Willow1686

Hi

When is your cruise due to depart? I received my luggage labels showing the deck from FO about a week before I left, but the cabin allocation was still open then. I got the cabin number from my TA a day or so later.

I got the outward flight details a bit before that, but it was all done by email; if you've booked with a TA then it's the TA who should send it to you. I only used the FO website to book some excursions...

I know where the quote comes from. I contacted them and they told me that even though they have this cruise on their website, it is not available for booking yet. Same thing goes for all the MSC repo cruises starting in November 2014.

Well, if they are not available for booking yet then the pricing may be a figment of the agents imagination; they have a very long list of MSC cruises available, so perhaps they stuck some of the repos up by mistake.

But it really is not a good way to encourage people to give MSC a try; we are doing our best to give them some money yet they seem uninterested. I always get nervous about commercial concerns which don't seem to have grasped the whole exchange of money for services bit.

I suppose 'I organised exciting web seminars' may look better on employees' 'what I did this year' reviews than 'I sold some cruises to people who haven't been with us before', but I'm not convinced...

Would you care to share the headline fare? I havn't received that email.

 

Thanks,

 

Tim.

The inside fare is $1,669, which is quoted as being a 50% discount off the brochure fare.

It goes up to around $2,600 for a suite fare, also said to be a 50% discount on brochure rate.

The odd thing about it is that it doesn't have the 'child goes free' tag on it...

Well, I've had a Fast Deal email for the Orchestra Venice Dubai repo in November 2014; no mention of singles on it...

Thank you for the review; it's moved the Panama transit several places up my bucket list!

It's also made me resolve to follow the advice about various areas not being suitable for strolling :D

Sally

Congratulations! You obviously got a very good deal, and I am trying not to feel envious; you put a lot of work into tracking it down, so you deserve to reap the rewards. I'm glad that you had such a great experience on your first solo cruise; I think FO are an under-rated company by comparison with many other lines.

I haven't booked anything yet; I'm a tad guilty about booking another cruise when I've only been back for less than 3 weeks but the weather is so dreadful that it really does seem the sensible thing to do. Particularly when you are setting such a good example :)

I have now received my email from MSC, and note that the small print states that the offers only apply to double occupancy (plus, where relevant, children travelling free).

Since it also says that they are applying it to off-season cruises ie. outside school holidays, they presumably don't expect vast numbers of children in the Yacht Club.

It's disappointing that it makes no mention of solo travellers, even when they are trying to fill off-season departures. All in all I won't be holding my breath at 6pm tomorrow...

David

I haven't a clue what MSC are offering directly but I've just got an email from an online T A offering free inside to balcony upgrades plus free drinks packages on Med/Aegean cruises, with only a small upfront deposit. It also quotes an upgrade to Yacht Club for £499 per person.

The free drinks package is said to be exclusive to the TA which suggests that the inside to balcony upgrade, plus reduced price Yachtclub upgrade is more general.

Perhaps they've remembered that there are quite a few people who live in the UK and go on cruises...

Hi

I am a single cruiser and I did the December 6-20 West African cruise on the Braemar, flying from Gatwick, but I know there were plenty of people on the ship who had flown in from Manchester.

I had a great time; I can thoroughly recommend the trip to the Pink Lake in Senegal- which may or may not be pink, depending on the climate conditions- since the dune-lorrying was the perfect combination of absolute terror and absolute fun.

The age demographics on FO seem to change quite a bit depending on whether the cruises are fly cruises or UK ports based; the West African cruise passengers were definitely younger than those on the repositioning cruise from England to Tenerife. A group of us were politely thrown out of the bar/disco at 3am so that the dj and barpeople could get some sleep, which is definitely not the image most people have of FO.

FO makes a big effort to help singles get together, whether it's for meals or exploring ports if you don't want to go on an excursion. They also have 'gentleman hosts' if you want to dance with a partner; I prefer freestyle myself but it's another way of making you feel included.

I hope this helps!

You can be sure the message will be personally delivered in the near future.

Thank you, Andy. This must be very difficult for you too; your efforts here when you are mourning an old and dear friend are greatly appreciated by us all.

I think that anyone who ever read Bill's contributions would recognise the extraordinary value he brought to this forum; his advocacy for Azamara was always rigorously truthful as well as wise. He will be greatly missed.

travelberlin

Oddly enough, Fred Olsen goes just about everywhere; I am currently trying to resist their 32 day fly cruise from San Diego back to Southampton in March 2014 which is now on sale for around £2400 for a solo passenger including the flight out to San Diego.

Obviously the last bit is the transatlantic crossing but there is a Panama transit and a fair few ports on the itinerary which I would like to see as well; other FO cruises head to and from South America.

I think FO has looked very hard at the demographics; the number of households in the Uk with a single adult householder has increased and it looks as if it will increase still further.

It may be that the planners at MSC have placed all their eggs in the one basket of families in the US market; the most recent offers from my online TA included a couple more MSC cruises with solo pricing but it's pretty feeble by comparison with other lines. As you say, thank God for competition :)

Jean

I am keeping my fingers crossed for your departure in good time and decent weather, but even if you are delayed I hope that you and your fellow passengers will have a great cruise :)

I must say that the final leg of the cruise looks rather tempting; I'm wrestling with good sense, not to mention my bank manager, but my recent Braemar cruise was a lot of fun. Though possibly Balmoral cruisers are not thrown out of the disco at 3am so the crew can get some sleep :D

I tried running a singles search for MSC cruises on the online TA which I use most frequently and it came up with only one MSC cruise: Santos to Malta in March 2014.

