takemewithyou

I am originally from New England (Maine] . Have done cruises there, too. Do you have an itinerary you are looking at? Does Viking even stop in Maine? Usual stops are Portland and Bar Harbor. In my opinion, you miss a lot if you don’t have at least Bar Harbor or Portland Maine on your itinerary.

How long will this go on for? I think you raise some good questions! We have no idea! As an Azamara cruiser since 2009, I have to say I am extremely disappointed with the lack of communication we are receiving from the President and the rest of the Azamara team regarding this question.

@tgg on my last sailing on Pursuit in June I happened to meet the beverage manager by chance before our meeting and she volunteered to have drinks ready for our meet and greet and the designated meeting spot in the Insider was the opposite side of the LR -that worked out much better! We were treated very well because of this chance meeting of the bev manager……trays of drinks circulated throughout the gathering! p.s. you are so kind!

I have done the same….organized roll calls and then brought name tags. It really helps people to find who they have been conversing with on the roll calls. Sometimes I have printed out all the names myself and other times, I just brought a pack of blank name tags for people to fill out themselves.

Maybe they did! He was working on it at that time and going from ship to ship to get the procedure manuals updated.

This past Christmas of 2022, when we were onboard Onward, Tony Markey had some question and answer sessions onboard with guests that I attended and that is one of things he said he had been tasked with and was working on at that time.

Over on the Oceania board, there was a long thread similar to this one about alternatives to Oceania! Looking for greener pastures. One of the lines mentioned was Seabourn. Has anyone tried them and have any comments?

I got it, too! Thought it was just another email trying to drum up business, but you are right….it is telling me to book my carnival tickets for a cruise I am not on! what next?!

Ask for a cafe americano?

And the brewed US stuff is what I like! Where can I get the closest thing to that? Edited to add….last O cruise was 8 yrs ago and the coffee in GDR was so dark and strong!

We tried Viking Ocean…..wasn’t for us. We are trying an Oceania cruise ….again, after trying once before 8 yrs ago. We shall see how it goes. Have one more Azamara booking late 2024. Our June Pursuit cruise was pretty good…..pretty close to Azamara pre Covid.

Unfortunately Bill Leiber passed away and he is sorely missed. https://www.travelweekly.com/Cruise-Travel/Obituary-Azamara-blogger-Bill-Leiber

I wish we could get back to the Azamara we all know and loved. In the meantime, improved communication is what is really needed right now since their website situation is still in disarray. It’s obvious to most of us. What would really help would be to reinstitute an Azamara Cruise Critic blogger type position that we had with Bill Leiber and then later from Bonnie MacLaird. I fear that Azamara is losing loyal customers due to its customer service issues all stemming from the website woes and poor communication.

I think you may be right on that. I seem to remember that discussion when Pursuit first was introduced into the fleet on Azamara. Thanks

He never spoke to us…not once on our cruise. I think it is the first Azamara cruise I have ever been on where the HM did not interact with us and stop by and ask how our cruise was going. He not seem to want to interact…..at least that was my impression.

Do you mean they read your comments here on CruiseCritic and wanted to explain to you or they read comments that you submitted from onboard the ship? I am sorry, but I think there should be consistency across all ships and I see that as something that has changed in the last few years since Covid and the restart of sailing. Azamara knows they have a high percentage of repeat cruisers each sailing! Or should know that. maybe they won’t have so many repeaters in the future and that’s changing, but I digress! I agree that there should be a note in the stateroom to explain why there is not a stocked mini bar on Journey. Interesting…..Journey is my next booking. Who is the Hotel Manager currently?

Yes, it sounds like there may be differences from ship to ship. Perhaps different hotel directors are giving different standards to the stateroom attendants to follow. It would seem to be better to have consistency across all the ships.

On Pursuit in June in a regular veranda, we had ice bucket (didn’t need to request) and it was replenished every day, at least. We had plenty of water supplied which we used. There were soft drinks in the fridge.

found this interview where she discusses the difficulties they have had with website data migration….. https://www.travelmarketreport.com/Cruise/articles/Azamara-President-Carol-Cabezas-on-Q1-2023-the-Azamara-Difference

I was just thinking the same thing are few days ago…..where are the promised updates? It has been quite awhile since we last received any communication other than sales e-mails.

There were some clothes that didn’t interest me. They were some high end polo / golf shirts for men that were about $130!! There were those fancy beaded Mary Francis purses ( I think that’s the name), some Louis Vuitton resale purses, some Azamara branded items, like sunglasses, key chains, etc. I found a new Coach purse that was marked down to use OBC for….it actually turned out to to be quite a good deal as I compared prices at home. There were also the usual assorted perfumes and cosmetic items.

This is the article I read about the new travel requirements. For the record, the article refers to this as a visa, although not a typical visa. Here is the article: https://thepointsguy.com/guide/europe-visa/

Didn’t we all know that this Website IT fiasco (and horrible customer service issues) were going to hurt? I know I did. Why do we think they are having all these new “sales”? Of course, it was hurting! I don’t know how long it will last……. On my recent sailing in June, there was no future cruise presentation at all and there was no appointment book out during regular business hours when I checked, several days into my sailing, to even sign up for an appointment! Didn’t even seem like they wanted to sell future cruises so I obliged and didn’t book any! And I didn’t see any other customers there until the very last day and then only a few.

Yes. Visa required for travel for US and since you are from Canada, I think, you too? Not for certain yet, but looks quite likely. No more spontaneous trips to Europe.

We did Ireland Intensive 6/13 on Pursuit. It was a Perry Golf cruise. All suites sold out and verandas. Turned out we had 588 on board.