Cuba Itinerary Changes

We are booked on Journey Nov 10th to Cuba, and have just been advised of a significant and detrimental itinerary change for this trip.

Azamara are suggesting they have made ‘enhancements’ to our experience by removing our day and a half call in Cozumel to extend our stays overnight in Cienfuegos and Santiago. On the surface they make this sound ‘better’ as more time in Cuba sounds good. They are at best being very economical with the truth.

When we look closely, it is not what it seems, as both new additional overnights in Cuba leave the following morning at 6am! So effectively we now have two additional sea days to add to the two already scheduled, making four sea days on a nine day trip. Hardly a ‘Destination Immersion’ experience.

We never intended to travel all the way from the U.K. to spend nearly 40% of our cruise at sea off the coast of Cuba! Presumably they are going to sail around in a circle just off the coast on these two extra sea days, as there is no distance to cover, as we’re not going anywhere!

We are seriously disappointed, and would have expected much better from a cruise line we have previously enjoyed.

Have you looked at the new port times, I have done Coz and Havaba and the twomsea days was to get you tomCoz and back, overnighting in Cuba great, dinners out and shows to see, walking around taking pictures.

Also I do not think it is to late to cancel and roll your money on another cruise. I am so tired if Coz i rsrher see any island.

We were quite happy with two scheduled seadays. It’s the fact that it is now four sea days. If they had taken out Cozumel to actually give us extra days in Cuba we would be quite happy, but not to just give us two extra days at sea!

Wonder what the real reason is, but guess we will never know. We have confirmed non refundable flights from the U.K. and also can’t cancel the cruise without losing our deposit.

We were quite happy with two scheduled seadays. It’s the fact that it is now four sea days. If they had taken out Cozumel to actually give us extra days in Cuba we would be quite happy, but not to just give us two extra days at sea!

 

Wonder what the real reason is, but guess we will never know. We have confirmed non refundable flights from the U.K. and also can’t cancel the cruise without losing our deposit.

I hate to say this but what are your total monetary losses if you cancel everything? What if you cancel the cruise, fly to wherever your non refundable flight take you and then fly to Cuba and do a land trip? Sometimes eating some losses might be better than spending more on a really bad vacation?

DON

Our non-refundable deposits in the UK are usually £300 per person. That’s a total of $820 for two at today’s rate. That’s a lot to lose!

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We were quite happy with two scheduled seadays. It’s the fact that it is now four sea days. If they had taken out Cozumel to actually give us extra days in Cuba we would be quite happy, but not to just give us two extra days at sea!

 

 

 

Wonder what the real reason is, but guess we will never know. We have confirmed non refundable flights from the U.K. and also can’t cancel the cruise without losing our deposit.

U.K. booking conditions do allow cancellation with return of deposit if major changes are made to the itinerary, one example of a major change is quoted as the change of 2 sea days to 4.

You should talk to Azamara or your travel agent, if you used one, about this. We cancelled a Caribbean itinerary with no problems when it was changed to include Cuba as we didn’t want to visit Cuba with American visa rules.

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Most likely Azamara will do their AMAZNG Night in Santiago de Cuba,.. Just got back from the Quest and they took away a sea day from us to add an evening in Santiago for that purpose. It is held at a cultural center and i was a nice evening.

No reason to overnight in Cienfuegos......Havana YES!

Do you think it could possibly be a safety concern in response to security issues in that area lately? There was a bombing incident on the ferry that runs between Cozumel and Playa del Carmen in February and a few days ago a random shooting on the beach at Playa del Carmen. Only guessing on my part, and not sure you would get an answer to a question like this.

I totally accept that each person is fully entitled to their feelings about the change. We have that same sailing date and we are fine with the change. The timing in Cozumel was disadvantageous for any interior sites - and not particularly good even for Tulum -- and ... "been there, done that (a couple of times!)" I admit that I like sea days after busy touring days.

I do hope that it works out for you if you decide to cancel

Our travel agent has raised this with Azamara, who have argued that it is not a significant change, but an extra 2 days at sea and no Cozumel stop is certainly significant for us.

Our travel agent has raised this with Azamara, who have argued that it is not a significant change, but an extra 2 days at sea and no Cozumel stop is certainly significant for us.

It depends on how you view changes but this is the wording of the t&c’s:

“What is a significant change?

A significant change is a change to your confirmed holiday, which we can reasonably expect will have a significant effect on it. Examples of what we consider are significant and minor (defined below) changes are as follows:

Significant change: Examples include a change from two days port of calls to two days sailing instead; a change in UK departure airport (excluding changes between the local airports) and a change in the time of your outbound flight by more than 12 hours on a 14 night holiday.

Minor change: Examples include a change from one port of call to another.

A change from one day’s port of call to one days sailing; a change in timings for any port(s) of call but the ship still calls at all confirmed ports; a change in order of ports that are visited and a change in the time of your departure that is less than 12 hours on a 14 night holiday.”

Possibly yours falls into a grey area, but might be worth contacting Richard Twynam RTwynam@azamaraclubcruises.com

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