Azamara shuttle to Miami Airport

[blag]

How does the Azamara shuttle process work at Miami port, please?

I have booked Azamara's shuttle for 09:00 on the day of our debarkation, but it is the first time that we have wanted to use Azamara's shuttle service.

Insight, tips, feedback and advice would be appreciated!

[uktog]

You will be allocated a time to disembark by Azamara - for an 0900 shuttle that is usually around 0815.  You will have a luggage tag that aligns to that departure/bus.  They do not ask shuttle guests to meet in a given area onboard, rather they expect you to disembark on time and make your own way to the bus, collecting your luggage, clearing any customs and taking your case to the bus.  Porters may or may not be available to assist you.

Insight - once off the ship you will find very few if any shipboard staff there to help, there will be a shorex person looking out for the tour people but they will not get involved with the shuttle which is run ex Guest Relations (know this from experience)

Tip - do not expect the shuttle to depart at 0900.  The ground based staff focus on ensuring the correct number are on the bus.  So if someone is tardy leaving the ship (or worst case decide to make their own way to the airport but do not tell anyone you will sit and wait and wait...)

Personally its quite a lottery and self organised taxi is usually better.  Of course if you have air with Azamara and are on an included transfer that is very different.

[blag]

9 minutes ago, uktog said:

You will be allocated a time to disembark by Azamara - for an 0900 shuttle that is usually around 0815.  You will have a luggage tag that aligns to that departure/bus.  They do not ask shuttle guests to meet in a given area onboard, rather they expect you to disembark on time and make your own way to the bus, collecting your luggage, clearing any customs and taking your case to the bus.  Porters may or may not be available to assist you.

Insight - once off the ship you will find very few if any shipboard staff there to help, there will be a shorex person looking out for the tour people but they will not get involved with the shuttle which is run ex Guest Relations (know this from experience)

Tip - do not expect the shuttle to depart at 0900.  The ground based staff focus on ensuring the correct number are on the bus.  So if someone is tardy leaving the ship (or worst case decide to make their own way to the airport but do not tell anyone you will sit and wait and wait...)

Personally its quite a lottery and self organised taxi is usually better.  Of course if you have air with Azamara and are on an included transfer that is very different.

Thanks. May I ask, is this based on experience at Miami? 

I don't have included air, but in 'Manage my booking' for our cruise (see screenshot) the shuttle is available at no cost! My booking is clearly identified as Air Independent.

But I am not confident about this... For our next cruise with Azamara, out of Civitavecchia, a free shuttle was listed from Airport to ship. I booked it. It was included at no cost in our final invoice and in our Statement after Final Payment.

Azamara tried to renege, wanting £88 each for the transfer. Their reason: we were not using Azamara Air, despite our booking being identified as Air Independent. As it happens, advice gleaned from our Roll Call for this cruise made us find an alternative solution.

So, if you suggest self-organised taxi, do you have any recommendations, please? 

Edited Thursday at 09:28 AM by blag
Forgot screenshot

[uktog]

I answered because you asked for experience out of Miami.  Sorry I did not realise I had to clarify that.

Certainly in Miami last time the only free transfers where those UK guests who had used Azamara for their air.  We used Uber.  We went to the airport hotel as we had a day room.  Had we used the Azamara shuttle on that occasion we would have then used the hotels hoppa bus over to our day room.

Our previous Miami experience was when we said no more shuttle to the airport due to cost, waiting around for others and no support from onboard staff when an issue arose (we had paid but were not on the bus list, I had to eventually somehow call up our ship account on my phone to be let onboard, no tickets are issued for the buses)

[roberts2005]

1 hour ago, blag said:

Thanks. May I ask, is this based on experience at Miami? 

I don't have included air, but in 'Manage my booking' for our cruise (see screenshot) the shuttle is available at no cost! My booking is clearly identified as Air Independent.

But I am not confident about this... For our next cruise with Azamara, out of Civitavecchia, a free shuttle was listed from Airport to ship. I booked it. It was included at no cost in our final invoice and in our Statement after Final Payment.

