Would you recommend Azamara right now?

[Riocca]

12 minutes ago, PirateWife said:

Up until the last month, we have recommended Azamara to everyone. We have cruised exclusively on Azamara for almost 10 years, taking 2-3 cruises a year. Now Azamara cannot find one of our bookings that was part of a b2b nor our deposit of $1,100. Furthermore, we have been told through our TA that Azamara has said we do not get any extra OBC for the b2b because the two cruises were not booked at the same time. What we cannot figure out is why some people have no problems, some have problems that are quickly resolved, and some have problems that have gone on for months.

Having gone through something similar last week I feel your pain, I think they are currently struggling with combining b2b’s into one voyage. We were fortunate that as direct bookers we were able to reach out to some of the more experienced Azamara staff to resolve our problems. 
Taking on extra staff has helped with response times but maybe some of the new staff have not quite grasped the basics yet. 
But I can assure you that even if your cruises are booked at different times the b2b OBC applies, I have this confirmed by email and it’s been applied to our now combined booking.

 

 

[tgg]

We also had no problem getting b2b OBC applied when we booked the second cruise. Our travel agent was able to get this done for us.

[AllisonJames]

I’m not going to vote yet because our first AZ cruise in four years is in August. But if I had to vote now I would probably say NO due to all the pre-cruise issues we have experienced as well as our travel agent. So it remains to be seen if the onboard experience combined with the Perry Golf package (very important to my husband) outweighs all this aggravation. I hope so!

[beatnix]

1 hour ago, Riocca said:

...But I can assure you that even if your cruises are booked at different times the b2b OBC applies, I have this confirmed by email and it’s been applied to our now combined booking.

 

 

We had the same situation. Azamara told our TA that we are not qualified for B2B OBC because of two booking numbers.

I asked TA to insist, because also on the website they do not say that.

Two days later I got the written confirmation that OBC is OK. Our TA was also told that this is caused in their new software.

[PirateWife]

On our Booking Confirmation Copy #8 of February 2023, the two cruises were b2b with the correct OBC on each and deposits for each. In March the booking for the second cruise along with everything else disappeared. Not so funny, the first cruise still shows additional OBC for b2b. Azamara is supposedly still working to fix the problem.

[Grandma Cruising]

10 hours ago, Carnevale said:

Absolutely not.  Our recent cruise on Journey was not the onboard experience I keep hearing about here.  I haven’t had a chance yet to write review but the short story is that we won’t be on Azamara again unless things improve dramatically both in terms of the pre-cruise booking experience and the quality of the onboard experience (the staterooms, the food, the excursions, the entertainment, and the crowding onboard all need to be improved).

Interesting that you mention crowding. That’s one thing I’ve never experienced on Azamara. Just wondering what the occasions were for this.

[lisiamc]

12 hours ago, Carnevale said:

Absolutely not.  Our recent cruise on Journey was not the onboard experience I keep hearing about here.  I haven’t had a chance yet to write review but the short story is that we won’t be on Azamara again unless things improve dramatically both in terms of the pre-cruise booking experience and the quality of the onboard experience (the staterooms, the food, the excursions, the entertainment, and the crowding onboard all need to be improved).

This is very far outside our experience with Azamara over the past 15 years. We sailed on Journey in January, and had none of the problems you mention. We have cruised seven times since the change of ownership and enjoyed each of those cruises.
 

On 10 July we took our first cruise since the new IT system was fully implemented, and things are slowly but noticeably getting better. On our pre-cruise paperwork, we had an invoice showing our OBC, and a letter in the cabin confirming the same.
 

The Loyalty Ambassador booked a b2b cruise for us, and it’s all under one booking number, showing deposits paid, balance remaining, early booking incentives, and OBC. He also rebooked a b2b2b cruise for us so that we could take advantage of current promotions. and saved us a lot of money. 
 

So yes, I’d recommend booking right now (with the caveat that we always use an agent) and I would also recommend sailing right now too.

[Wacktle]

On 7/28/2023 at 9:19 PM, norn iron said:

As a postscript, I spoke with a friend today who has just returned from an Alaskan cruise on Cunard's Queen Elizabeth. The onboard experience was so bad that they lodged a formal complaint on day two. 

The onboard experience did improve for them thereafter, but it took the complaint to make a difference. They will never return to Cunard.

 

The same friend cruised onboard Az Onward in April and have already booked again for next year because the onboard experience was so good.

 

What were the issues on QE?

