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Host Jazzbeau

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About Me

  • Member Title
    Cruise Critic Host & 20,000+ Club
  • Location
    New York
  • Interests
    Jazz, food, wine
  • Favorite Cruise Line(s)
    the next one
  • Favorite Cruise Destination Or Port of Call
    Farther
  • If you have a personal or hobby CRUISE or TRAVEL BLOG, include the url here:
    JazzbeauxBlogs.wordpress.com

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Host Jazzbeau's Achievements

  1. Don't eat the chocolate chip cookies in The Club ATL lounge!!!
  2. Second the opinion that France will have good dental care. And possibly less expensive than you expect. I cracked a tooth in the lounge at ATL just before flying to Buenos Aires for a long Patagonia trip. Went to a dental clinic in BA and had it polished down (didn't need further work until I got home) plus a full-mouth x-ray – for a total of $41.65 USD
  3. You're not going to leave us hanging with the brass monkey are you? Please finish the story!
  4. You may have more evidence of cost cutting than you have shared here, but bland food sounds more like the main dining room chef's taste than cost cutting. We found on one back-to-back cruise that the cuisine changed dramatically, just because of a change in the head chef.
  5. So far this is the first Azamara cruise that I have heard about with the fuel problem. No explanation so far, so let's hope it was some kind of one-off. The itinerary changes on Oceania have been voluntary (or probably demanded by NCL) and were strictly to save money.
  6. @pontac glad you found something that ticked all the boxes. I can understand the issues about flying TAP, although I made it even worse by booking an Azores Airlines flight through TAP – neither one has great customer service and both sent me to the other on every question!
  7. They didn't cancel any on our NZ-Oz cruise last month, and in fact added additional departures when excursions filled up. But every month seems to bring more bad news...
  8. 4AM wake-up call? We took the TAP 5:05 PM flight to PDL – much more civilized! Enjoy the Azores!!!
  9. Done. Thanks for taking this on again!
  10. Don't upgrade until you get on board. First, it's a daily charge so waiting saves you some money. Second, the Ultimate package is really about high-end liquor, not wine. Talk to the head sommelier about wine before you make a decision. Find out what wines are actually available on the Ultimate package (the printed list is often out of date), then consider buying a bottle package – that opens up the entire wine cellar to you (any bottle up to a certain limit is included in the packages, but you can always take a more expensive one and pay the difference). That's what I do. And – buying wine on shore is another useful idea (no limit, free to drink in your cabin, and the corkage fee for the dining room is still very low).
  11. Azamara is a specialist in Croatia cruises, doing several intensive itineraries every summer. They don't have any in June 2025, but they do in May (3-10), July (12-22), plus Aug, Sept and Oct. https://www.azamara.com/cruises/pr250712-010-10-night-croatia-intensive-voyage
  12. I don't think you really have anything to worry about with Azamara, especially based on your particular plans. If you book a Club Continent suite, you don't pay for specialty restaurants so the price increase doesn't affect you. The beverage package upgrade sounds like a big % increase, but it is really a fairly small $ increase to cover the increased cost of wine and spirits – and you may not need to upgrade anyway depending on how much/what you drink. The balcony furniture people are complaining about is on Onward. AzAmazing Evenings are probably impossible to arrange post-Covid because the land vendors aren't available anymore, but they are still hiring local performers to bring the local culture onboard [and paying them to do two shows, not just one]. There were some people who automatically expected Sycamore to bleed the brand just because they are a hedge fund, but all the evidence I see is that they are pursuing the opposite hedge fund MO: build up the brand [they bought Onward and poured money into renovating it right off the bat] to make a profit by selling it for a high price. Finally, Azamara's recent marketing now lists not just how many overnights a cruise will spend in port but also how many total hours in port – this may be a dig at Oceania, but it is also a promise that Azamara is not cutting back.
  13. New article on SeaTrade Cruise News: Scenic rebrands Evergreen Tours to closely align with Emerald Cruises
  14. New article on SeaTrade Cruise News: Scenic rebrands Evergreen Tours to closely align with Emerald Cruises
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