New website.

[Marylebone37]

13 minutes ago, Host Jazzbeau said:

I won't try to defend Azamara's management, but the recent report that RCG didn't even send over many of the details on prior bookings and changes would explain why those things are so screwed up and can't be fixed by the overnight gnomes until a customer provides documentation.

 

Why they can't have a smooth process for new bookings?–that I don't know.  

 

But – does anybody know of a different IT provider Azamara could have chosen?  [My university had a terrible experience moving from our old COBOL system to Oracle.  Our data was crappy just like in this case, but Oracle also struck me as not living up to their reputation – and we had done a very thorough RFP process.  The problem was that there were no other vendors who were even as good as Oracle.]

There are tried and true processes for doing a system/data conversion like this.  It’s not rocket science.  AZ failed at every turn so it seems, from the original contract negotiated with RCG, to the data analysis, to the system and acceptance testing processes, the development of contingency plans in the event of failure, and on and on.  Way too much detail to go into here. 

[Host Jazzbeau]

1 minute ago, Marylebone37 said:

from the original contract negotiated with RCG

And I'm tempted to say, "you really think they had any leverage there???"  For the fire sale price they were paying, RCG could almost as easily have sold the ships for scrap and have had no further obligations.

[Host Jazzbeau]

4 minutes ago, Marylebone37 said:

There are tried and true processes for doing a system/data conversion like this.  It’s not rocket science.  AZ failed at every turn so it seems, from the original contract negotiated with RCG, to the data analysis, to the system and acceptance testing processes, the development of contingency plans in the event of failure, and on and on.  Way too much detail to go into here. 

I'm glad that you were blessed to always have well planned and perfectly executed processes.  I have lived through the opposite, so maybe that's why I have more empathy for Azamara's management.

[JYDCruise]

34 minutes ago, Host Jazzbeau said:

I won't try to defend Azamara's management, but the recent report that RCG didn't even send over many of the details on prior bookings and changes would explain why those things are so screwed up and can't be fixed by the overnight gnomes until a customer provides documentation.

 

Why they can't have a smooth process for new bookings?–that I don't know.  

 

But – does anybody know of a different IT provider Azamara could have chosen?  [My university had a terrible experience moving from our old COBOL system to Oracle.  Our data was crappy just like in this case, but Oracle also struck me as not living up to their reputation – and we had done a very thorough RFP process.  The problem was that there were no other vendors who were even as good as Oracle.]

Yes, there certainly can be challenges in these efforts, but it's simply not up for debate that Azamara failed to do even the most cursory testing before rolling out the new website to their paying beta testers . . . er, customers.

 

That's why all this work gets done behind the scenes before going public. Sure, a few anomalies or corner cases may slip through, but not in the same galaxy of what we see, and continue to see. If you look up FUBAR in Wikipedia, there's a pointer to the Azamara website.

[blag]

1 hour ago, Host Jazzbeau said:

I'm glad that you were blessed to always have well planned and perfectly executed processes.

Snarky! 

I don't believe that Marylebone 37 was saying this.

[Riocca]

3 hours ago, blag said:

But… I am tempted to say 'they would say that, wouldn't they'.

Yes but Azamara haven’t used this as an excuse and taken blame for everything, this was an agent discussing specific paperwork for my booking which I have a copy of but they haven’t received from RC. The fact it was an issue with an unspecified number of bookings was a throw away remark.

[Riocca]

4 hours ago, Host Jazzbeau said:

I won't try to defend Azamara's management, but the recent report that RCG didn't even send over many of the details on prior bookings and changes would explain why those things are so screwed up and can't be fixed by the overnight gnomes until a customer provides documentation.

 

Why they can't have a smooth process for new bookings?–that I don't know.  

 

But – does anybody know of a different IT provider Azamara could have chosen?  [My university had a terrible experience moving from our old COBOL system to Oracle.  Our data was crappy just like in this case, but Oracle also struck me as not living up to their reputation – and we had done a very thorough RFP process.  The problem was that there were no other vendors who were even as good as Oracle.]

We’ve made two new bookings on the new system, one onboard that took ten minutes and was smoother than the old system. The other this week I was able to make the booking online took a while but a lot of that was my unfamiliarity with the new system, was able to get a 24 hour hold but couldn’t change the cabin the system allocated. However a quick phone call the following day got it resolved and the booking completed.

 

Ignoring the data transfer problem I can see that Versonix Seaware is not without its problems especially those related to cookies. I’ve seen a thread on the Explora board with similar issues about the system but hopefully they will be fixed and we will become more familiar with the new system over time.

 

Azamara must be making new bookings as comparing the booking reference numbers on our bookings made 2 months apart the number had increased by just over 10,000.

 

[blag]

3 minutes ago, Riocca said:

Azamara must be making new bookings as comparing the booking reference numbers on our bookings made 2 months apart the number had increased by just over 10,000.

I am not sure that you can deduce this from these numbers.

Our cruise in March 2023 was #7187279.