[norn iron]

1 hour ago, Wacktle said:

What were the issues on QE?

Low staff numbers. Lack of experience, when asked to double job, eg room stewards serving food etc.

[Carnevale]

7 hours ago, Grandma Cruising said:

Interesting that you mention crowding. That’s one thing I’ve never experienced on Azamara. Just wondering what the occasions were for this.

 

It was surprisingly crowded in a number of places:

- Getting food at the buffet was often hard as it frequently was packed especially at lunch time. In fact, one day my DH was waiting in the cue for sandwiches and someone trying to get through the crowd gave him a good poke!  There were lots of frustrated people in that space.

- We found it hard at times to get a place to sit to eat in the buffet area especially on the days it was too cold for anyone to sit outside or by The Patio.  Several times we had to wait for a table and one day we had to give up and carry our food from the buffet back to our stateroom and eat there.

- The Living Room was usually crowded during the before dinner drink and tapas time. We usually found a seat eventually but on one occasion friends we met on the ship had to stand with their drinks as there wasn’t a seat to be had.

- One of the days we had to do immigration clearance on the ship in the Living Room and it was a gong show. There was only one officer and staff didn’t stagger the times people were told to go through the clearance so the cue went out the door and all the way around three sides of the pool. Thankfully, the next time immigration clearance was required it was held in the Cabaret Lounge, there were several officers, and there were announcements to delay people going to that area so the cue was managed appropriately.

- White Night wasn’t fun as it had to be indoors and the Cabaret Lounge just isn’t big enough to accommodate so many so it was very crowded and uncomfortable.

 

We’ve cruised a lot and have never experienced the crowding we had on the Journey on any other ship (even those with over 3000 guests). We had only cruised once before on Azamara (several years ago) and that ship was only about half full so that experience and what we’ve heard reported about Azamara didn’t prepare us for the level of crowding we experienced.  

 

We may just have lucked out with a stateroom that was in very poor shape (and had an awful sewer smell that couldn’t be fixed) and a cruise that due to weather was more crowded than usual but theses things added to the overall low quality of what we experienced means we can’t recommend Azamara to others and we won’t be back.  We heard others (including someone who had sailed on Azamara in April) express the same thing along with their observations that overall quality seems to have declined recently.

[Grandma Cruising]

3 minutes ago, Carnevale said:

 

It was surprisingly crowded in a number of places:

- Getting food at the buffet was often hard as it frequently was packed especially at lunch time. In fact, one day my DH was waiting in the cue for sandwiches and someone trying to get through the crowd gave him a good poke!  There were lots of frustrated people in that space.

- We found it hard at times to get a place to sit to eat in the buffet area especially on the days it was too cold for anyone to sit outside or by The Patio.  Several times we had to wait for a table and one day we had to give up and carry our food from the buffet back to our stateroom and eat there.

- The Living Room was usually crowded during the before dinner drink and tapas time. We usually found a seat eventually but on one occasion friends we met on the ship had to stand with their drinks as there wasn’t a seat to be had.

- One of the days we had to do immigration clearance on the ship in the Living Room and it was a gong show. There was only one officer and staff didn’t stagger the times people were told to go through the clearance so the cue went out the door and all the way around three sides of the pool. Thankfully, the next time immigration clearance was required it was held in the Cabaret Lounge, there were several officers, and there were announcements to delay people going to that area so the cue was managed appropriately.

- White Night wasn’t fun as it had to be indoors and the Cabaret Lounge just isn’t big enough to accommodate so many so it was very crowded and uncomfortable.

 

We’ve cruised a lot and have never experienced the crowding we had on the Journey on any other ship (even those with over 3000 guests). We had only cruised once before on Azamara (several years ago) and that ship was only about half full so that experience and what we’ve heard reported about Azamara didn’t prepare us for the level of crowding we experienced.  

 

We may just have lucked out with a stateroom that was in very poor shape (and had an awful sewer smell that couldn’t be fixed) and a cruise that due to weather was more crowded than usual but theses things added to the overall low quality of what we experienced means we can’t recommend Azamara to others and we won’t be back.  We heard others (including someone who had sailed on Azamara in April) express the same thing along with their observations that overall quality seems to have declined recently.

Thanks for replying. The places you found crowded are generally places we don’t use much on the ship. We eat lunch at the Patio most days (even when it’s cooler ‘cos they use the heaters). We only tend to use the Living Room in the afternoons, we prefer the Den or Discoveries bar before dinner.

