NicNata

I tried once using my free nights but was told the free nights only apply if you book a cruise at the full rate. Since the cruise I wanted to book was discounted/had special offers applied, it worked out cheaper to book without the free nights than with them. Has anyone had any luck using free nights on a discounted cruise (which most are), and what was the process?

4 hours ago, Host Jazzbeau said:

When we were in Cape Town in May 2018 they were running out of water ['day zero' was scheduled during our stay, but got postponed thanks to conservation efforts].  I believe that drought finally ended or mitigated.  But did the government ever take measures to increase the storage capacity to prevent future problems?

 

[BTW we loved Cape Town and felt very safe in the V&A Waterfront area at all hours.]

I lived in Cape Town during the Day Zero period. We were allowed 50 litres of water per day. That is about 13 US gallons per day. If you overstepped this amount there were huge fines. To put that in context that allows you one flush of the toilet, one sink of dishes to be washed, a 10-15 second shower and some drinking water, per day. We stood in a bucket in the shower to collect the water and used that for washing clothes and sometimes a second flush of the toilet. There was no opportunity to water the garden, fill the pool, wash the car or any type of non-essential water use. It was a very tough time and gave me a whole new appreciation for the importance of water. So whilst the dams in Cape Town are now full and water supply is secured for the time being, I would suggest visitors to Cape Town be mindful of their water usage e.g. no baths and short showers.

I have lived in Durban and Cape Town, and been to all the other ports in a typical SA trip. The only port I would walk off the ship would be Cape Town. Durban used to be okay but now its pretty dodgy. Most ports are too industrial so nowhere to walk to anyway.

When you call through to Azamara, the voice message says they are not auto cancelling cruises at the moment. I have three cruises coming up later in the year but am a bit reluctant to pay the full balance whilst all these issues are still ongoing. My account does show the correct balances but like most others not the correct loyalty points. Has anyone had any discussions with Azamara about when auto-cancellation may start again? I don't want any of my trips to be cancelled due to non payment but at the same time as I said I am a bit anxious to commit the full balances at the moment. Any input gratefully received.

I did a December crossing from Southampton to New York on the old QE2. The weather was wild for half the trip, with waves seemingly as high as the ship crashing over the bow. I would say at least 70% of the passengers and crew were sick. The main dining room had perhaps ten tables occupied with no crockery, cutlery or glassware laid out. It was scary and I didn't enjoy it (I know some people specifically do this crossing for the wild weather) but I am fortunate not to get seasick. At least at the end we had the memorable experience of sailing up the Hudson in icy weather with views of the Statue of Liberty, the Twin Towers etc.

Since then I have done several crossings on Azamara on the southerly route and the weather has never been remotely like the north Atlantic.

11 hours ago, laurieb said:

I hope you don't mind me chiming in here-

I've spoken to a friend that works in the Miami office; there has been no change to the refund policy, so just 75.00pp cancelation fee before final payment.

Based on an earlier comment, it appears that this amount only applies to US customers. For UK and Europe it is GBP250 or EUR250. Anyway at least I know for the future

In the past if a cruise dropped in price, Azamara would honour the new price and drop the price of an existing booking. I have a booking in November this year to which the 3 free night plus, 10% saving and $500 OBC has now been applied. When I called Azamara, they told me the only way I could benefit from the new price would be to cancel my existing booking, forfeit my GBP250 deposit and rebook. I decided to do it because the saving was so substantial. This has never happened to me before where I had to forfeit the deposit. I wonder what their stance would have been if I had paid the full amount? This doesn't seem like good business practice as it is essentially penalising me for booking early. Of course it does put them in line with how most airlines work so maybe its a new policy for them. Has anyone else had a similar experience?

13 hours ago, kent4489 said:

So, I have been on hold for with Azamara for 4 hours and 33 minutes.... then the call dropped! (Guess they've turned their phones off for the day.) So, how are you lucky people getting through? My TA was on hold for over 3 hours the other day, but can not fix my loyalty issues which is holding up confirming a correct price on one of our cruises. So, I am trying to get the loyalty resolved. I want it correct before I make final payment soon. The other cruise, we are using our 4 comp nights and that one appears to be correct now. Yea... Progress.

 

RE: booking numbers

I booked one cruise on Mar. 15 and my booking number is 4146118

The other cruise, I booked on Mar. 21 and the booking # is 10000399

These are B2B cruises.

I have called Azamara twice in the last week and both times was on hold less than 1 minute. I call immediately the lines open which is 10am here in the UK. Both times I have had friendly service and achieved what I wanted to. My loyalty points are still wrong but I am not concerned by that. I am holding off booking excursions till onboard as my OBC shows just as a coupon without an amount

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

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

19 hours ago, Riocca said:

Phoned Azamara this morning to complete my booking, phone was answered immediately changed cabin number no problem and completed booking in a few minutes.

