Riocca

Definitely work in progress, although I’m not seeing the page you posted as it looks to be further along the booking process. I am seeing the following which yesterday showed tax & fees as extra.

Lots of hard work must be going on over the weekend, the Perry Golf logos have disappeared and tax & port fees are now included in the U.K. pricing. Looking forward to finding out how the account section is going to work.

I think that the disclaimer on the pop up is telling. “Please note: While we do our best to publish accurate information, some discrepancies may appear as we finalize our new website” The email advising of the change of website did say that Azamara.co.uk would be unavailable until the 20th so as uktog says I think it’s a temporary patch. But you’re right until the 20th we won’t actually know.

Pretty sure you’re right but no way of checking now, but I think the exception was always that you could get the included wine if you had a room service meal served at the same time.

Was answered on the Azamara Onward condition thread the other day.

Most likely, if you look at the web address it’s Azamara.com not co.uk very much work in progress and there for information only so I wouldn’t take too much notice of what’s showing. For example I’ve looked at a number of cruises and they’re all marked Perry Golf, I’m sure that can’t be the case unless Perry Golf are going to have a permanent presence on all the ships.

From the following article it looks like Starlink’s maritime coverage was only completed at the end of February. https://smartmaritimenetwork.com/2023/02/20/starlink-announces-global-coverage-for-maritime-service/

Was started by Spain after the last financial meltdown to try and grab money from the booming cruise industry, others including the U.K. followed. I believe the ability to do so had been in EU law for a while but not implemented before. P&O U.K. moved their Mediterranean summer home port from Italy to Malta to try and overcome it only for Malta to decide to implement it as well.

I would presume not if purchased pre cruise but can’t be sure, if purchased onboard it would pay to ask one of the more senior administration staff.

Spanish, Italian etc VAT will be added throughout the cruise unless the itinerary includes a non EU port, this is one of the reasons Gibraltar and Montenegro feature on so many itineraries.

It depends how far in advance you book, our October 2023 cruise was originally booked in August 2021 and includes this promotion but our March 2023 cruise booked in June 2022 doesn’t. The only indication that you have this promotion is the code EXMO ESS in the promotions applied box on your confirmation.

Well it’s the 16th March and on (revised) schedule the website migration has started, the website is still available for information with a clear notice that account access and bookings are unavailable. It’s very clearly not the RC website but from what is available they have included the DNA of what we are used to, obviously there are lots of broken links and dead ends as you would expect but if this actually is the real thing it looks promising.

Over the years all these loyalty schemes have become over complicated and lost focus possibly more of a disincentive than incentive. Azamara’s scheme always seems to have suffered because it had to match the structure of Celebrity’s. The free nights element probably causes more dissatisfaction than it’s worth and the points gap between Discover Plus and Platinum is so large many people won’t even bother. We’ve sailed with lines that have no loyalty “clubs” and there’s nothing that would stop us booking with them again, other than the onboard experience. Some recognition of past passengers is appreciated but not if it’s too complicated and decisive.

Possibly because Onward has significantly more suites?

No discount for buying pre cruise in fact you lose the loyalty discount you get when buying onboard, usually second job for us once onboard after booking the speciality restaurants.

Possibly because the Azamara account is a mirror of Celebrity’s there have been reports that Celebrity points are showing but not Azamara’s. Think we will need to see how it pans out once Azamara’s website is up and running.

You are probably looking at the most confusing time as Azamara untangles its IT system from Royal Caribbean, the cut off date for points earned on Celebrity and Azamara counting on both was the 1st February 2023. But as you have completed an Azamara cruise we’ll before that date your current points will be saved with Azamara giving you Discover status, equivalent to Elite on Celebrity. Azamara’s current live website is still the old Royal Caribbean administered one but that is due to shutdown on the 16th March with Azamara’s own new website going live on the 20th March if things go to plan. Probably best to take a print of your cruise history from either the Azamara or Celebrity website as a precaution and then waiting for the new system to go live and seeing where you stand. Your loyalty number with Azamara will stay exactly the same as your Celebrity number as it is now but you will need to create a new login on the new system. If you then need to query anything with Azamara I would leave it a couple of weeks as I’m sure there are going to be a few issues to deal with once the new system is live. Hopefully I haven’t confused you even more, but we’re all having to work out how things are going to go with the new system.

I’m pretty sure the points shown on the Azamara page are just a mirror of the Celebrity page given the way RC seem to write their software, so post the cut off date I would disregard anything you see on the current version.

I understand your angst but having experience of these IT migrations it would be better, post the cut off date, to add points to the new system which you can’t see than the old one that you. Remember the current website is Royal Caribbean’s and they won’t want Azamara points added to their system as they would have to remove them afterwards because of the link to Celebrity. Same as Celebrity points added to the current system can be seen on Azamara no doubt these won’t be showing on Azamara’s new system. Might be best to consider the old system dead as I’m pretty sure the new system is running in the background during the migration, hopefully all will go smoothly but unfortunately there’s bound to be some problems to resolve afterwards.

We enjoy Pinotage it’s sweet or oaky wines we find unpalatable, we tried one of the currently trendy “jammy” reds 🤢 threw the remainder of the bottle away.

Phew! You had me worried for a minute saying Miami as we’ve booked everything around Fort Lauderdale, we only received the notification saying it’s a 10 day cruise although I will admit I didn’t actually notice it, probably because I already knew about the change from the roll call. Over the years we’ve been astounded by the lack of attention to detail in communications from all cruise lines.

Can’t remember which hotel chain but it wasn’t the Copacabana Palace, it was in the days of Richard Twynam and only found out the details afterwards as the hotel claimed no knowledge of anything and the local agent disappeared very quickly.

We had mega problems with the port handling agent disembarking in 2014, we had Azamara flights & transfers including a day room in a hotel on Copacabana Beach. First we were taken miles away and dumped in a hotel with a communal room that RC used for check in, we got Azamara customer service involved and the agent then told us that there were no coaches available to take us to the right hotel. Azamara arranged taxis and when we arrived at the right hotel they had the booking but were surprised to see us, long story but they’d bribed the agent to take us to a sister hotel so they could double book our rooms. Not long after Azamara pulled out from South American cruises because of the corruption and difficulty dealing with local ports, from reports of Pursuit’s season there it doesn’t sound to have improved. We are doing the same trans Atlantic on Quest next year and will be more prepared this time.

Just received the following email relating to our upcoming 25th March cruise, I assume that we can expect a few weeks disruption while they migrate information to the new system. March 8, 2023 Dear Azamara Guest, Azamara will undergo an IT systems migration starting on March 16, 2023, and we do not expect the migration to be completed before your cruise begins. Therefore, the last day you will be able to pre-book or cancel Shore Excursions before your upcoming cruise will be March 15th. Any Shore Excursions booked pre-cruise before the IT migration will remain booked. In addition, you will still be able to book and cancel Shore Excursions while onboard your cruise. Thank you for your patience as we implement our systems upgrade. We look forward to welcoming you onboard. Sincerely, AZAMARA®

One of the better articles I have seen, lots of information with any embellishment, only misinformation was that Onward was Pacific Princess not Ocean Princess. Also didn’t continually use the word luxury as others have done, description was instead boutique which is much more accurate.