We have had a similar experience with immigration - it was done in the Cabaret and staggered, but was still a bit of a bun fight.

We’ve been cruising with Azamara for 10 years (11 cruises) and  haven’t seen a deterioration, other than things due to supply shortages. We have two more booked, so obviously are happy with them. Maybe we’ve been lucky, or maybe you were unlucky. - or both!

[lisiamc]

2 hours ago, Carnevale said:

 

It was surprisingly crowded in a number of places:

- Getting food at the buffet was often hard as it frequently was packed especially at lunch time. In fact, one day my DH was waiting in the cue for sandwiches and someone trying to get through the crowd gave him a good poke!  There were lots of frustrated people in that space.

- We found it hard at times to get a place to sit to eat in the buffet area especially on the days it was too cold for anyone to sit outside or by The Patio.  Several times we had to wait for a table and one day we had to give up and carry our food from the buffet back to our stateroom and eat there.

- The Living Room was usually crowded during the before dinner drink and tapas time. We usually found a seat eventually but on one occasion friends we met on the ship had to stand with their drinks as there wasn’t a seat to be had.

- One of the days we had to do immigration clearance on the ship in the Living Room and it was a gong show. There was only one officer and staff didn’t stagger the times people were told to go through the clearance so the cue went out the door and all the way around three sides of the pool. Thankfully, the next time immigration clearance was required it was held in the Cabaret Lounge, there were several officers, and there were announcements to delay people going to that area so the cue was managed appropriately.

- White Night wasn’t fun as it had to be indoors and the Cabaret Lounge just isn’t big enough to accommodate so many so it was very crowded and uncomfortable.

 

We’ve cruised a lot and have never experienced the crowding we had on the Journey on any other ship (even those with over 3000 guests). We had only cruised once before on Azamara (several years ago) and that ship was only about half full so that experience and what we’ve heard reported about Azamara didn’t prepare us for the level of crowding we experienced.  

 

We may just have lucked out with a stateroom that was in very poor shape (and had an awful sewer smell that couldn’t be fixed) and a cruise that due to weather was more crowded than usual but theses things added to the overall low quality of what we experienced means we can’t recommend Azamara to others and we won’t be back.  We heard others (including someone who had sailed on Azamara in April) express the same thing along with their observations that overall quality seems to have declined recently.

I’m sorry to hear about your bad experiences. On a Celebrity cruise we were on a corridor once where all the cabins in the section smelled of sewage for days, and it was not a nice experience. I can definitely give you sympathy!

 

We are probably lucky that we eat lunch and dinner quite late, so even if a cruises is full, the hungry hordes will have already eaten and gone, and we don’t experience congestion. Also the Den and the Living Room are half empty after about 6.45, so that’s lucky for us too. We also try to book cruises with as many sea days as possible, and on sea days Discoveries is open for lunch, which eases congestion. It’s a little oasis of calm on a sea day with bad weather.
 

It also sounds like whoever organised the badly-managed immigration inspection will have learned the hard way and hopefully won’t subject others to that experience in future.

[chrisbu315]

Recently did Azamara and Oceania back-to-back.  In spite of website issues, much preferred Azamara and booked again while on-board. 

• Cabin better on Oceania 
• Food about equal
• No lines for anything on Azamara - dining, buffet, embarking, disembarking, service desk, etc.
• Too many time wasting tender ports on Oceania
• Shore excursion selection much better on Azamara
• White Party and sea day brunch were fantastic on Azamara

[JAT0303]

9 hours ago, norn iron said:

Low staff numbers. Lack of experience, when asked to double job, eg room stewards serving food etc.

We were on the same QE cruise and were disappointed.  Here's a link to the review I did on Cruise Critic.  https://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=703547&et_cid=3672465&et_rid=291658092&et_referrer=&address=nRMN%2fI7RSSHvom9ThloFIVTLFZ2RiEho

[norn iron]

30 minutes ago, JAT0303 said:

We were on the same QE cruise and were disappointed.  Here's a link to the review I did on Cruise Critic.  https://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=703547&et_cid=3672465&et_rid=291658092&et_referrer=&address=nRMN%2fI7RSSHvom9ThloFIVTLFZ2RiEho

Thanks for sharing and confirming that.

[camcam123]

Never again.  They have lost a good customer.  After four months, they have still not refunded money owed to us for excursion cancellations.  This is after repeatedly telling us that the matter was settled and they were in the process of making the refund.  When it doesn’t happen, we call to complain, and they begin the process all over again with a different cast of characters. At this point, they have completely lost our trust.  

