Reevo79

On 2/23/2024 at 12:40 PM, Riocca said:

Returning to the original post the important question is had you completed an Azamara cruise prior to 1st February 2023 as that was the cut off date for points from Celebrity cruises to count towards Azamara loyalty level. If you haven’t completed an Azamara cruise before that date then you start at zero points with Azamara.

There were anomalies with March 2023 cruises in that as the transfer of data from RC to Azamara didn’t go at all well Azamara were still relying on information from the RC/Celebrity system. As they had no knowledge of whether customers had travelled with Azamara previously or not the loyalty level from the old system was honoured if correct or not. It took a long while for the data to be sorted out but the correct loyalty level is now showing for the majority of Azamara customers.

 

To check you need to access your account on the Seaware system not the potted version that appears when logged into your Azamara account. Fairly easy to do this, go onto the Azamara website but do not sign in then select a cruise and press Book Now, once the booking opens then sign in and you will see a line called Club Program appear if you click on the icon you will see your loyalty account. If you have multiple loyalty accounts then you need to contact Azamara to get the incorrect one(s) removed.

 

Apparently Azamara had to manually correct all the data supplied by RC but as always some were missed.

 

 

Thank you so much for this info. I followed the instructions you gave and the Seaware system showed my correct level. I was able to screenshot this and now have something to send to Azamara, so hopefully I can get everything resolved quickly now. 

Thank you again! 

Thanks everyone, there's some helpful advice here. I've emailed the loyalty department directly and I'm waiting for a reply (which I'm aware may take a while). 

I do also have proof of Elite status with Celebrity so I may be able to use that if need be.

Hopefully I can get it sorted before I sail in June - I need my 15% discount on the ultimate drinks package! 🤪

I did think of that but unfortunately not. I've just turned my cupboards out looking for them and it looks like I've thrown them out. 

Does anyone know if there has been some sort of shake-up with the Circle tier levels in the last year?

I last sailed with Azamara on the Onward last March and my tier level was at Discoverer, which is where I expected it to be. I have today booked a cruise departing in June and my tier level is suddenly showing as Adventurer, meaning that I have dropped two loyalty tiers for no apparent reason. I have called customer services and they have said that they cannot do anything unless I can provide them with paperwork evidencing that I was at Discoverer last year. I don't have anything like this as I deleted it all once I was back from the last vacation. 

I tried calling the dedicated Circle phone line but it will not connect as it is a US toll free phone number and I am trying to call from the UK. 

Can anyone shed any light as to what might have happened or what I can do to get my tier status corrected?

Many thanks

ok thank you

We have the select drinks package for our trip on the Explorer of the seas in September, can anyone tell me if I want a cocktail will I have to pay full price or is there some sort of credit from the package?

I'm probably going to get flamed for this, but I can certainly sympathise with the point being made here. Much like the OP me and my DW are from the UK and have sailed with RCCL many times in the past, however, the Princess cruise in May being referred to here was on offer at a very good price and we decided to book it as we would like to try a different cruise line for a change, going in with the state of mind that "it's really cheap so we won't have lost a huge amount if we dont like it"

Admittedly, we probably should have done a little homework on the ports of call being visited, but given that the trip was more about experiencing what Princess ships are like rather than exploring the ports of call we didnt give it a huge amount of consideration.

We are pretty adventurous when it comes to ports, and I will reguarly plan for us to go out there on our own rather than using what I feel to be the overpriced excursions offered by the cruise lines themselves. We are both very happy to jump on a local bus/train/taxi and go off on our own, taking the risk that if something goes wrong we could potentially end up missing the ship.

However at the port in question here, Le Verdon, it would seem that there are literally no other options of getting from the port to Bordeaux and back again to catch the departure of the ship. The train station is in the village of Le Verdon, ditto the bus stops, and from my own research there would appear to be no local taxi companies who will take passengers from the port the 2-3 miles into the village centre. This is itself doesn't bother us as we have decided to take the ferry from the port over to the town of Royan across the river to do some shopping and spend some time on the beach. Even, this however requires us to walk a good mile and a half from the cruise ship to the ferry terminal. We are both young and have no health issues so not really a problem, but anyone who may be a little older, or has mobility issues would be struggling given the lack of local taxis.

However, if you had your heart set on visiting the city of Bordeaux, then its really a case of HAVING to use the official excursions at whatever price the cruise line chooses to charge. This is not the first time we have experienced this, and we have even had a situation with RCCL last year whereby you couldn't even get off the ship unless you paid for an official shuttle bus ticket onboard as the port police were stopping people leaving the dockside on foot.

Getting back to the main issue being raised by the OP, we only paid just over £400 for the cruise (approx $640 for those of you in the USA), so to be asked to pay $79 each for what is essentially a bus journey does come across as a bit strong in comparison to the overall cost of the trip, which is probably why the OP is upset about it.

I agree that $79 is about the going rate for an official cruise line "on your own" excursion and I have seen higher prices charged on our previous RCCL cruises for shorter journeys, but when the cost of the excursion is so high in relation to the initial cost of the trip you can understand why people would be upset.

At the end of the day, the cruise lines are in business to make money, and if they are charging such a small amount for the actual cruise then they need to make it some other way, such as drinks sales, casino, and through excursions. Of course no one forces the passengers to buy anything, and I personally like to save some money and do trips off my own back.

As a side note, we are both really looking forward to experiencing what Princess has to offer, especially given a lot of the positive stuff we've seen on here from you guys. :)