Took the opportunity to talk about another booking which has an incorrect balance and that was more challenging. I had FCC’s applied to the booking back in December last year and was issued with version 6 of the booking confirmation. Problem is that Azamara just haven’t received that information from RC and this is the case with a number of bookings, they have the initial booking information and nothing further so are having to rebuild the information. I was asked to send the confirmation I have so they can rebuild the booking.

That has been my experience as well. I phoned the Azamara UK line twice this week (actually I spoke to someone in Wichita Kansas both times). On both occasions I waited less than a minute to speak to someone. When calling, the voice message says that call wait times will revert to normal on 22nd May, which seems to be the case. My first call was to update an existing booking on the recent 3 free day offer. There was a reduction in price of over GBP1000! My second call was to book a new cruise in November on the same 3 free days offer, for which I got at an incredibly cheap price. The ladies I spoke to were friendly and helpful and both cruises appeared immediately on my account. The OBC shows as GBP0 with an OBC coupon. So it does not say how much the OBC is but I am able to use it if I wish. For my October cruise I have been able to book excursions, although I did notice the price increases compared to pre-transition. Anyway it seems the system is improving and certainly I have had no issues.

12 hours ago, betsey said:

I'm able to view and book most of the cruise shore excursions for my upcoming cruise in July. Some of the excursions have no descriptions whatsoever.  They also completely skipped putting in shore excursions for one port.  So amateurish. 

For my cruise in October I can see the excursions but in every port it is the same excursion repeated multiple times. The cost has also gone up dramatically since I looked at these same excursions prior to the transitions. I am unable to use my OBC to book. At this stage we will probably organise our own excursions

6 hours ago, Grandma Cruising said:

My onboard credit shows towards the bottom of the reservation page. It’s a bit misleading as it says $150 Shore Excursions Credit, but below it says Quantity 2 - I take it that means we both have $150, which is $300 in total. That’s what I expected.

I have been unable to find my OBC. Where exactly on the website did you find it? Thanks

On 4/19/2023 at 6:20 PM, JM0115 said:

It is amazing to me, as someone that has run several companies, that there are no proactive communcations from AZ. I would be sending out weekly emails explaining what is going on and what they are doing about it. I would also be sending all those with bookngs some kind of perk such as a small amount of OBC. I am not trying to get them to do that, not trying to get something for nothing, but I think it would be in their best interest to do something. I also understand that many executives do not understand what customers are going through or think they know better.

Yes I absolutely agree with you. I worked in customer service my whole career and the golden rules when things go wrong, and they will, are apologise, acknowledge that there is a problem, tell clients what you are doing to fix the problem and give an approximate timeline for the fix. Sweetening the frustration that your clients have experienced may not even be necessary if the above steps are followed but of course that is the icing on the cake. I have two current cruises booked, only the deposit paid, but am very reluctant to do anything further like pay the balance, book excursions etc. Like many others, my loyalty points are wrong and I have received no reply from Azamara to my request to correct this. I am also holding off on booking two additional cruises we had originally planned until there is some clarity. It seems to me that Azamara must be losing a lot of business at the moment quite apart from the damage they are doing to their brand. It must be very disheartening for the crew working on the ships as they probably have to hear all the stories of issues caused by the front end, even though they themselves had nothing to do with these issues.

I queried exactly the same thing. It means free upgrade which I got when I booked. It has nothing to do with the beverage packages

I did get the online survey but found one issue in the questions which I wasn't sure who to ask. We had a dreadful tour in Miami post cruise. Its a long story but everyone was very unhappy with the tour and several people missed their flight. In the survey we could rate tours but there was no "open" question to explain the very poor rating I gave. There was also no follow up from Azamara to ask why I was so unhappy with the tour. This seems like a missed opportunity for Azamara to evaluate whether they should offer this tour in future or not

Thanks everyone for the input. I did try leaving the whole Emergency Contact part blank but it still does not work. I think beatnix has the solution. I live in Portugal which is not on the Country Selection list. In the end I just called Azamara and booked but its frustrating as one has no option at the moment to browse availability, price or cabin selection online if you cannot get past the personal information page

I have tried a couple of times to book online on the new Azamara website with no success. You get to a page where they ask for your personal details and for an emergency contact. One question under emergency contact is relationship of the contact person to you. At first it appears there is a drop down menu to add relationship but when you click on it there is no list. I have tried manually entering the relationship e.g. brother but it does not accept it. Without completing this page, the website appears to not let you continue with the booking. Has anyone had this same experience? Is there any work around for this or is it just one of the many problems that still exist with the new website?