Azamara tried to renege, wanting £88 each for the transfer. Their reason: we were not using Azamara Air, despite our booking being identified as Air Independent. As it happens, advice gleaned from our Roll Call for this cruise made us find an alternative solution.

So, if you suggest self-organised taxi, do you have any recommendations, please? 

Once you tell Azamara your flight a price will be added to the transfer.   Better to wait and book on board.  

[blag]

Just now, roberts2005 said:

Once you tell Azamara your flight a price will be added to the transfer.   Better to wait and book on board.  

I don't have a flight... 

I am puzzled as to why there is a fee for the shuttle to the ship, but no fee from the ship.

[roberts2005]

For some reason, Azamara does not quote a fee until they have your flight information.

[blag]

2 minutes ago, roberts2005 said:

For some reason, Azamara does not quote a fee until they have your flight information.

But, see my screenshot in post #3, above.

Furthermore, in our next cruise (not this one), there was a fee from the ship, and no fee to the ship. I cannot make sense if this.

AFAIK Azamara has no flight information whatsoever for either cruise. 

[uktog]

5 minutes ago, roberts2005 said:

For some reason, Azamara does not quote a fee until they have your flight information.

I think this is because they want to have a check your flight is after the earliest flight allowed time and they do not want to commit to a transfer if there is a risk you will not make the flight.  Typically, this is around allowing three hour check-in time at the airport, which is far more than needed.
The same applies if you book on board or book the excursion which dropped you off at the airport and they can be very strict not agreeing a transfer if you missed that cut off by five minutes.  we also discovered as you have to put your flight number in that claiming your flight left five minutes later to allow you to meet there three hour check-in room gets you caught out because it gets rejected  you must have to claim to be on a different flight to get the excursion that drops off at 1500 for the 1755 flight back to the UK

 

[uktog]

20 minutes ago, blag said:

But, see my screenshot in post #3, above.

Furthermore, in our next cruise (not this one), there was a fee from the ship, and no fee to the ship. I cannot make sense if this.

AFAIK Azamara has no flight information whatsoever for either cruise. 

They will contact you onboard for this. Their system has to have all the flight details I suspect to “cover their backs”. That was certainly the case each time we pre booked the drop off excursion before boarding 

Edited Thursday at 11:23 AM by uktog

[blag]

1 minute ago, uktog said:

They will contact you onboard for this. Their system has to have all the flight details I suspect to “cover their backs”

In the light of what you have told me, it

looks like I'll follow your advice and will be arranging my own transfer from the ship.

[uktog]

11 minutes ago, blag said:

In the light of what you have told me, it

looks like I'll follow your advice and will be arranging my own transfer from the ship.

Good luck! 

[Whitby100]

I have found this thread very interesting as we are also debarking in Miami this November.  We have flights booked in and out of Fort Lauderdale as the times were better.  However, I awoke this morning to discover our flight time on debarkation day has been moved 3 hours earlier.  We will now depart Fort Lauderdale at 1:25 pm.  We will arrange private transfers but are wondering if this is too tight. To those of you who are experienced with exiting the ship in Miami, how early can we reliably get off?  To those experienced on the Miami to FLL drive, how much time should we leave ourselves?

 

There are flight times we prefer with our airline, but anticipate a fight to change to them.

 

Any insight would be appreciated.

[blag]

1 minute ago, Whitby100 said:

I have found this thread very interesting as we are also debarking in Miami this November.  We have flights booked in and out of Fort Lauderdale as the times were better.  However, I awoke this morning to discover our flight time on debarkation day has been moved 3 hours earlier.  We will now depart Fort Lauderdale at 1:25 pm.  We will arrange private transfers but are wondering if this is too tight. To those of you who are experienced with exiting the ship in Miami, how early can we reliably get off?  To those experienced on the Miami to FLL drive, how much time should we leave ourselves?

 

There are flight times we prefer with our airline, but anticipate a fight to change to them.

 

Any insight would be appreciated.

