time it is repeated), suggesting that all is not right with the website. Another red flag is that the cruise is described as an 11 night Greece intensive cruise when it is actually an 8 night Croatia intensive cruise. My plan is to call Azamara to challenge this pricing before I book anything. At the moment its looking like booking tours via Viator or similar may be a better bet

[chucknmarilyn]

27 minutes ago, NicNata said:

We are doing a Croatia intensive cruise in October 2023 that includes most of these excursions. All of the excursions have gone up in price pre to post website migration and some of them by eyewatering amounts as in your spreadsheet. Has anyone actually talked to Azamara about why such large increases? I am reluctant to book now because I don't know if the new prices are correct or if it is yet another glitch of the website. I noticed that on this cruise, several of the tours are repeated multiple times (stating the same price each time it is repeated), suggesting that all is not right with the website. Another red flag is that the cruise is described as an 11 night Greece intensive cruise when it is actually an 8 night Croatia intensive cruise. My plan is to call Azamara to challenge this pricing before I book anything. At the moment its looking like booking tours via Viator or similar may be a better bet

I think we are on the same cruise on the 4th. For the most part I thought the prices were on par with our other non-Azamara cruises. Maybe just the ones I was interested in. I've only booked 4 so far. Hope they stay "booked". I used OBC and now it says I have $66 due. I should still have a few hundred credit left. Yikes!

[fruitmachine]

1 hour ago, NicNata said:

We are doing a Croatia intensive cruise in October 2023 that includes most of these excursions. All of the excursions have gone up in price pre to post website migration and some of them by eyewatering amounts as in your spreadsheet. Has anyone actually talked to Azamara about why such large increases? I am reluctant to book now because I don't know if the new prices are correct or if it is yet another glitch of the website. I noticed that on this cruise, several of the tours are repeated multiple times (stating the same price each time it is repeated), suggesting that all is not right with the website. Another red flag is that the cruise is described as an 11 night Greece intensive cruise when it is actually an 8 night Croatia intensive cruise. My plan is to call Azamara to challenge this pricing before I book anything. At the moment its looking like booking tours via Viator or similar may be a better bet

From memory, some of the excursions ran inland from multiple ports, so if it's these that are duplicated, then that's not an issue.

[NicNata]

2 hours ago, fruitmachine said:

From memory, some of the excursions ran inland from multiple ports, so if it's these that are duplicated, then that's not an issue.

No that's not it. Several of the excursions are listed 4 or 5 times from the same port. Some are listed 2 or 3 times and almost none are listed only once. In addition, you are right, the same excursion is offered from other ports as well. So its very difficult to know what link to click on. So for example are all 5 links to an excursion from the same port eventually all linking to the same excursion or not? Its impossible to tell. For now I am holding off booking anything

[Glory148]

Regarding the increase in price for Croatia shore excursions, one of the reasons may be that in January, Croatia has changed their currency from their own kuna to the euro.   Since the transition, all things in Croatia have increased significantly in price.  My sister is doing a private small boat excursion for 1 week up the Dalmatian Coast with 10 other couples and their ship agent has refunded the price of some meals and excursions because they can't do it for the price they quoted in 2022.  

[fruitmachine]

21 hours ago, Glory148 said:

Regarding the increase in price for Croatia shore excursions, one of the reasons may be that in January, Croatia has changed their currency from their own kuna to the euro.   Since the transition, all things in Croatia have increased significantly in price.  My sister is doing a private small boat excursion for 1 week up the Dalmatian Coast with 10 other couples and their ship agent has refunded the price of some meals and excursions because they can't do it for the price they quoted in 2022.  

The Croatian government introduced legislation to minimise that happening at at retail level (including mandatory dual-pricing), but I find it very hard to accept that a cruise line making tens of thousands of booking over the season would tolerate price-gouging at this level from their Shorex supplier(s).

 

Eurozone inflation peaked at around 10%, while Croatia was a couple of points higher.  That's very different from many of the increases we've seen.

[babykay]

On 5/19/2023 at 11:04 AM, tango9 said:

Hi!  I am on the Scotland Intensive July 10 on Pursuit and the shore excursions you referenced as increasing in price happened exactly the same on this sailing!  I had booked five prior to the website mess and the prices are now all dramatically increased . I have been researching private excursions but have found them to be booked up already. Maybe I will be walking around town or taking a taxi for some ports.   Some of the excursions say that the cost is a million dollars!   I can't understand what is taking months for Azamara to get their website and our accounts straightened out either.  I know that when I get on the ship, I will still enjoy my time . 

We are on the same sailing.  I was able to book Stirling Castle before things got dark.  I haven't even been able to see my reservation, let alone book excursions.  There was nothing I could do on my end to mitigate things.  Is it too much for me to expect that they would compensate about all that we have gone through - and the increase in shore excursions?  

[babykay]

8 minutes ago, babykay said:

We are on the same sailing.  I was able to book Stirling Castle before things got dark.  I haven't even been able to see my reservation, let alone book excursions.  There was nothing I could do on my end to mitigate things.  Is it too much for me to expect that they would compensate about all that we have gone through - and the increase in shore excursions?  

Furthermore, my SIL is on the same sailing and was able to book a shore excursion that was priced at $89.  The website confirmed the booking but it would not let her pay for it.  Now she looked and it is $169.  They didn't honor the price she booked it at.