babykay

Yes - the one we were looking at is considerably higher in price.

This year I when I was on The Pursuit i ran into a woman in the Laundry ( the ship's version of a water cooler) was telling me she had a Norway cruise in several weeks and they had cancelled 2 ports of call - and they only found out about it reading the website. No one told them. I just read about a change of port for an upcoming South Africa cruise (THIS may well have been political unrest) and yesterday I was reading about the New Years voyage in Australia where one port had been eliminated.

There are really good reasons for port changes - weather and political unrest. That isn't what I meant. It is port changes 2 months out for no apparent reason.

I said a few so I owe you two more. The turnover in staff is a good indicator of the health of a company. And the lack of an interest in "making things right" - either by way of OBC or an extra bottle of wine. On my last voyage, there were so many things that went wrong but no one even was willing to apologize. AND the home office - nothing like I have even seen before.

I hesitate, but I will name a few. Last minute "operational changes" to itineraries often are forced because there are outstanding port fees due. I have heard about so many of these changes as of late. That is the major one.

Having previously worked for several cruise lines, I see all kinds of red flags. So much so that I decided not to book my next voyage onboard but to wait to see how everything shakes out.

This is dead on!

Uktog - you were so patient for so long. I know you talked me off the ledge a couple of times. It's bad if they have lost you!

It would seem as though one department has no idea what the other one is doing. When I worked for past cruise lines, there was a daily meeting that updated everything that is going on from all departments. Wouldn't that make sense in this case?

That was the wrong term. My SIL had her excursions booked before everything went dark. When I was finally able to book them, they had increased every excursion by double and sometimes triple. When we got onboard, the spa treatments were so expensive, compared to our last October cruise.

Well, if they are writing a new one, you can be sure they are going to cut corners and nickel and dime where they can.

I have used Global Marine Travel and they have always been excellent.

The shuttle drops you off across from the mall where the bus station and the train station are. Cabs are there too. The lower part of Aberdeen is where you are dropped off so you need to get transportation to the upper old town. Make sure you arrange for a cab to pick you up. Getting a cab there was unbelievably hard. I don't know anything about Footdee.

Really good points. I actually didn't even know there was a guest magician on until 2 nights later. It was lots and lots of ads and things tended to get lost. But I am not super tech savvy - just ask my kids or better yet - ask my grand kids.

Great point - I had no idea. I would have utilized it had I known.

Bravo - I could not have said it better.

I agree - there are some stars on my cruise. Mid cruise form? We didn't get a mid cruise form. And I had trouble with the shore ex staff - but these were future cruise agents - I would envision that they would be very accommodating. We have been home a week now and still haven't received the critique form.

Larry oversaw the entire operation. If there was a problem onboard it was solved by Larry within hours. He was reachable and reactive. The other deficiet onboard from post Larry was abysmal entertainment and very detached entertainment crew. The new kids they had onboard didn't know how to say basic travel words like Cairo, or Reykjavik and they were just phoning in the trivia. The future booking guys were downright rude. I walked past and saw that one of them was in his office without anyone there with him. I popped my head in and asked if I could ask a quick question and without looking up, he pointed to a clipboard and said if you want to speak to me, you will need to sign up there. Needless to say - I never found an occasion that I really wanted to speak with him after that. That would have absolutely never stand with Larry. They crew seemed unhappy except for the service staff who looked exhausted from working very hard to please guests who came on feeling beat up by the home office.

I will have to tell you that we did not prepare for Aberdeen at all so were just winging it. I really would have loved to go to Dunnatar Castle but the ship price had nearly tripled since we originally considered it.

Nope - the are bankrupt and owe 198 million dollars to passengers.

Impeccable customer service. Open lines of communication. A builder of loyalty. The ability to say "We are sorry".

I think Larry is doing quite well and the product he is creating sounds amazing. This absolutely would not be happening under his management. It really is quite astounding that people think this too shall pass. WHEN? First it was May, then June, then July. Still dismal. Personally, I find that the passive aggressive attitude of Azamara is pretty awful. Let me give you just one example from my recent cruise on the Pursuit. I had paid for some shore excursions and got receipts from them. when I got onboard, I didn't receive some of the tickets. So, I visited the shore ex desk and was told that I would need to bring my bank records to prove that I had paid. I told them that I had receipts from Azamara but they told us it wasn't good enough. So, I had to go back to my stateroom and go through bank records. I was able to access them and bring them to the shore ex desk. I was given the tickets without apologies. Later in the voyage I went to cancel a shore ex. She said that I should wait until 48 hours before to see if I felt more up to it. She told me that I would have to let her know by the evening of tour Stornaway day. The Shore Ex office was closed most of the day but I went as soon as they were open. Same lady told me that I had missed the cut off by 2 hours. They were closed for 6 hours. I told her that she told me the evening of the Stornaway day. She said there was nothing she could do. Very nasty lady, and totally incompetent in my opinion. So the bullying goes both ways.

Just be warned - Aberdeen was kind of a dud of a port.

They quietly did that - but haven't lowered the price, like they should.

Persuit to Scotland. Everyone else was fantastic. The entertainment was not great, however.