You haven't specified on which ship or when you are arriving. 

Ours is scheduled to arrive at 06:00.

My guess is that you could be off by 07:45, but I am unfamiliar with the formalities of arrival into Miami. If the ship hasn't been to another US port prior to your arrival, there surely will be delays, arising from customs and immigration processing.

[roberts2005]

In a major city, I would definitely use a local taxi.  We recently disembarked in Southampton .  The transfer was $105 pp   It took about one hour, 45 minutes to Heathrow.  Thought it was well worth it.

[uktog]

Unfortunately Miami is a port where immigration authorities can be a challenge. Worst case ever I saw there was disembarking not starting until 9. Even if you didn’t clear the port until 0930 or even 10 a 1325 flight should be fine 

[Whitby100]

Thanks for the input so far.  We are on Journey arriving on Nov 20.  It is a Miami to Miami Caribbean cruise, if that helps. 

[blag]

13 minutes ago, Whitby100 said:

Thanks for the input so far.  We are on Journey arriving on Nov 20.  It is a Miami to Miami Caribbean cruise, if that helps. 

It is a long time since I did a Caribbean cruise, and I cannot recall the process at debarkation. 

The only thing that I do recall on the return was getting back into Fort Lauderdale, and emerging into the sunlight out of the terminal to be confronted by scores of shuttle buses. 

I don't know whether other coaches were scheduled, but we only just made it on to one heading to Miami airport. 

Edited Thursday at 01:37 PM by blag

[Whitby100]

We will be arranging a transfer privately and will get their recommendation too.  Is there another forum regarding Miami Azamara port?  Perhaps I need to start a new query as I did hijack this thread.  Thanks again

[blag]

24 minutes ago, Whitby100 said:

We will be arranging a transfer privately and will get their recommendation too.  Is there another forum regarding Miami Azamara port?  Perhaps I need to start a new query as I did hijack this thread.  Thanks again

By all means, stay here.

Answers to your questions may well be enlightening!

I think there is a Forum 'East Coast Departures' but it has many posts, and seems to be more about hotels.

[takemewithyou]

1 hour ago, Whitby100 said:

We will be arranging a transfer privately and will get their recommendation too.  Is there another forum regarding Miami Azamara port?  Perhaps I need to start a new query as I did hijack this thread.  Thanks again

On this site go to East Coast departures board and then click on Florida, ……sorry @blag beat me to it.

Edited Thursday at 03:06 PM by takemewithyou

[Leo_On_Geo]

Another issue with the Azamara shuttle "excursion" to Miami airport is that the bus drops off the  passengers at only one location, at the far end of the terminals.  If you are flying on American Airlines there was a little walk, but flying on another airline might require hauling luggage through several terminals. It was a very long walk with my luggage to the last terminal.  I have learned to get a taxi.

 

 

[alfredo1]

Ref uktog reply

We have a 9pm flight and look to use Uber to a dayroom. Are there hotels directly connected to the airport or do all require transport back there.

Thanks

[uktog]

9 minutes ago, alfredo1 said:

Ref uktog reply

We have a 9pm flight and look to use Uber to a dayroom. Are there hotels directly connected to the airport or do all require transport back there.

Thanks

The Miami International Airport Hotel is situated in the airport so no transport but a long walk.  We do not go there but used the shuttles over to the Hilton and back as we want a pool for the day.

[Dynacruiser]

@blag et al,

We usually just take a rideshare (e.g, Uber)  from the Miami cruise port to Miami's airport.  It's not very expensive.  

 

We have even done it from Ft Lauderdale to the Miami cruise port, but it's a bit more.    We have also used shuttles and private transport we organized through the travel agent, but of course they are more expensive than Uber.

 

Taxis are widely available, but also more expensive than uber, and if they are metered and encounter traffic, your bill could be much higher.

 

We had a bad experience with Azamara's shuttle to the airport many years ago.  A few people woke up late and the shuttle bus decided that they had to wait for them.  So I usually prefer to book my own transport.