For an April 2024 cruise it's #4405478

 

Using your logic, Azamara lost over 2.5 million bookings between those cruises!

[Grandma Cruising]

4 hours ago, JYDCruise said:

Yes, there certainly can be challenges in these efforts, but it's simply not up for debate that Azamara failed to do even the most cursory testing before rolling out the new website to their paying beta testers . . . er, customers.

 

That's why all this work gets done behind the scenes before going public. Sure, a few anomalies or corner cases may slip through, but not in the same galaxy of what we see, and continue to see. If you look up FUBAR in Wikipedia, there's a pointer to the Azamara website.

You’re assuming that RCCL had agreed to provide this information well ahead of the changeover date. There was no incentive for them to do this!

[blag]

1 minute ago, Grandma Cruising said:

You’re assuming that RCCL had agreed to provide this information well ahead of the changeover date. There was no incentive for them to do this!

I can't help but wonder why would RCCL wouldn't be helpful to the purchaser if RCCL owns system it uses.

If RCCL use a competitor (of Azamara's new system) maybe it's not RCCL who were not cooperative.

But, nevertheless, if Azamara had undertaken the 'due diligence', this fiasco may not have been a surprise to Azamara. 

[Riocca]

31 minutes ago, blag said:

I am not sure that you can deduce this from these numbers.

Our cruise in March 2023 was #7187279.

For an April 2024 cruise it's #4405478

 

Using your logic, Azamara lost over 2.5 million bookings between those cruises!

Those numbers are from the RC system which didn’t seem to have any logical progression, although as it also includes Royal Caribbean and Celebrity bookings was dealing with much larger numbers.

[NicNata]

19 hours ago, Riocca said:

Phoned Azamara this morning to complete my booking, phone was answered immediately changed cabin number no problem and completed booking in a few minutes.

Took the opportunity to talk about another booking which has an incorrect balance and that was more challenging. I had FCC’s applied to the booking back in December last year and was issued with version 6 of the booking confirmation. Problem is that Azamara just haven’t received that information from RC and this is the case with a number of bookings, they have the initial booking information and nothing further so are having to rebuild the information. I was asked to send the confirmation I have so they can rebuild the booking.

That has been my experience as well. I phoned the Azamara UK line twice this week (actually I spoke to someone in Wichita Kansas both times). On both occasions I waited less than a minute to speak to someone. When calling, the voice message says that call wait times will revert to normal on 22nd May, which seems to be the case. My first call was to update an existing booking on the recent 3 free day offer. There was a reduction in price of over GBP1000! My second call was to book a new cruise in November on the same 3 free days offer, for which I got at an incredibly cheap price. The ladies I spoke to were friendly and helpful and both cruises appeared immediately on my account. The OBC shows as GBP0 with an OBC coupon. So it does not say how much the OBC is but I am able to use it if I wish. For my October cruise I have been able to book excursions, although I did notice the price increases compared to pre-transition. Anyway it seems the system is improving and certainly I have had no issues.

[hamrag]

9 hours ago, Cookie77 said:

Curious to know from those recently onboard --------- Was the ship full?  I've looked via an online agency at my cruise in July and also at a few others coming up in the next couple of months and there are many cabins still available.  One ship is as much as 41% vacant.  I wonder if this is accurate given the website problems.

The cruise director announced on our Onward cruise 6th May that it was the first full sailing and how proud they were about that!

 

Our booking was a late one, 4-6 weeks out from memory, at that time there were only 5 cabins available and they were gone within a week of our booking. From that point, the cruise did not show as it was fully booked.

Edited May 25, 2023 by hamrag

[hamrag]

7 hours ago, Marylebone37 said:

There are tried and true processes for doing a system/data conversion like this.  It’s not rocket science....

To state the obvious, the only thing that is rocket science.....is rocket science! Everything else has varying degrees of complexity. In my 45 years experience in work every single IT system migration had multi issues, some of which were complex and took much time to resolve.

 

I will repeat, having sailed 6th May, the onboard experience is NOT affected by this and the on-line gremlins have no impact on Az cruises! 🙄 

[Lindy028]

I tried to book an Azamara cruise yesterday trying 2 different online agencies. I had no luck with either, the first promised to get back to me with a quote within the hour, nothing, the second tried but said they are experiencing difficulties with contacting the Azamara system, they promised to get back to me, rang again this morning, still couldn’t give me a quote! So, reading that Riocca had managed to book online I decided this morning, to give it a try! Firstly it just doesn’t recognise our details, we did manage to log in a short while ago just to check if our details were correct, we had no loyalty level and no past cruises, in view of the problems we decided to leave it as we had no upcoming cruises. So, despite not being able to log in I decided to try to book! It took 10 tries to input my DH’s date of birth, finally managed it then went onto me, no chance, I tried 25 times, my DH thought I was doing something wrong, so he tried, after 5 attempts he gave up, my son then tried once again it was wrong and you cannot move on until it accepts the data. I want to book 2 cabins, I am wondering if I would be better phoning Azamara to get the cabins we want. Just very frustrated!

