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We were on in February and completely agree about it being a very different experience. The Hotel Director, Tatiana, should be demoted or fired in my opinion. She should never have been put in that position as she obviously does not have the experience to handle the job. And, it just flows down from there. Because she was invisible, the rest of the officers felt that it was okay to be invisible as well. Ryszard came on for our second cruise of our b2b and things changed dramatically. He told me that the first thing that he told all of the officers was that they had to be out of their cabins by 7am and mingling with passengers. You could tell that a few of them were not happy about it but complied.

Hi Laurie - sorry to hear that you are having an issue. Was your B2B on one reservation number or two?

Just want to point out that you are in Japan in the spring and many people have springtime allergies. I'm sure that there are quite a few people going who should be wearing a mask or should be staying on the ship because they are sick with a cold, etc. However, there are many people, my DH for example, who suffer from springtime allergies. We were on in March when things were just starting to bud and flower. He had to take his meds as his allergies started when we hit our first Japanese port.

Yes, that's Rumbi! So nice and what a beautiful voice.

Thanks for your reviews. Was the wonderful lady singer named Rumbi? She is fabulous!

Hi - could you tell us what you are seeing for the Journey? Thanks.

Yes, it's very apparent that the "new" ones are not getting the training they so desperately need.

Sounds as though it is. We had the tale of two cruises - one without him and one with him. What a difference! The first HD definitely needs more training. Ryszard is the best!

The hotel director who was on for our first cruise, and I believe on Pirate Wife's cruise, was the worst one we have ever had. Consequently, we found that other senior officers were very lax in their duties as well. This attitude flowed from the top down. We had never seen anything like it on an Azamara cruise. When Ryszard came onboard things changed instantly. He was sent to Journey for only 1 1/2 months and then is going back to Quest, so you can draw your own conclusions.

We were on the same cruise as Phil as well as the previous one. Ryszard was the new hotel manager on this one, Stephen was the CD on both. The second cruise was much better than the first with Ryszard on board.

I think that which officers you have also determines whether the onboard experience is more Azamara or not. We are recently off b2b where we had two different Hotel Directors. These were our 19th and 20th cruises with AZ. The first cruise was nothing like we have ever experienced - zero to little officer visibility, passengers being allowed to physically assault crew members with no officer stepping in, lack of onboard festivities, and other weird occurrences. I requested a meeting with the hotel director to discuss and I never received a response. For the second cruise a more experienced hotel director came onboard. What a difference! Suddenly the officers were everywhere (including greeting us as we disembarked each day), there were multiple onboard experiences (including pop up events that seemingly were pulled together at the last minute but were wonderful), and the crew was much happier. One crew member telling me that they now felt like someone had their back. The vibe between the two cruises was completely different. My feeling is that having lost some officers post-covid, Miami put people in positions when they aren't ready. I think that this is one of the reasons that there seem to be inconsistencies between ships and sometimes between cruises on the same ship!

We were just on a b2b from Perth to Tokyo on the Journey. We had two fabulous lecturers on both cruises - destination and enrichment. All lectures very well attended.

We paid this morning for our two cruises at the beginning of 2025. We received 10% on the total cruise fare less the taxes. Worked great and already in our account to spend!

I'm not sure that the old leadership had the brains that they were born with as evidenced by the website fiasco. The new leadership team has a great deal of experience and I'm guessing that they are leveraging that experience to come up with ways to increase the bottom line. And, if I can benefit from that, all the better. Seems like a win-win all of the way around. We took advantage of the 5% for our October cruise (wish that I had waited) and I'll be calling my TA to take advantage of the 10% offer for my January/February cruises.

I am so glad that you are enjoying everything. We got off in Tokyo after 28 days on the ship and we really wish that we had stayed on! Rhysard (hotel director) was telling us about all of the fun surprises for you. You are extremely lucky that he came onboard and arranged all of these wonderful events!