They wanted just over £2k for an inside cabin; in fairness this included flights and an overnight stay in Santos but it's a lot of money for a repo.

The total absence on any other MSC cruises with singles pricing does not look promising.

On the other hand Fred Olsen is ramping up it's no single supplements offers, and since the food on my West African Braemar cruise was indisputably hot when it was supposed to be hot, and cold when it's supposed to be cold it seems that FO may have read Paax (spelling?) complaint about this and rectified it.

And I am addicted to their Tempura batter fried fish and chips, cooked to order up on the pooldeck, so I have been suffering withdrawal symptoms through the festive season...

Well, here we are in 2014; perhaps some kind soul will release the repos for booking now..

You can also dine at the Palms Cafe which does not have sittings; the only exceptions to this are for special themed evenings like Indian and Chinese where there are two separate sittings which must be booked because they are so popular.

I was on the Braemar for their recent West Africa cruise and thought the food was very good:)

Bill

My sincere best wishes for your speedy return to permanent good health; I am very far from being a cheerleader for Azamara, but it is blindingly obvious that you are the best of the best advocates for the brand, and without you to pour oil on troubled waters large numbers of potential customers would simply have given up.

Happy Hogmanay, and may there be many more for you!

I was on the same cruise, and since I got a substantial price advantage from a late booking I really did not object to their request for £2 per night if I wished to change my dining sitting. I gather that P&O does something similar, so it's not confined to FO.

I also did the all-inclusive which I thought was good value at £10 per night; I wouldn't have paid more for it, but I knew what was included from the information on the website.

I went down with the laryngitis bug which was doing the rounds at the end of the cruise, but I was impressed with the efforts that FO make to reduce the chances of viral transmission onboard; I really cannot think of anything more they could do.

I hope that you feel better soon, and wish you all the best for Xmas and 2014...

Hi there did anyone sail in the msc armonia for this itinerary ?

How is the weather ?

How is the ship?

Can't say about the ship but I've just come back from a Fred Olsen cruise in the same area; the Armonia was in port with us in Tenerife so all the passengers on both ships got drenched in the torrential downpours on 2 consecutive days. This was apparently the first rain since last December.

We headed south towards Cape Verde and then The Gambia and Senegal, which should be a lot hotter than Morocco, but if anything the weather was the best on Gran Canarias and Fuerteventura at the end of the cruise.

The one thing you may wish to bear in mind is that the wind from the Sahara blows strongly during the winter months; all our sea days were slightly overcast not by visible clouds but general murkiness.

And towards the end of the cruise people came down with a ?virus, kicking off with severe laryngitis and then more generalised malaise. I don't know where the ?virus came from but I suspect that the high levels of dust really didn't help...

LottieA

The problem is that Azamara has put it's prices up so much that it is now trying to charge as much as Hapag-Lloyd. The 14 night gourmet cruise on the Europa next June starts at €5680 per person, which is remarkable given the quality of the Michelin starred chefs who will be aboard.

Once a company starts charging at those levels it does have to accept that it will be judged alongside its competitors in similar price brackets...

I don't think anyone has claimed Azamara food is Michelin Star standard have they? It is very good quality catering for fairly large numbers of people though....and I have had some wonderful chocolate desserts onboard, frozen or not...

I must disagree that it is very good quality catering for fairly large numbers of people; after all, the restaurants on Hapag-Lloyd's Europa cook for similar numbers but do manage to come close to Michelin standards.

Obviously the fact that Europa's catering is overseen by a Michelin starred chef makes a considerable difference; there is no way that Azamara could host a culinary extravaganza with multiple Michelin star chefs on board in the way that Europa is repeating next June. The chefs would not tarnish their reputations by associating themselves with a 'speciality' restaurant which served a dish mass produced elsewhere, stored in freezers and defrosted after many months.

In the circumstances it is hardly surprising that Azamara cannot even manage to serve the most rudimentary of dishes in a consistently acceptable way; if they see no problem in using mass produced frozen chocolate desserts in a restaurant which charges a $25 per head supplement then they are not going to worry about the quality of the food served by the pool...

Well here we go, a real debate.

 

Staff should never be friendly unless a personal relationship develops. Even then 'friendly' is a little too much. Do you really believe they are your friends?

 

I know Americans are known for being naive but really, do you think the MSC staff are your friends?

 

Best to take the cruise as it was. They are professionals.

 

Tim.

It seems to me that this is a yawning chasm between cultures; I did a repo from Mumbai to Piraeus on Azamara Journey earlier this year and I was incredibly surprised to discover that a number of the passengers were convinced that they were personal friends of the officers and crew, notwithstanding the fact that the only time they met or communicated with them was onboard the ship or via Facebook.

I'm baffled by the whole thing...

I think it is probably unwise to claim that Azamara provides high quality cuisine; after all, a restaurant which serves chocolate desserts which have been mass created, frozen and then defrosted is not going to get any Michelin stars at all...

Thank you for your very thoughtful review; there is zero chance of my wishing to cruise in the Caribbean on the Divina but it's useful for the other ships in this class.

It looks as if they have dispensed with the health questionnaire on the grounds that people invariably lie; MSC has at least spared some trees...

Thanks all!

I will leave it a little longer to see if they start offering low single supplements:D