[K2IE]

I don't believe RCCL is to blame at all on this.  I am not an RCCL fan and have never cruised with them (other than on Azamara).  However...

 

My data was correct after the migration for several days.  Azamara managed to screw things up all on their own post-migration.

 

The blame is firmly in the incompetent hands of Azamara's CEO, CIO, IT Project Managers, staff and IT vendors.

 

I can see the project plan now...a line drawn through the steps for dry run and user acceptable testing, with a marginal comment that we don't have enough time for these steps.

[blag]

2 hours ago, Riocca said:

Those numbers are from the RC system which didn’t seem to have any logical progression, although as it also includes Royal Caribbean and Celebrity bookings was dealing with much larger numbers.

My bad. I didn't process the content of Riocca's post. 

[john1970]

The danger for Azamara is that people just give up trying to book with them and go elsewhere. If travel agents can book easily but then find it very hard to service bookings then they will also start to switch sell. I've been holding off on a cruise for 2025 to see how this plays out. I might miss out on a good price but I just can't be doing with hassle. I am very sorry for the regular staff who have to deal with this.

[K2IE]

29 minutes ago, K2IE said:

I can see the project plan now...a line drawn through the steps for dry run and user acceptable testing, with a marginal comment that we don't have enough time for these steps.

 

Acceptable should have read acceptance...

 

[Riocca]

43 minutes ago, Lindy028 said:

I tried to book an Azamara cruise yesterday trying 2 different online agencies. I had no luck with either, the first promised to get back to me with a quote within the hour, nothing, the second tried but said they are experiencing difficulties with contacting the Azamara system, they promised to get back to me, rang again this morning, still couldn’t give me a quote! So, reading that Riocca had managed to book online I decided this morning, to give it a try! Firstly it just doesn’t recognise our details, we did manage to log in a short while ago just to check if our details were correct, we had no loyalty level and no past cruises, in view of the problems we decided to leave it as we had no upcoming cruises. So, despite not being able to log in I decided to try to book! It took 10 tries to input my DH’s date of birth, finally managed it then went onto me, no chance, I tried 25 times, my DH thought I was doing something wrong, so he tried, after 5 attempts he gave up, my son then tried once again it was wrong and you cannot move on until it accepts the data. I want to book 2 cabins, I am wondering if I would be better phoning Azamara to get the cabins we want. Just very frustrated!

I would phone there is a problem that if you log in via the online booking system loyalty numbers and status are incorrect, if you log in via profile then account details are there. There does seem to be a disconnect between the two systems which they are trying to correct, so it’s easier to sort out with the call centre.

[excitedofharpenden]

22 minutes ago, john1970 said:

The danger for Azamara is that people just give up trying to book with them and go elsewhere. If travel agents can book easily but then find it very hard to service bookings then they will also start to switch sell. I've been holding off on a cruise for 2025 to see how this plays out. I might miss out on a good price but I just can't be doing with hassle. I am very sorry for the regular staff who have to deal with this.

Which is exactly what is happening in my case. It's very bad and it's very sad. 

 

Phil 

[Grandma Cruising]

1 hour ago, Riocca said:

I would phone there is a problem that if you log in via the online booking system loyalty numbers and status are incorrect, if you log in via profile then account details are there. There does seem to be a disconnect between the two systems which they are trying to correct, so it’s easier to sort out with the call centre.

Shows no upcoming cruise & no loyalty points however I log in.

[Grandma Cruising]

21 minutes ago, Grandma Cruising said:

Shows no upcoming cruise & no loyalty points however I log in.

Just had another go and nothing showing via account sign in on front page of website, but if I used ‘Sign In’ on the online booking engine I can see my upcoming cruise, and the excursions, but they are all unpriced. The loyalty points are still wrong - both logins have me as an Adventurer with no points and the wrong membership number.

[JYDCruise]

6 hours ago, Grandma Cruising said:

You’re assuming that RCCL had agreed to provide this information well ahead of the changeover date. There was no incentive for them to do this!

If the data transfer process and timing was not built into the purchase contract, then Sycamore Partners' shortfall is as bad as Azamara's. As this was not Sycamore's first rodeo, I discount that possibility.

 

And again, that Azamara didn't bother to do any testing before rolling out the product cannot be debated.

[JYDCruise]

4 hours ago, hamrag said:

To state the obvious, the only thing that is rocket science.....is rocket science! Everything else has varying degrees of complexity. In my 45 years experience in work every single IT system migration had multi issues, some of which were complex and took much time to resolve.

Exactly . . . which is why Sycamore/Azamara should have planned better (or, frankly, planned at more than just a Gantt chart wish-list). Not just in IT, but at some point in the process someone should have raised a flag and said "hey, Carol, this migration isn't going to be ready on time - not even close - and we'd better have more customer support in place because the phones are going to start ringing!".