[Grandma Cruising]

Did you pay by credit card? If so then try a chargeback on the card.

[camcam123]

39 minutes ago, Grandma Cruising said:

Did you pay by credit card? If so then try a chargeback on the card.

Unfortunately, since Azamara continued to assure us that the refund was in process, we exceeded the time limit for contesting the charge on our credit card by one month.

[ghstudio]

I would recommend Azamara with one major caveat.....I'd make sure I had insurance that would cover bankruptcy of the carrier.  At present course and speed...with ships that are not full and continuing web site issues causing TA's to avoid recommending them...Sycamore may, at some point, decide to limit their loses and either sell the ships and/or declare chapter ?.

 

Note: we have an Azamara cruise booked....I'm hopeful things turn around.....I just haven't seen signficant progress.

[maggie777]

4 hours ago, camcam123 said:

Never again.  They have lost a good customer.  After four months, they have still not refunded money owed to us for excursion cancellations.  This is after repeatedly telling us that the matter was settled and they were in the process of making the refund.  When it doesn’t happen, we call to complain, and they begin the process all over again with a different cast of characters. At this point, they have completely lost our trust.  

Recently cancelled a cruise and refund did not appear on cc. A phone call cleared up issue as they did not have correct cc info on file. Refund then quickly appeared.

[crusinbanjo]

48 minutes ago, maggie777 said:

Recently cancelled a cruise and refund did not appear on cc. A phone call cleared up issue as they did not have correct cc info on file. Refund then quickly appeared.

Did you get the entire amount? Or did they keep a cancellation fee

[maggie777]

1 hour ago, crusinbanjo said:

Did you get the entire amount? Or did they keep a cancellation fee

Deposit was $1100. They kept $75pp

[killaypirate]

Wouldn’t Az immediate future given IT problems & fact that prices seem to offer little value for money. Last cruise March in suite 7 days Canaries < £200 ($250 US) pppd. Now up to £500 ($625).  At least loyalty tier now finally correct but points error in my favour!

Edited August 10, 2023 by killaypirate

[pirokp]

Wife and I did a TA in spring-23 with two couples that had never cruised Azamara.  By the end of the trip, they were searching for the next Azamara sailing.  

[iceleven]

On 7/30/2023 at 9:43 AM, Carnevale said:

 

It was surprisingly crowded in a number of places:

- Getting food at the buffet was often hard as it frequently was packed especially at lunch time. In fact, one day my DH was waiting in the cue for sandwiches and someone trying to get through the crowd gave him a good poke!  There were lots of frustrated people in that space.

- We found it hard at times to get a place to sit to eat in the buffet area especially on the days it was too cold for anyone to sit outside or by The Patio.  Several times we had to wait for a table and one day we had to give up and carry our food from the buffet back to our stateroom and eat there.

- The Living Room was usually crowded during the before dinner drink and tapas time. We usually found a seat eventually but on one occasion friends we met on the ship had to stand with their drinks as there wasn’t a seat to be had.

- One of the days we had to do immigration clearance on the ship in the Living Room and it was a gong show. There was only one officer and staff didn’t stagger the times people were told to go through the clearance so the cue went out the door and all the way around three sides of the pool. Thankfully, the next time immigration clearance was required it was held in the Cabaret Lounge, there were several officers, and there were announcements to delay people going to that area so the cue was managed appropriately.

- White Night wasn’t fun as it had to be indoors and the Cabaret Lounge just isn’t big enough to accommodate so many so it was very crowded and uncomfortable.

 

We’ve cruised a lot and have never experienced the crowding we had on the Journey on any other ship (even those with over 3000 guests). We had only cruised once before on Azamara (several years ago) and that ship was only about half full so that experience and what we’ve heard reported about Azamara didn’t prepare us for the level of crowding we experienced.  

 

We may just have lucked out with a stateroom that was in very poor shape (and had an awful sewer smell that couldn’t be fixed) and a cruise that due to weather was more crowded than usual but theses things added to the overall low quality of what we experienced means we can’t recommend Azamara to others and we won’t be back.  We heard others (including someone who had sailed on Azamara in April) express the same thing along with their observations that overall quality seems to have declined recently.

Please tell me which cabin you were in. I'm booking a Nov. 30 cruise but haven't yet chosen a cabin. Thank you in advance.