Azamara excursion quality

Going on my first Azamara cruise, 9 day Cuba intensive in January 2019. A question for those of you that have sailed with Azamara before, sailed with other lines, and experienced both cruise line excursions and private excursions. Azamara claims that their excursions are uniquely immersive and gives you an authentic perspective on the destination. They also state that they are small groups, although there are some disclaimers on group size for Cuba. Do you feel that Azamara excursions deliver a better product than other cruise lines? Better or comparable to private excursions? All of our previous cruise experience is on the more main stream lines - Celebrity, HAL, NCL, Princess, Carnival, etc. We primarily stick with private excursions as most of the ship excursions we have experienced have not been as satisfying as we had hoped and always seem to be overpriced. We have a fair amount of OBC and I am trying to decide if the Azamara excursion experience is something I should consider. Thanks for any feedback!

Marilyn

We've sailed with Azamara the last 3 summers. Late 50's. We've also sailed each of the cruise lines you mentioned, Celebrity, HAL, NCL, Princess, Carnival (and Disney, which actually had some of the worst excursions we've ever encountered). Can't comment on the latter 2 for excursions because they were destination wedding (Carnival) and a short "Nassau/cruise ship island type of trip (Princess) without excursions.

We've enjoy the Azamara excursions for the following reasons:

1. Price. It's a good value . Price 'seemed' cheaper on Azamara than HAL or Celebrity, and was usually $130 pp for a full day. Half days were essentially half that.

2. Well organized. Simply the best, compared to the other cruise lines we've used.

3. Efficient. Tour guides were versed in lines, entrance locations, etc.

4. Well spoken. The guides are easy to understand.

Look, the 2 of us spend about $1200 (total) on excursions. Often, it's via an onboard credit of $700 plus TA contribution of $300.

We START with cruise line tours. If there's something 'off' about the tour, we either get a private taxi in advance (downside is you don't actually get a 'tour' inside the facility - he drops you off at gate, waits, you walk around). Alternatively, we join small groups organized through roll calls. Did that in Norway last summer and loved it.

Azamara takes great pride in their excursions. They aren't 'crazy expensive' and (for us) the added attraction of 'get up and meet the group at 8 am' is a kick in the pants we need the day after the night before.

We’ve had both good and bad. Last year we did two which were both quite good, groups of no more than 24 people. We felt the prices were reasonable ( we usually book private so comparing to that) and the tour guides good. We are currently b2b on the Journey and have done three ships tours. One in Porto was nice, the rock of Gibraltar tour was fantastic and the winery tour in Almería was the worst tour we’ve ever had, extremely over priced. Except for Almería I feel prices were reasonable, but it’s important to do your homework

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We are planning our first Azamara cruise and I couldn't find value in their excursions. I know they limit their excursions to 24-25 people, but that's a lot. For the same prices that they are charging, we can do private tours for just the two of us. Like all excursions, there is comfort level in going with a cruise line, but for some of us, there is equal comfort in TripAdvisor reviews or other private excursions vetted on Cruise Critic's ports of call boards.

With onboard credit, the amount paid by the travel agent is refundable. We have $1,700 onboard credit for our SE Asia cruise. $800 is non-refundable from Azamara and $900 is from the travel agent, which is refundable I look at the travel agent amount as payment for my private excursions. Well, $900 will pay for some of them, at least. :cool:

We have done both Azamara shore excursions and arranged our own. As someone has already posted, it’s important to do a little research. We have gone private when the cost is lower and time isn’t an issue or the destination of the tour isn’t available from Azamara. We chose Azamara when convenience, travel issues (bad traffic and don’t want to worry about missing ship) or great value is offered. I would absolutely use up OBC for tours first.

Thanks everyone. I appreciate all your responses. I am most interested in the quality of the Azamara excursions compared to private excursions and everyone addressed that to some degree. I have been pleasantly surprised to find that there are good options in each of our Cuba ports of call for private excursions. Many similar to the Azamara offerings but considerably lower priced. There are reviews and recommendations found on the CC Cuba forum, Trip Advisor, and recently another CC member made me aware of a Facebook group (Royal Caribbean Cuba Sailings). And of course our roll call is also sharing excursion information.

I plan to use our OBC for at least one Azamara excursion so that the DH and I can compare for ourselves. We have scheduled the Insider's View ship tour for one of our sea days and we plan to use additional OBC for at least one dinner in a speciality restaurant. We do not have an upgraded beverage package, so if I want a 'better' cocktail I will just order it! :cocktail::tropical-drink::beer-mug: We may have to work at it, but I am sure we will find some way to use all of the non refundable portion of our OBC!

I would certainly mix independently touring into your plans. Our recent experience was the 25 headcount was exceeded every time on one trip it was 35 and the guide could not cope.

We are currently river cruising and Azamara providers could learn a lot from the walking tour providers being used here. Groups can be as large as 20 but the process of the tours and the types of commentary given by the guides are light years ahead in terms of quality. The manager from the ship drops in to eavesdrop on every tour. Just for a few minutes but she knows all the guides and checks they’re meeting standards and acting on feedback. She’s a one man band, has other responsibilities onboard but still does this. Azamara have a much larger land discovery team so it should be possible in some ports at least.

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Hi uktog, I agree with your comments, having done a Mekong and a Danube cruise with 2 different companies. Where are you river cruising? I suspect it's outside of Europe, given the time of your post. I'd welcome seeing a review from you if you're on a different river. Thanks.

I've done a few AZ shore excursions to use up OBC. If I would have had to actually pay for them, I would have been disappointed. I've had much better, less expensive excursions booking them on my own. I've also had two cancelled--one for weather and one for not enough participants (and by that time it was too late for me to arrange anything privately because it was the day before the port).

We’ve had both good and bad. Last year we did two which were both quite good, groups of no more than 24 people. We felt the prices were reasonable ( we usually book private so comparing to that) and the tour guides good. We are currently b2b on the Journey and have done three ships tours. One in Porto was nice, the rock of Gibraltar tour was fantastic and the winery tour in Almería was the worst tour we’ve ever had, extremely over priced. Except for Almería I feel prices were reasonable, but it’s important to do your homework

 

 

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I do not know what the big deal about maximum tour sizes of 24-25 people is. I set up a lot of private tours and my maximum tour sizes are usually 8 people and the cost is usually less than the Azamara or for that matter any other cruise company tour sizes.

DONB